The track speed on the BNSF line I can see from my office is probably around 40-45 m.p.h. It see about a half dozen or so trains on an average day. They range from as few as 5 or 6 cars and 2 engines on a local to 100+ car grain trains. Most times, the trains are moving right along. Soetimes, they seem to be just drifting along. Is the track speed the recommended speed? The maximum speed? Or something in between? Where does the engineer find the correct track speed? Is it in the time tables(?).
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Track speeds are dictated, the law. You may go under the track speed but you cannot go over the posted speed. For passenger train operation, they will use the speed limit; for freight they will maintain it. as best possible. All this unless otherwise directed or restiricted.
General speeds are listed in the employee timetable and rules books with specific restrictions at given places. Signs are often posted where there is a change of speed especially at restrictions like curves. It is also imparitive that the engineer be 100% conversant and knowlegable with his railroad, routes, and tracks, to the extent he knows where he is at any given time but also the allowable speed at any given point; i.e., it is part of the job.
No, it is not like driving a car where you see 55mph on the sign and can get away with 60 or 65 or more. In fact, on some railroads, there are radar or other tests including speed recordings built in the locomotive's electronics that will keep tab on speed. Speed is considered as much a safety factor as a traffic rule on the railroad.
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
Murphy Siding The track speed on the BNSF line I can see from my office is probably around 40-45 m.p.h. It see about a half dozen or so trains on an average day. They range from as few as 5 or 6 cars and 2 engines on a local to 100+ car grain trains. Most times, the trains are moving right along. Soetimes, they seem to be just drifting along. Is the track speed the recommended speed? The maximum speed? Or something in between? Where does the engineer find the correct track speed? Is it in the time tables(?).
It's the max and it's in the employee timetables. In the old days, the engineers were supposed to accelerate as quickly as possible to track speed and then maintain it as best they could. Now, many things conspire against operating at track speed for long stretches. HP/ton is lower than in the past as AC locomotives and dispatching on tonnage rather than HP/ton have become the norm in order to improve fuel economy. Also, the use of stretch braking is verboten, too, also for fuel economy. It makes it harder to get into and out of reduce speed sections. Finally, there are rewards (like BNSF's gift cards) and tools (like NS's LEADER) that encourage operating at less than track speed all the time in order to safe fuel.
So, the norm today is that you will see trains hitting track speed on the long, straight, level and downhill parts of a route and doing a lot of coasting and dynamic braking in between.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
What is stretch braking?
When a train stops,usually the slack will run in or the cars bunch up because usually the brakes apply from the front cars to the back and the head end cars stop before the brakes are applied to the far rear cars.. Stretch braking is stopping the train without bunching or run in. I believe it is done by keeping the locomotive pulling while applying the brakes.
Murphy,
Don is correct but to elaborate a bit, most of the carriers I am familiar with, including BNSF, publish a maximum speed for each subdivision in the Employee Time Table. That is one definition of track speed. The subdivision track speed at any given point may be restricted under routine conditions for any number of reasons, so the track speed at any given point may be less than the subdivision maximum. The simple way to think of track speed is the maximum authorized speed at any given point.
Common reasons that a train is operating at less than track speed include; inadequate power, slow order, approaching or leaving a slow order. In some cases I have heard of dispatchers advising a train that they do not need to be at point XX until YY time. If the engineer has this info, he can run at less than track speed, saving fuel, with no penalty in terms of elapsed time.
Stretch braking is braking against power. It is standard in passenger service and was common in freight service to keep the slack streched. It clearly uses more fuel and brake shoes than today's recommended practice of bunching the train and then doing most of the slow down with dynamic brakes. To make a full stop air will be required.
This results in lower rate of speed drop, and thus takes more room and time than stretch braking, but saves fuel which has become a big deal to the railroads.
Mac
henry6 When a train stops,usually the slack will run in or the cars bunch up because usually the brakes apply from the front cars to the back and the head end cars stop before the brakes are applied to the far rear cars.. Stretch braking is stopping the train without bunching or run in. I believe it is done by keeping the locomotive pulling while applying the brakes.
