Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Murphy Siding wrote: At some point, one must look at modern fright cars and think that after 150+ years of evelution, there's nothing more to improve on them. What kind of things are being/could be changed to improve the economics of various kinds of railcars?
Well, if boxcars are going to survive, even the big ones, IMO it will be necessary for them to give much better access . . . I don't know, something magnetically sprung, on the top, gull wings, something. There may be something of a market for LCL's that can't wait for a consolidator to slowly fill up a cube . . . ?
carknocker1 wrote:In my experience it has been weight reduction and air brakes .
Weight reduction seems simple to grasp:lighter materials, better designs. What has or will changed on air brakes?
What is a carknocker?
A carknocker , inspects and repairs trains .
Air brakes are slowly becoming electronicly controlled . They will still use air but assited with electronics from the locomotive , it is currently used on some coal trains , I have seen them on some intermodal cars .
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.
Bucyrus wrote: 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.
Even in the dedicated train concept all cars will have to be able to handle all loads struturally. Loading and unloading locations are not all the same and do not necessarily handle trains sequentially from first car to last car. Some places have limited track space and my load or unload unit trains in 15/20/30/40 car cuts. Additionally train sets need to be turned to equalize the wheel wear that occurs in dedicated service. Throw in the need to shop and repair cars within a train set and abandoning the loose car concept creates many more oprational problems than it would solve in dedicated engineering. Operationally, on some routes trains must get run-around as they traverse some trackage because of the lack of directionally correct wye track facilities at line junctions...therefore, what started out as the head end of the train at origin will become the rear of the train at the junction after the run-around.
In the early Streamliner days of the Pioneer Zephyr etc., the railroads tried the 'dedicated train' concept with articulation between the cars to reduce tare weight. In practice they found that the load factors varied and required addition or reduction of cars to the consist, which could not easily be accomplished with an articulated train consist.
Just because some things are possible, does not make them practical.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD wrote:
Just because some things are possible, does not make them practical
Reminds Me of something that my Late Grandfather told Me:
"Just because You CAN do something, does not mean that You SHOULD do something"
This has turned out to be very sage advice, many times in my Life.
Doug
May your flanges always stay BETWEEN the rails
Murph, I think cola movements in dedicated trainsets would probably be a fizzle.
Having been an observer of freight cars for a pretty long time (check out my signature), I've often been surprised to see what comes up and when. The "radical" changes have usually been something that appeared once before, a long time ago.
There was a company called Tomco Railway Supply Company or similar, and it shipped lumber on a fleet of bulkhead flat cars with A-frames back in the 1960s. Yet it took another decade or more for that strange idea to evolve into the center-partition cars that are now the prime choice for lumber transport (meanwhile, somebody made the partition bear the load, eliminating the center sill and increasing capacity).
Aluminum coal cars? Southern was doing that in the 1960s as well, with its Silversides gons--they held up pretty well! But other than Southern and Detroit Edison, you didn't see the aluminum cars anywhere else until the mid-1980s.
The Budd Company (remember them?) introduced a flat car called the Lo-Pac 2000 back in the late 1970s, IIRC. Its original intention was to transport truck trailers in wells between the wheelsets, reducing clearance requirements, possibly for east-coast intermodal service. In 1983, Thrall got hold of the idea, and [i]voila![/] the articulated stack car was born. It eventually beat out the bulkhead-type stack car, and nowadays well cars for doublestack are practically all you see.
Along the way, there have been many ideas that have come and gone--the LU cars, with nothing but doors on the sides, really couldn't protect the lumber any better than plastic wrap and Center-beam flat cars. Hi-cube cars--nothing has replaced them yet, so they'll become extinct pretty quickly (60-foot cars have survived and grown taller).
Can you improve on the auto rack? People have tried to articulate it, lower the load, do both, but nothing has been able to supplant the 89-foot flat cars with racks on top. The racks have improved for lading protection, but take off all that sheeting and you're looking at something pretty close to the way it was in the 1960s!
Predictions:
Tank cars: built tougher; might need to become 315K just to support all of the shielding and other safety "improvements" without sacrificing capacity. But what else can be done? Walkways and center sills have been eliminated, except in some specialized cases, and regulations prevent them from getting much larger.
