Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
Because of the fundamental loose-car railroading concept, there is a need for interchangeability, and with the number of cars involved, any change that affects compatibility meets tremendous resistance.  Even if the intent is to change all of the rolling stock with an improvement, it takes a lot of time to accomplish that task.  In the meantime, cars must remain in service and interchangeable.  If the improvement affects car compatibility, the improvement needs to work with other cars that may or may not have the improvement.  This makes the improvement more complex than it needs to be in order to simply execute its own intent.  And that extra complexity is multiplied by all the cars in the U.S. and Canada.  And furthermore, once the improvement is applied to all rolling stock, the extra complexity needed for compatibility is unnecessary, extra baggage.  The new improvement can then be streamlined by the removal of the extra features needed for compatibility during the changeover.   However, removal of these un-needed features may once again pose compatibility issues during the phase of removal.    Some of the biggest and best yielding potential improvements are the ones that come up against this compatibility requirement because that requirement has forestalled those improvements while the ability to technically execute them has progressed.  And also, as the industry has grown, so has the total potential reward for those improvments.  There is great potential benefit in improving braking and coupler systems, but they are subject to the compatibility problem.  The same is true with the concept of an automatic air hose connection that would automatically make an airtight connection as the cars are pushed together, just like the knuckle couplers make a mechanical connection.  There would be tremendous benefit to the elimination of the need to go between cars and manually couple air hoses.Another potential improvement would be the addition of a second train line that could be cut in and pressurized to automatically bleed all the cars for switching.  With present air hose practice, a second train line would require its own second set of air hoses, which would double the manual coupling effort.  However, if an automatic air hose coupler could be developed and applied for the brake train line, it could easily accommodate the second train line for the bleeders.Perhaps the biggest improvement would be the elimination of the loose-car concept.  In the first place, this would eliminate the compatibility problem that dogs brake and coupler improvements.  But the biggest advantage would be the elimination of the tare weight penalty imposed by the need for each car to be strong enough to be the first car in a 200-car train.  If the loose-car concept were replaced by dedicated train-sets, those train-sets would be semi-permanently coupled, equipped with electric brakes, and have structurally engineered draft gear to match the tractive load as it lessens from front to rear.
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag