Trackside Lounge: 1Q 2010 Edition

[Modelcar]

....Well, I'm glad you got all the good news and it sounds like you will be back to your routine rather soon.  Glad to hear all the good news.  We do know a bit about the heart situations....Jean had bypass surgery back in 1992, and has done well with it since.

[CShaveRR]

Quentin, it was a Cardiac Ablation, intended to eliminate my Supra-Ventricular Tachycardia, a genetic nervous disorder that occasionally caused a spontaneous rapid heartbeat (as I said about one episode, I was doing 205 in a 60!). It should never happen again. The recovery is purely for the incisions they had to make in the Nether Regions for the catheters to go up via my veins into my heart, where nerve endings were cauterized. One benefit is that I now have one medication less to take every day.

My Enforcer says that there will be no Metra rides tomorrow. She wants me to be up for my busy day Sunday: Too Hot to Handel after church and dinner. I can finish editing the book I got halfway through this evening.

[Modelcar]

CShaveRR

Well, salutations, as promised! I guess I wasn't as "about to die" as I thought, even figuratively: they didn't put me under for any part of the procedure.

 

Carl.......I really don't know what procedure you went through today, but it sounds like it was totally successful.  Please add my best wishes to your recovery time...Sounds like you are doing very well.  And that sounds like a blessing.

[tree68]

Carl - Congrats on the good outcome.   Can't always say that, even if the procedure was successful.  Sometimes it does take weeks to get back to normal.

Getting things ready for a train show in Utica on Sunday.  It's the toy train people, so I probably won't buy much of anything, but I am taking my uniform along, since it'll be in our "home" station.  Weather is supposed to be decent.

 

[CShaveRR]

Well, salutations, as promised! I guess I wasn't as "about to die" as I thought, even figuratively: they didn't put me under for any part of the procedure. Everything went well, and I healed about an hour more quickly than they expected (they let me out after three hours of immobility instead of four). The original heart condition occurred rarely, but now I shouldn't encounter it at all. And since I never knew when it would come on, I shouldn't even worry about it! I'm losing some of the bandages as we speak! Thanks for the kind words and thoughts, everyone!

I feel like I could go to work tomorrow, but I'm not allowed to climb all those stairs, nor carry my backpack, for a few days. So I get a "human" weekend as well as my regular weekend. They're already booked. I'm hoping to ride Metra to check on the progress of the signal installations along our line (we found one signal bridge already up west of Wheaton today). Grandchildren, freshly home from Disney World, may or may not be on the waiting list. Sunday we're going into Chicago for "Too Hot to Handel", a jazz/gospel restyling of Handel's Messiah. We know one of the three soloists. Metra might work for this trip as well, especially if we keep our weekend passes.

Quentin, I completely forgot about those two-unit auto racks. Each of those holds about 50 percent more than a conventional rack. The length is there, but the weight is not, because automobiles are not a very heavy payload. A train of these would require fewer cars to haul the same number of automobiles, and might save shippers some money because of that.

Chris, I've been away from Latin too long for that one!

Keeping a close eye on ZWASKP this week. It won't be combined with the train from Delano, so it will be the first one through here, probably sometime Sunday afternoon. I'm hoping it will have a surprise on it, and that the surprise will go east with the rest of the train. Stay tuned!

[CopCarSS]

Best of luck, Carl. You'll be in my thoughts and prayers.

Te occidere possunt, sed te edere non possunt. Nefas est.

[Modelcar]

CShaveRR

As for other articulated equipment, I haven't seen it very often

\

Carl....If I remember correctly, we've seen some articulated and single truck between the cars.... auto carriers pass thru here....They kind of had a different look to them.....Seem to remember small "windows", along the mesh sides.

[CShaveRR]

Morituri te salutamus.

And we hope to salute you all again when we return.

[mudchicken]

Disadvantages (#2) 

Oh the nightmares if one of those rascals picks a switchpoint or goes on the ground...nothing quite like watching loads picking a switch and gathering up the track next to it for 500-1000 feet (Track centers go from 15 feet to 9 feet with a heckuva dogleg attached)....or back up through a spring loaded derail...

[CShaveRR]

The advantages of drawbar-connected cars are basically in reduction of slack and elimination of coupler weight, expense, and breakability. Brake pipes still have separable hoses and glad-hands at these points, presumably for ease in testing. (In fact, if you look at the pin-connected articulated cars, you can find glad-hand connections at some point along the sides). Another advantage could be loading configurations: an example of this would be the pairs of 89-foot piggyback flat cars joined together to accommodate three 53-foot containers.

The disadvantage, of course, is in availability. If there's a problem with one unit, you have the carrying capacity of all three or five units tied up.

As for other articulated equipment, I haven't seen it very often. There have been pairs of the smaller Airslide covered hoppers joined together, but that was more because the originals were just too small to be economically competitive. There are (or were) also some drawbar-connected coal cars out there. They're WEPX 2000-series coal gons, and each of the units retain(ed) its original number. Again, if one unit has a defect, you lose all two or three. I would assume that the rotary-coupler apparatus has been modified to accept the drawbar instead.