Bulkhead flat cars: either low bulkheads for steel service, or center-beam for everything else. The longer and/or lower FBCs that have been tried won't make it.
Auto racks: same old same old. Possibly three-packs of 89-foot units, drawbar-connected, but nothing else seems to work.
Gondolas: higher sides, yet again. Maybe requirements that loads can't protrude over sides or ends (we can only hope!).
Covered hoppers: They got bigger when the 286K cars came around, but the big cars can't go everywhere just yet. But when 315K becomes more widespread, you'll see up to 7000-cubic-foot cars, as tall as hi-cube box cars (well, not quite--there's that center-of-gravity thing to worry about), with existing cars cascading down for use in transporting denser commodities,
Coal cars: when tracks can accommodate them more widely, you'll see capacity go up to 315K gross rail load, with an increase in height to accommodate the added tonnage--can't become longer without replacing the dumpers everywhere.
General: ECP brakes. Who-knows-what to increase the load-to-tare ratio.
Cars that will disappear soon will be hi-cube box cars (next 15 years or so) and the classic mechanical reefers (probably in about seven years).
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)
CShaveRR wrote: Murph, I think cola movements in dedicated trainsets would probably be a fizzle.Having been an observer of freight cars for a pretty long time (check out my signature), I've often been surprised to see what comes up and when. The "radical" changes have usually been something that appeared once before, a long time ago.There was a company called Tomco Railway Supply Company or similar, and it shipped lumber on a fleet of bulkhead flat cars with A-frames back in the 1960s. Yet it took another decade or more for that strange idea to evolve into the center-partition cars that are now the prime choice for lumber transport (meanwhile, somebody made the partition bear the load, eliminating the center sill and increasing capacity).Aluminum coal cars? Southern was doing that in the 1960s as well, with its Silversides gons--they held up pretty well! But other than Southern and Detroit Edison, you didn't see the aluminum cars anywhere else until the mid-1980s.The Budd Company (remember them?) introduced a flat car called the Lo-Pac 2000 back in the late 1970s, IIRC. Its original intention was to transport truck trailers in wells between the wheelsets, reducing clearance requirements, possibly for east-coast intermodal service. In 1983, Thrall got hold of the idea, and [i]voila![/] the articulated stack car was born. It eventually beat out the bulkhead-type stack car, and nowadays well cars for doublestack are practically all you see.Along the way, there have been many ideas that have come and gone--the LU cars, with nothing but doors on the sides, really couldn't protect the lumber any better than plastic wrap and Center-beam flat cars. Hi-cube cars--nothing has replaced them yet, so they'll become extinct pretty quickly (60-foot cars have survived and grown taller).Can you improve on the auto rack? People have tried to articulate it, lower the load, do both, but nothing has been able to supplant the 89-foot flat cars with racks on top. The racks have improved for lading protection, but take off all that sheeting and you're looking at something pretty close to the way it was in the 1960s!Predictions:Tank cars: built tougher; might need to become 315K just to support all of the shielding and other safety "improvements" without sacrificing capacity. But what else can be done? Walkways and center sills have been eliminated, except in some specialized cases, and regulations prevent them from getting much larger.Bulkhead flat cars: either low bulkheads for steel service, or center-beam for everything else. The longer and/or lower FBCs that have been tried won't make it.Auto racks: same old same old. Possibly three-packs of 89-foot units, drawbar-connected, but nothing else seems to work.Gondolas: higher sides, yet again. Maybe requirements that loads can't protrude over sides or ends (we can only hope!).Covered hoppers: They got bigger when the 286K cars came around, but the big cars can't go everywhere just yet. But when 315K becomes more widespread, you'll see up to 7000-cubic-foot cars, as tall as hi-cube box cars (well, not quite--there's that center-of-gravity thing to worry about), with existing cars cascading down for use in transporting denser commodities,Coal cars: when tracks can accommodate them more widely, you'll see capacity go up to 315K gross rail load, with an increase in height to accommodate the added tonnage--can't become longer without replacing the dumpers everywhere.General: ECP brakes. Who-knows-what to increase the load-to-tare ratio.Cars that will disappear soon will be hi-cube box cars (next 15 years or so) and the classic mechanical reefers (probably in about seven years).
