Now I understand why those great big wheel shops work 24/7... they are busy trying to make a penny in revenue.
/sarcasm.
A penny left on the rail can actually cause some uneven wear and tear on both the rail and the wheels of locomotives and freight cars. I was told this some years ago while touring a large BNSF locomotive and car maintenance facility in Lincoln, Nebraska. I toured this facility with a group of others who were in Lincoln at the time for a meeting of the Burlington Route Historical Society. You leave a penny on the rail and it can actually do some damage to the surface of the rail, such as leaving a dent. We were told that this kind of stuff will eventually cause a derailment somewhere.
To engage in this kind of mischief is stupid, worthless horseplay, so don't even think about doing it in the first place!
CANADIANPACIFIC2816
Yes, if the railroad catches you out on the main putting down pennies to be flattened by a train they may have you arrested and fined. If you happen to be looking the wrong way for a train when another train comes along you might be injured or killed. Stay away from the tracks whether or not you are in a yard or along a branchline or mainline. It is all tresspassing.
The chances are pretty slim that you will ever find a penny which has been run over by a train at track speeds. They get a little hot and start to stick to a wheel and then they get thrown off into the weeds.
Even though the train weighs 20,000 tons it is the weight on the axle which is the important dimension. So take a 200 ton loco and divide that by 12 for the number of wheels on the loco and that is the number to consider. The result is still enough to squash the penny but no where the 20K tons you were using. Until you develop a better understanding of the forces to deal with stay away and then you should still stay off the property.
Larger coins like quarters and half dollars just get thrown off the track harder and perhaps could injure or maime someone nearby.
It is all fun until someone looses and eye like your mother says.
About 1956 I heard that there were only 7 copper pennies minted in the year 1943 and that they had found 6 of them. That 7th penny today would probably be worth a large fortune. If I thought for a minute that one of the couple hundred or so pennies that I put on the railroad tracks was...........................sigh. Oh well!!!
Dick
Texas Chief
Just somthin i thought of to talk about.
Smashing pennys by letting a train roll over it has been done for ages. its the cheapest way to to it other then goign to machines that do it u save .50.
ive done it once & it was smashed by a CP train. i never found it after it got smashed. i dont do it alot cause idk what can happen. i know its not possible for a penny to derail a train cause a train wiehgs over 20,000 tons & you got less then a oz on the tracks. im just wondering how many of ya on here have done it & if results were good or not. like say u never found it for if flung out fast & you or somone got injured. thats what i heard can happen too. since it tends to fly off the tracks i heard ppl try duct taping it to the tracks. i dont do or recomend doing in in a train yard do to saftey reasons. but do it along the tracks away from a yard. & know the right time to do it. also has anyone tried other stuff then pennys? ive always wanted to try a half dollar lol. plus i also know if you get cought u can get tresspassing fines from the railroad.
just somthing i thought of to discuss.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.