Smoke, sparks, fire & scary noises.

[Randy Stahl]

I remember the first time I saw a "train". I grew up along the East Troy RR. I lived about 100' from the tracks. I remember the electric car , M-15 pulling cuts of cars back and forth between the SOO interchange and East Troy. Us kids mostly knew the train crews pretty well and they knew us and our familys. My grandparents on both sides had property along the RR so I had alot of contact with the little electric RR daily.
In 1972 a RR museum moved to town and free rides for the residents of East Troy was in order. This was my first train ride, North Shore line # 757. All of us kids payed close attention to any "new '" additions to the operations and were pretty exited when something different would show up on the RR. It was quite a few years before we got another train ride , 1976. Free rides !!! This time I was a little older (11) so I knew what was going on. I was disappointed to miss the NSL # 763 , so I had to settle for another ride on the 757. The conductor was a fellow named Don Liestikow, he told us that the cars were staffed by volunteers !!! I was intrigued, it seemed that I could join this group and "work " on the RR. The dues at the time were $10.00 I baled alot of hay that summer and scraped up 10 bucks.. They accepted my money I WAS IN !!!! Now I got free rides all the time!!!! I spent ALOT of time riding the plat forms of the North Shore cars, it never got old. I was allowed to run the cars and was not bad considering I was only 12 years old. The first train I operated was the NSL 411.
I met and became friends with alot of retired railroaders. This became my classroom and I chose my career because of the RR stories and tutalage given me by these fine people. I will always have fond memories of the Milwaukee Electric Ry & Light Co. equipment and the good ol North Shore cars. I chose to be a locomotive electrician at 12 years old because of them, and had all the basics down.
I recently accepted a job with the Montreal Maine and Atlantic RR as a manager of locomotive maintenence. I plan on being there by Oct 1st.
Randy

[Anonymous]

Come to think of it, it is a standard item. There's the ones that are in a vertical riser that turns 90 deg. to a horizontal plane with a circular cross section, and there's the ones that are low profile, a wide plate on top of the blower, with two large butterflys, much like a fireplace damper.

[broncoman]

[Often there is a flapper over the intake, held open by a quadrant. Flip the pawl and it shuts off air to the engine. I have seen engines continue to stumble after asphyxiating them, they will suck oil from blower seals, valve guides, anywhere! and keep running!

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by broncoman

QUOTE: Originally posted by jruppert

I used to work at company that made custom generator packages and sometimes when starting a unit for the first time, a feedback loop between the generator and the governor would cause violent surging in the engine's rpm, is this a problem in locomotives? When working on older Detroit Diesels and starting them for the first time after an overhaul before any adjustments have been made to the governor, they will "run away" and must be carefully kept from overspeeding, is this also a problem?

When I went through my apprenticeship, my journeyman always told me to keep a clipboard handy when working on non-DDEC detroits. They make a great kill switch.[:D] Of course this only works on 92s and smaller.

Randy,
How long is the normal apprenticeship for locomotive electricians? When you actually made journeyman, did a wave of terror sweep over you, your first day as a journeyman as you thought wow I am suppose to know all this now. Just curious.

I don't want to steal your question Randy, I just want to add a comment about Detroits.

Often there is a flapper over the intake, held open by a quadrant. Flip the pawl and it shuts off air to the engine. I have seen engines continue to stumble after asphyxiating them, they will suck oil from blower seals, valve guides, anywhere! and keep running!

[Randy Stahl]

Usually an aprenticeship lasts 4 years, I was never offred an apprenticeship so I spent a long time working as a helper. In time I was able to test up to a journeyman, the test was simply show that I know what I'm doing. I was hired at the BRC as a journeyman and never looked back. In retrospect the apprentices were treated alot worse than us helpers and we weren't treated real well !
Randy

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Randy Stahl

QUOTE: Originally posted by jruppert

There is an override of low oil pressure shutdown for a number of seconds in the governor to allow for starting of the engine. This guy must have kept cranking the engine wondering why it wont start !!!!

When your leaning on the layshaft , you over ride any engine protection.
Randy

That sounds even more ham headed !!

[broncoman]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jruppert

I used to work at company that made custom generator packages and sometimes when starting a unit for the first time, a feedback loop between the generator and the governor would cause violent surging in the engine's rpm, is this a problem in locomotives? When working on older Detroit Diesels and starting them for the first time after an overhaul before any adjustments have been made to the governor, they will "run away" and must be carefully kept from overspeeding, is this also a problem?

When I went through my apprenticeship, my journeyman always told me to keep a clipboard handy when working on non-DDEC detroits. They make a great kill switch.[:D] Of course this only works on 92s and smaller.

Randy,
How long is the normal apprenticeship for locomotive electricians? When you actually made journeyman, did a wave of terror sweep over you, your first day as a journeyman as you thought wow I am suppose to know all this now. Just curious.

[mvlandsw]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jruppert

Randy, have you ever had problems with critters other than bats? I used to watch a N&W daily peddler come down a track that in the summertime was practicaly obscured by the tree canopy, and a wave of fleeing insects always preceeded the locomotive.

I frequently see bats chasing insects in the headlight beam at night. One time in a tunnel a bat came into the cab. I thought the brakeman was going to jump out.