CShaveRR wrote: Murph, I think cola movements in dedicated trainsets would probably be a fizzle.
I am not advocating dedicated train-sets; only pointing them out, along with automatic air couplers and bleed train lines, as having exceptional potential. But there are a lot of drawbacks as well. The more an industry grows and the more it becomes standardized, the harder it is to make big changes. Yet, I think the possible big changes need to be dreamed up and kept in mind. For a long time, it will appear that too much is stacked against them, but the big picture keeps changing, and one day all the pieces may line up to make a big change doable.
For example, there are processes in the energy business that previously were economically infeasible, yet as oil prices rise, they suddenly become economically feasible.
In regard to dedicated train-sets, that idea actually was advocated strongly by John Kneiling. It is true that the cars need to be the same structurally throughout the train-set in terms of their weight carrying ability. But they don't need to be the same structurally in terms of their couplers, draft gear, and the structural portion of their center sills that exceed the load carrying requirements. I am referring to the portion of the center sill structure that is needed in order for a loose-car to withstand the pull transmitted through it if it were the first car in a long train. I don't have exact numbers, but I suspect you could take several tons out of that car's structure if it were always the last car of the train.
So in a dedicated train-set, theoretically, every car would be structurally different, with the structure and its weight diminishing from the first car to the last car. Moreover, because dedicated train-sets would likely be shorter than average loose-car trains, all the cars in the train-set would be structurally lighter than a loose-car. So this dedicated train-set concept does have the potential to eliminate a very significant amount of tare weight in a train. And as fuel prices rise, this idea becomes more and more attractive.
I'd have to check the book (which I have), but I don't think John Kneiling advocated less structural strength as one went further back in his integral trains. In fact, he advocated mid-train power. Today we have distributed power, often shoving against the rear of the train. I'd rather have the drawbars be just as strong for anything that could happen with the slack back there.
The drawback with dedicated trains is that if one part breaks down, the whole thing is lost for a time (including the power, if I remember Kneiling's stuff right). Despite the fact that locomotives spend too much time idling as it is, the loss of power and cars isn't going to be tolerated.
It's possible, now that railroads have come up with a way of changing out wheels without breaking the train, that you'll see some sort of compromise along these lines--cars similar to today's articulated in units of five or six, with drawbars between them. It won't save much weight, but it would save moving parts, and eliminate a bit of slack action.
As for a separate line to bleed an entire train, I don't see a need. One rarely has to stand and wait for the air to bleed completely any more--just gve the bleeder rod a push or pull and move on. If a whole train is being bled off, it's most likely in a yard where the train is being walked for inspection anyway, so no time is being lost by the manual bleeding. And if a hand brake (more likely plural) has to be applied to a cut of cars being left somewhere, I'd rather have the air applied at the time to give me a hand cranking it up--impossible if everything's going to be bled off.
CShaveRR wrote: I'd have to check the book (which I have), but I don't think John Kneiling advocated less structural strength as one went further back in his integral trains. In fact, he advocated mid-train power. Today we have distributed power, often shoving against the rear of the train. I'd rather have the drawbars be just as strong for anything that could happen with the slack back there.The drawback with dedicated trains is that if one part breaks down, the whole thing is lost for a time (including the power, if I remember Kneiling's stuff right). Despite the fact that locomotives spend too much time idling as it is, the loss of power and cars isn't going to be tolerated.It's possible, now that railroads have come up with a way of changing out wheels without breaking the train, that you'll see some sort of compromise along these lines--cars similar to today's articulated in units of five or six, with drawbars between them. It won't save much weight, but it would save moving parts, and eliminate a bit of slack action.As for a separate line to bleed an entire train, I don't see a need. One rarely has to stand and wait for the air to bleed completely any more--just gve the bleeder rod a push or pull and move on. If a whole train is being bled off, it's most likely in a yard where the train is being walked for inspection anyway, so no time is being lost by the manual bleeding. And if a hand brake (more likely plural) has to be applied to a cut of cars being left somewhere, I'd rather have the air applied at the time to give me a hand cranking it up--impossible if everything's going to be bled off.