Henry is right about maintaing power while setting the brakes. It's also called power braking and not so much about stopping, but when used to maintain speed or to slow down for speed restrictions.
For us, setting air while in a throttle notch higher than notch 2 is considered power braking. It's only allowed when the other methods (throttle modulation and/or dynamic braking) aren't as effective for various reasons.
Jeff
Are there any sidings near your location? These trains my be slowing down to take the siding. Also, some trains my be "riding the yellows" where the train has a yellow Advance Approach signal b/c it it following too closley to the train ahed of it...
-Justin
The road to to success is always under construction. _____________________________________________________________________________ When the going gets tough, the tough use duct tape.
The timetable giveth, and the SSI taketh away...
The timetable will give you the maximum speed for the subdivisions, along with all of the restrictions for curves, switches, crossings, and other track-related things. Then the System Special Instructions list the speed limits for various types of equipment that you may have, and that can only slow you down. It could be different on BNSF, but on the UP, empty gons, empty tanks, and empty bulkhead flat cars are restricted in speed (gons and flats due to the wind resistance they'd provide, tanks because of certain tracking characteristics), and unit coal trains (as well as certain other unit trains, sometimes including grain) also have restrictions. The severest of these restrictions is usually 40 m.p.h., which hardly comes into play at all except on mainline trackage, though some equipment is limited even more (loaded depressed-center cars come to mind). On UP, these things are usually watched by computer, which will give you the train's maximum speed on the consist (taking equipment restrictions into consideration, anyway--other factors still have to be watched).
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
We have the Same thing in teh OTR side as SSI except it was the States may ALLOW you to run 75MPH however your Company only gives you 62-65 MPH to play with so have fun boys. Yeah that was fun when I had an ECM failure on the road and shop could NOT reset the Speed Limiter to company Guidelines which for the Company I was with at the time was 68. Don't you know I did EVERYTHING to stay out of the Yard when the Shop Foreman the only person that had the Password to slow me down was in. I managed to get 4 months of High speed running out of the truck BEFORE I had to go in.
Hi!
Track speed is the published maximum speed for a particular train. On NS, we could have three different speeds for three different kinds of trains all running on the same stretch of track. One for Amtrak passenger trains, one for intermodal trains and one for freight trains. The stretch of track I run on between Atlanta, GA and Greenville, SC is CTC and has a maximum track speed of 79 MPH for passenger, 60 MPH for Intermodal and 50 MPH for freight. This however, doesn't mean I can be running 60 MPH all the time when I'm running a hotshot pig as there are quite a few speed restrictions that prevent me from doing so. Permanent speed restrictions are listed in the timetable such as curves, speed through diverging turnouts and city ordinances. Temporary speed restrictions are listed on my dispatcher bulletins and are normally associated with track work.
Non-signaled track or Automatic Block Signaled (ABS) track which may be in your case typically has a FRA maximum track speed of 59 MPH for passenger and 49 MPH for freight. Most of the time a railroad usually has it listed as 45, 40, 35 or lower though depending on track conditions.
As an engineer operating large high-horsepower locomotives with high-capacity dynamic brakes I will ALWAYS use my dynamic brakes unless it is completely necessary to use the air. I will only stretch brake (air + power) if I am easing up to a stop on an ascending grade or trying to stop the train at a certain spot.
When you see trains drifting along a number of things could be happening. Sometimes the train is operating on what we call a roller coster profile where the track goes up and down in short order. Most of the time though it is in a stretch of track where the engineer is about to change from power to dynamic or dynamic to power.
Running a train is definitely a lot different than driving a car or even a big rig for that matter. It takes a lot of training and skill to operate a train proficiently as no two trains operate alike. For myself, I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do!
Hope this helps!
Sincerely,
Tim
NS Locomotive Engineer
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.