One has to wonder whether developments to speed up repairs, such as UP's in-train changeout of defective wheelsets, might eventually tip the balance toward more multi-unit unit train cars.

[CopCarSS]

Carl and Quentin,

Thanks for the very kind words! Quentin, I think it is tinplate, but I don't know much about it, sadly. I would guess that the collector's value is quite high, though.

[CNW 6000]

Modelcar

10-4 Carl.....Didn't realize so many were of the stack type cars and I understand they are permanently connected in 3's and 5's.....

On Quentin's point...you see the stack/well type cars in either singles, triples, or quints.  Is there an advantage (more than 1?) of cars in those particular quantities?  I'd imagine fewer coupler/air connections has its advantages.  I suppose it helps that these cars basically go from one fairly similar loading/unloading to another.  Would those advantages translate into other car types in similar "captive" service?

[Modelcar]

Hello Chris....

Boy when you shoot a scene, you really go over the top.....I really enjoyed this group of photos....That inside view of Denver Union, was awesome....

And the wind up powered train.....is it "tinplate"....That must have some real value in the collectors world.....!

[CShaveRR]

Welcome back, Chris! Great shots, every last one of 'em!

_____________________

A brutal day at work today, with a retarder failure that could have caused a wreck (alertness paid off big this time!), and a relatively inexperienced hump conductor who isn't used to the pace of the day shift. I had to take him under my wing...and flap the daylights out of him a couple of times. We were really under the gun today--all of the stuff that was held up by the wicked weather to our west now seems to have arrived, and the bowl was full. We CROs tried to help keep the engines busy making room, and out of the way of the tracks we needed to use. And, being where I was, I could see what was going on, make some suggestions (when I suggest, they're strong suggestions!), and keep some situations from becoming worse than they already were.

Boy, they're gonna miss me when I'm off recuperating!

[CopCarSS]

Hey Gang,

Sorry I haven't been around lately. I haven't really been shooting railroading lately, and photos are about the only really useful thing I bring to the forum, unfortunately. Because of that, I've kind of just been popping my head in every once in awhile. Today, I thought I'd actually stop and say "Hi" and give you an idea of what I have been up to.

I have been doing some shooting, just nothing too railroady unfortunately. Here's a little taste of recent work:

I've been working on my 12 gallon "Nano" Reef aquarium a lot. A couple of my friends are opening a saltwater store out here, too, so I'll probably be trying to get some more shots of their stuff. This is Hammy, one of my Blue Legged Hermit Crabs:

Back in December, I did a little wandering around downtown with another Pentaxian. This was a favorite shot from that outing:

I did acquire a new camera since my last post in here, a Pentax K-x. I mainly got it because of it's size factor. It's a nice little travel camera compared to the beastly K20D. It's become a tradition to try new gear out at Union Station. So that's just what I did:

Lo and behold, the little K-x has so impressed me with it's image quality, it's pretty much become my daily shooter! The high ISO capabilities in particular are nothing short of amazing! Check out this shot at ISO 3200:

Even ISO 12,800 is within the realm of useable. With a little massaging, I could get a decent 8x10 out of this:

If you want to pixel peep, you can view the full size images of the ISO 3200 here and ISO 12800 here. I haven't posted any full size examples yet, but ISO 6400 is really a useable speed, too. Only above it does it start to detiorate into the "Emergency Use Only" kind of look that the ISO 12,800 shot is.

I did make it back to Chicagoland briefly for Christmas. The weather wasn't really pretty on my way out, though. It was snowing in Denver and Chicago greeted me with freezing rain. Because of that, I was stuck at DIA for a bit. I did some shooting around the airport. This shot, titled Hurry Up and Waitwas a favorite:

My short trip, Christmas festivities, weather delays and time spent at the hospital with my grandpa didn't leave me much time to do anything while at home. I did make it over to the William Tanner House in my hometown of Aurora to see their holiday decorations. How about seeing this under your tree on Christmas morning?:

After the museum, I stopped a couple places in Aurora/Montgomery with my Mom to get some pictures. This is Riverside Cemetery where my Dad is buried:

Another sort of test outing for new camera gear is the Denver Zoo. I took the K-x out there on a coldish day in early January. It proved to do quite well with all sorts of situations. This was a favorite outing from that day:

The K-x does 720P HD video, too! I've never been much of a video shooter, but I may occasionally take a "moving picture" now and again. Here is one of my early attempts at "moving pictures" (as opposed to full cinematic video efforts).

Another Pentaxian friend here in the Denver area is a jazz pianist. He's currently recording a new CD with the Fred Hess Big Band and he invited me to one of the recording sessions. I have several shots that I really like from that outing, but here are a few favorites:

Additionally, I was just back in Chicagoland again. My grandpa passed away on the 7th, so I came back for the wake and funeral. Again, I had only a little free time. I did manage to take Metra into downtown Chicago and roam around there with my cousins on a "Grandsons Day Out." I haven't processed those yet, but I have some nice stuff from downtown Chicago and Chicago Union Station. I'll post those when I get them up.

I hope all is well with all of you. I'll try to be not *quite* so much of a stranger. I really should take a trip up the Moffat Line with the new camera and do a shakedown cruise up there. I had hoped to be shooting the new Ski Train, but alas, it looks like that is not to be this year.