I would have to check back into my Trains collection to refresh my recollection of what all Kneiling had to say in relation to this matter. I have never seen his book, only his columns in Trains. I recall him often making the point about loose-cars needing to have the strength necessary to withstand being first out in a long train. So the dedicated consist was a way to fix the position of each car so it could be designed only as strong as necessary.
In the case of a 100+ car coal train, the difference in tractive load between the first car and the tenth car, for instance, would not be that great. It would therefore probably not be practical to make tiny incremental reductions in strength to each car. By the time you got to the tenth car, you might only have reduced the weight on that car by 200 pounds. So you would probably have cars designed to specific strength classes that correspond to their position in a train. The first ten cars, for example, might be identical, and of the class for the number-one position. The next ten cars would be for the number-two position class, and be slightly lighter.
I do recall Kneiling advocating distributed power in a dedicated train-set. I believe he viewed it as somewhat of an extension of the concept of reducing the strength from the front to back of the train. Distrubuting the power tends to eliminate the need to distribute the strength. Either approach could reduce the tare weight, or both approaches could work together with each contributing to the cause.
You mentioned the need for car strength to withstand slack as well as tractive force, and that slack can affect cars regardless of their position in the train. That is true, but with a dedicated train-set, one of the other major advantages is that there is no slack. Slack is a product of the automatic coupler with its operational tolerance, and there would be no automatic couplers in a dedicated train-set.
Another major advantage of the dedicated train-set is its ability to utilize a superior electric or electro-pneumatic brake system. Because the cars in the dedicated train-set do not have to interchange, they can be freely upgraded with non-standard brake systems. In a loose-car train not only is there slack forces, but also those forces are further exacerbated by the irregular affects of conventional air brake operations. The destructive braking/slack forces are eliminated in a dedicated train-set because it has no slack and it has perfectly distributed braking throughout.
The bleed line would not be utilized to bleed cars that were being set out. They would be left with the air set as usual, so the mechanical advantage for applying a hand brake provided by the air set would still be available. The bleed line would be to bleed cuts of cars that are going to be switched.
CShaveRR wrote: I'd have to check the book (which I have),
I'd have to check the book (which I have),
Bucyrus wrote: but with a dedicated train-set, one of the other major advantages is that there is no slack. Slack is a product of the automatic coupler with its operational tolerance, and there would be no automatic couplers in a dedicated train-set.
but with a dedicated train-set, one of the other major advantages is that there is no slack. Slack is a product of the automatic coupler with its operational tolerance, and there would be no automatic couplers in a dedicated train-set.
Bucyrus wrote: Moreover, because dedicated train-sets would likely be shorter than average loose-car trains, all the cars in the train-set would be structurally lighter than a loose-car
Moreover, because dedicated train-sets would likely be shorter than average loose-car trains, all the cars in the train-set would be structurally lighter than a loose-car
Why would it be shorter?
Murphy Siding wrote: CShaveRR wrote: I'd have to check the book (which I have),There's a book by Kneiling? Can you provide me with the name of it please?
The name of the book is/was Integral Train Systems, and it was published by Kalmbach in 1969.
I've heard of two downsides of electro-pneumatic brakes:
1. Older equipment (naturally) doesn't have the control wire.
2. The state of the brake pipe isn't the same for ECP and non-ECP usage, since a non-ECP car (and anything behind it) has to use the brake pressure for signaling brake applications as well as for charging the reservoir.
Does anybody know why #1 couldn't be done wirelessly? After all, if you can reliably talk to your EOT device from the head end via radio, couldn't you reliably talk to whatever's in the middle? Granted, it'd require an automated set-up protocol (it's Not Good if somebody else's engine winds up controlling the brakes on your train), but that's a solvable problem (see: wireless LAN's, with the advantage in this case that you actually have some control over the hardware).
Once the wire requirement is relaxed, then the ECP-equipped cars behind the first non-ECP car become, in effect, additional EOT's. Anything in front of the first non-ECP car is in a solid ECP block, and can run in ECP mode. As the number of ECP cars in the fleet increases, you get larger and larger proportions of your trains running in ECP mode, but it all still works in the traditional mode.
You also wouldn't need a bleed line, as you could just tell the cars to bleed themselves via the radio link.