 

[CShaveRR]

Thanks, Q. I've been over on another site, talking about my upcoming heart operation (it's all good, honest!). Now the thread concerning the big train on this forum has a good video showing the train moving even faster. The video takes just over four minutes, but the passage of the train is closer to what they figured for 60 mph. Those GE's midtrain were really singing!

___________________

The big story today seems to be Joseph Boardman's comments about Amtrak, including upcoming equipment orders, what's going to be replaced, what they'd like to do quickly, and so on. It all sounds good. I read the entire article on the Railway Age website, but their presentation of it has a number of ornery technical flaws. I wish I were allowed to reprint the whole thing here, because I could clean it up.

[Modelcar]

Sunshine here in central Indiana this morning......Slowly, warming.

Thought Carl would be in here and bring this site back to the first page, but perhaps they're busy.....So we'll chip in.

[Modelcar]

Went over and checked the YouTube video and it was certainly impressive.  Something like that as a daily {or weekly}, routine surely would remove a significant number of 16 wheelers from the interstates.....It sure was moving right along at that location....Faster than I envisoned it would be capabale of doing.

[CShaveRR]

There's a good video of the entire train over on the train's own thread, Quentin. It takes about 4.5 minutes. I never heard any slack action (not that I would have), so it would seem that the DP had things under control.

[Modelcar]

10-4 Carl.....Didn't realize so many were of the stack type cars and I understand they are permanently connected in 3's and 5's.....

[CShaveRR]

Probably a lot less than that, Quentin. This train shows as having 295 cars, but it's a stack train--a lot of these cars are articulated, which translates to no slack at all between units. There were a total of 86 distinct cars on the train, which means 209 slack-free connections, 86 minimal slack connections just the slack in the couplers--not much in the draft gear) and the nine locomotives. I'd say the slack total is closer to 30 feet than 300.

The train made it in, by the way, before 5:00 p.m.

[Modelcar]

.....Wow....60 mph for a 3.5 mi. long train is pretty awesome....!  How much slack would be in a consist as such.....possibly 300' or so.

[CShaveRR]

I did it! Made it to the weekend.

ZDLSK3 had a bear of a time getting across Nebraska, all the way into Omaha. Last I saw, it was eight hours off the mark, but picking up the pace in Iowa. Things must really have been brutal in eastern Nebraska, judging from the Zephyr ordeals and Willy reports (the only trustworthy meteorologist in the state?).

As for us in Chicagoland, I woke up to zero degrees this morning; it took most of the morning to bring us up into double digits (I'm showing 12 degrees outside as we get close to sunset). The following days are supposed to get progressively warmer.

Yesterday on "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" they had a caller from Antarctica. It's summer down there, so, as the host put it, he was rubbing the noses of us Chicagoans in the cold temperatures we are having, while they had 40 degrees and open water at their base.

The Monster Train of the South is doing pretty well. It is ahead of schedule, but still not at destination. I saw lots of places where it was making its maximum speed of 60, and a number of delays blamed on trains--intermodal trains, no less--ahead of it.

[CShaveRR]

Hoo-boy! Can I last another day this week?

You'd think, with mostly clear skies and no wind to speak of, that things would go better. But today was brutal again--three retarder shoes on one of my retarders needed replacing after falling off (fasteners broken?), and there was a derailment down below caused by a foreign object in a switch. They were still shaking their heads over this one when I left.

I was following the first of the perishable trains for this week (February Trains); it's having a rough time across Wyoming and Nebraska. I also took a couple of looks at the 18000-foot stack train's progress. This train is apparently extensively instrumented, so I'm sure there will be scientific arguments why these trains should become everyday occurrences (which, in my prediction, will totally offset any of the logical arguments against them).

[Modelcar]

No problem Carl.....I'm not surprised if they had to add extra engines on the Amtrak train under those conditions.  And as long as they were able to maintain power throughout the train, hence, heat, etc.....those passengers should feel a bit lucky to get thru such a terrible weather situation at all....

[CShaveRR]

I'm sorry, Quentin--I wasn't clear on this. The UP power I saw was in an Amtrak consist shown on the tape (it was BNSF's rotary).

[Modelcar]

.....The video was so brief I didn't notice what kind of power was behind it.  And it does make one wonder, just how far that little used monster might have come from....I'm sure it was effective though....Lucky they still had one operational.

[CShaveRR]

Yeah--they said the drifts were twice as tall as the train--with Superliners, that's saying something! I don't know where they had to get the rotary plow from, but it evidently took a while to bring it in and let it perform its magic.

I also thought I caught a brief glimpse of a UP locomotive in the consist. I know that's been done before, but hadn't heard any details about this time.

[Modelcar]

Carl......Did you notice on NBC's Nightly News report of the "late" California Zephyr Amtrak train....they also showed a brief video of a rotary snow plow.....I believe it was indicating it was used to clear the way for the train to get thru some areas of terrible drifts....

[The Butler]

CShaveRR

Condolences to Chris ("CopCarSS") May, who just lost his grandfather.

  Ditto .