Is this simply a cost-benefit thing? What I've described is surely feasible technically (correct me if I'm wrong, naturally).
Peace,
--Peter
phbrown wrote: You also wouldn't need a bleed line, as you could just tell the cars to bleed themselves via the radio link. -Peter
-Peter
That is true. A feature could also be incorporated that would eliminate the need to manually set and release handbrakes.
Murphy Siding wrote: Bucyrus wrote: but with a dedicated train-set, one of the other major advantages is that there is no slack. Slack is a product of the automatic coupler with its operational tolerance, and there would be no automatic couplers in a dedicated train-set. ??? No slack? How would you start a heavy train? I always understood, that slack helped the locomotive start pulling a train one car at a time. Bucyrus wrote: Moreover, because dedicated train-sets would likely be shorter than average loose-car trains, all the cars in the train-set would be structurally lighter than a loose-car Why would it be shorter?
Slack can be used to start a train, but from what I understand, it is usually not essential. If I am not mistaken, taking advantage of slack to start a train was more common and more necessary pre-diesel, and in earlier eras. However, this was not the purpose of slack. Slack is unavoidable as being necessary clearance for the moving parts of the coupler, whether automatic or link and pin (unless you have a coupler system that takes out the slack after a joint has been made). And because slack runs in and out, it can accumulate force. To prevent coupler breakage from slack surge, the draft gear is sprung. The sprung movement of the draft gear adds to the potential movement of slack. So my assumption is that with permanent, slack-free couplers, you don't need cushioned draft gear.
I think I should retract what I said about dedicated train-sets being likely to be relatively short. I was mainly thinking of minimizing the amount of capital that would be tied up say for a repair to just one car in a dedicated train-set. But there are so many other factors that come into play that I don't see any one overriding reason to keep the consist short. It may very well be applicable with economic advantage to relatively long unit coal trains for example.
However, in cases where a dedicated train-set is shorter than the general maximum length trains of today, all of the cars of the dedicated set can be structually lighter than the loose-cars that must be able to stand being toward the front of a long conventional train and subject to the slack in that long train. So that is an incentive to make dedicated train-sets relatively short.
Grand Central wrote: I am a great supporter of Unions, but... I wonder what they would say to all this, How many jobs would they lose? Would this be the reason these things may not come about?
Well . . . I kind of thought that the RR's were more into hiring new employees. IIRC the rule of thumb correctly, as compared to 1980, by the year 2000 the RR's were hauling twice as much freight with a third fewer employees. There seems to be quite a need for hoggers lately and on-ground people, too.
Bucyrus wrote: I think I should retract what I said about dedicated train-sets being likely to be relatively short. I was mainly thinking of minimizing the amount of capital that would be tied up say for a repair to just one car in a dedicated train-set. But there are so many other factors that come into play that I don't see any one overriding reason to keep the consist short. It may very well be applicable with economic advantage to relatively long unit coal trains for example. However, in cases where a dedicated train-set is shorter than the general maximum length
However, in cases where a dedicated train-set is shorter than the general maximum length
I would think that being able to make the cars lighter, with higher capacity, would mean the trains would/could be the same length, but with a higher total tonnage.
I've always wondered, about coal mines and coal receivers that use dedicated equipment. It would seem that developing equipment that would allow you to haul more tonnage, in the same length of train, yet still fit through the receiver's dumper would pay some handsome returns.
Murphy Siding wrote: I would think that being able to make the cars lighter, with higher capacity, would mean the trains would/could be the same length, but with a higher total tonnage.
They could, but this is what I was trying to say in that last paragraph: All the cars in a 200-car dedicated train-set could get lighter from front to rear, and this would lower the tare weight. Likewise, in a 20-car dedicated train-set, all the cars could get lighter from front to rear. However, even the heaviest, first car in a 20-car set would be much lighter than many of the cars in a 200-car set. Theoretically, you could say that 180 of the cars in the 200-car dedicated set would be heavier than the heaviest car in the 20-car set. So on a per-car average, the shorter the set, the lighter the tare weight.
In a dedicated train-set, if the load weight remained the same as the same number of loose cars, the lower tare weight would simply increase fuel economy. If the load weight were increased to replace the reduction in tare weight, more total tonnage could be carried for the same fuel consumption of the same size conventional loose-car train. However, when you raise the capacity to match the reduction in tare weight, you need a stronger car for the added capacity. And this added strength adds tare weight. So you can see that this would take some serious number crunching to find the optimum length and capacity for a dedicated train-set.
Murphy Siding wrote: I would think that being able to make the cars lighter, with higher capacity, would mean the trains would/could be the same length, but with a higher total tonnage. I've always wondered, about coal mines and coal receivers that use dedicated equipment. It would seem that developing equipment that would allow you to haul more tonnage, in the same length of train, yet still fit through the receiver's dumper would pay some handsome returns.
How?
Equipment that is railroad owned but shipper specific carries inherent economic risks, including a negotiated price risk: the railroad is the hostage to the equipment, not the shipper. Further, car weight and capacity, for an econometric analysis, measures averages -- the average of loaded and empty, for which the economic impact is most strongly influenced by the overall empty return ratio, not the difference between the tare and loaded weight. The second most important influence is the interest rate on the equipment purchase. The third most important factor is productivity or utilization. Specialized equipment is especially sensitive, in all the wrong ways, to railroad congestion and variations in shipper demands. The fourth most important factor is route specific. Required drawbar force is the sum of several resistance forces which vary in extent and proportion with the operating conditions of the particular lines of railroad. These include grade resistance, curve resistance, train resistance, and acceleration resistance. Which drawbar strength need is that 110th car designed for, aside from the fact that it is the 110th car? Where do you put the DPU?
Normally, experienced people talk in terms of economies of scale. This discussion seems designed to try and figure out just how to make production of railcars as specialized and customized, and expensive, as possible, with car specs and inventory needs multiplying like rabbits.
I can think of a real world example of this. Back in the early 90's CN experimented with a concept called ecorail which involved slightly modified trailers which connected to a RoadRailer like bogie system. The train was supposed to use power and control modules (Think of MOW equipment power units) attached to bogies rather than being locomotive pulled. The whole idea was to operate with a single crew member (whose jo title would have been "operator" rather than engineer). The technical bugs couldn't be worked out but I read that the unions were fairly riled ..............
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
Bucyrus wrote: So you can see that this would take some serious number crunching to find the optimum length and capacity for a dedicated train-set.
I agree. That's the part that makes me wonder-thinking that somewhere there is always somebody trying to build a better mousetrap, without re-inventing the wheel. It's pretty easy to say that nothing will be improved on, because it would cause all kinds of problems with the railroads, shippers, etc.. To suggest that there can't be any change for the better is to put a blind eye to the innovations and evolution of railcars in the past.
As I see it, coal cars have evolved a fair amount in the last 30 or so years; the shippers and the railroads have seemd to make that work to the benefit of both parties. I see it as foolish to say that railcars can't evolve, as history has shown otherwise.
I'm not so sure about the idea of cars in a dedicated train having different strength characteristics though. The odds of manmade failures lead me to believe that you'd have to have warnings 10' tall on the sides of the cars, and someone would still put one in the wrong order.
Murphy Siding wrote: I'm not so sure about the idea of cars in a dedicated train having different strength characteristics though. The odds of manmade failures lead me to believe that you'd have to have warnings 10' tall on the sides of the cars, and someone would still put one in the wrong order.
It would be physically impossible to change the order.
Murphy Siding wrote: It's pretty easy to say that nothing will be improved on, because it would cause all kinds of problems with the railroads, shippers, etc.. To suggest that there can't be any change for the better is to put a blind eye to the innovations and evolution of railcars in the past.... I see it as foolish to say that railcars can't evolve, as history has shown otherwise.
It's pretty easy to say that nothing will be improved on, because it would cause all kinds of problems with the railroads, shippers, etc.. To suggest that there can't be any change for the better is to put a blind eye to the innovations and evolution of railcars in the past.... I see it as foolish to say that railcars can't evolve, as history has shown otherwise.
Exactly who is "saying" and "suggesting" these things? I can't find a single post where anyone has stated any such thing, nor that any of the posters here deserve to be called either "foolish" or "blind".
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