[Randy Stahl]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jruppert

There is an override of low oil pressure shutdown for a number of seconds in the governor to allow for starting of the engine. This guy must have kept cranking the engine wondering why it wont start !!!!

When your leaning on the layshaft , you over ride any engine protection.
Randy

[Anonymous]

There is an override of low oil pressure shutdown for a number of seconds in the governor to allow for starting of the engine. This guy must have kept cranking the engine wondering why it wont start !!!!

[jeaton]

Randy,

You mean that isn't something you fix???

Jay

[Overmod]

What, no lube-oil warning or oil overtemp on a 567?

Oh, wait... lube level is a gauge next to the prime mover, and nobody read it, and the overtemp is a sensor that only works when there's enough hot oil to reach where it is...

Ouch.

[Randy Stahl]

" GET AN ELECTRICIAN "
That seems to be the magic fix all when some thing goes wrong on a locomotive. After all you can never be sure if the problem is caused by all those wires running everywhere.
This story I was reminded of the other day, seems one of the foremen went to start an SW1200, the locomotive started but failed to stay running.. At least thats the story that I got. I was approached by the foreman and went to look into the problem, as near as I could tell everything was working OK execpt the engine would not rotate, I even put a long bar into the flywheel holes and could not budge the prime mover at all. Thats right the engine had siezed up... a quick look in the crankcase ..... no lube oil !
Randy

[Anonymous]

Great stories and excellent info Randy! I work on hybrids which is probably the closest I'll ever come to loco technology but has some similarity -though on a smaller scale. I especially like your statement that voltage always returns to its source. That's always good to remember and to make sure you are not in its path.
Keep the stories and info comin'!

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by AlcoRS11Nut

Any Stories about ALCo's?

They smoke, they leak, they break, they get scrapped. The Alco story...

LC

[Randy Stahl]

The darkest days in my RR career are when a buddy gets hurt, or worse. The lead electrician on our RR is a fellow named Mike M. Mike is the kind of guy that makes you laugh even when things are going badly. It came as a shock to us when one day Mike left work in an ambulance. He was doing a job the he'd done many times, load testing an SD-45. Most locomotives are equipped with a self load feature that connects the main gen to the dynamic brake grids. Multi meters are then connected to a tect panel and the horse power is calculated from these readings. In tech terms the MG voltage is read on the voltage terminals and the current is read in millivolts from an 80 Mv shunt, so Mv times 80 = amps times volts divided by 700 = horsepower. Mike made the connections onj the test panel incorrectly, connecting pos. lead to MG volts and neg lead to loadtest shunt creating a dead short across the main gen. Mike was holding his meter in his hand when the short occured, we think he changed the meters setting to read milliamps, the meter turned into a fireball, burning him severely, the locomotive tripped the ground relay preventing a fatal electrocution.
You cannot let your guard down and you must think before doing, as if this weren't bad enough 2 weeks later another electrician did the same thing. At this point the company decided that they would provide 2 meters and the connections will be made before the engine is loaded. ALLWAYS THINK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Randy

[Randy Stahl]

Raccoons are terrible electricians: Leaving locomotives that are left stored for long periods are subject to animal infestation, mice, pigeons,bats, birds filling the dynamic brake hatch with nests,by far the most destructive are the raccoons. The scariest noises I ever heard came from the inside of the electrical cabinet, growling ,screeching and general carrying on . They rearrange the electrical cabinet to suit their own needs ,which means the locomotive wirring is done for.
Randy

[Anonymous]

Randy, have you ever had problems with critters other than bats? I used to watch a N&W daily peddler come down a track that in the summertime was practicaly obscured by the tree canopy, and a wave of fleeing insects always preceeded the locomotive.

[Randy Stahl]

FAST START. Thats what the little switch on the control stand says on a GP-30. What it did was a mystery. It didn't work , it hadn't worked for many years. When I came to the WC no one was really sure if it ever worked. I knew how it was supposed to work having dealt with GP-30 and GP-35s on other RRs so I went ahead and took the time to repair it when it came in for an annual inspection. It wasn't hard to fix, just a wire off a terminal board. I was satisfied I did a good job.
Our roundhouse tracks slope down hill into the turntable, it is necessary to put chains under the wheels to keep the locomotives from rolling out the door into the turntable pit.
When you want to remove the chains you must move the locomotive ahead. GP-30s are slow loading locomotives, they start in minimum field position on the load regulator so most guys slap the throttle to 8 to get the thing to move. I was standing a few bays away from the GP-30 I repaired,, working on another project, my co worker Donny B was prepairing to take the GP-30 outside, he started the engine(we air them up with house air before starting it) released the brakes and slapped her into throttle 8. She took off like a cannon shot, in the blink of an eye she was through the wall of the round house, dust and block were flying every where. The entire locomotive made it out to the parking lot . fortunatly no one had their car parked nearby. I told them I fixed the fast start and my boss was happy that some one knew how to fix it so I didn't get in trouble, It was fun to see the head scratching when the carmen came over to rerail it though.
Randy

[Anonymous]

I guess I'm posting just so this topic is on the front page. I think this is my favorite, the stories are cool, and the tech talk appeals to the gear head in me. Surely there are more poeple with cool stories to tell.

[Randy Stahl]

Injurys on the RR are taken very seriously, injured employees are reported to the FRA and alot of paperwork goes alon with an injury. some injurys are not very serious but If they result in lost time all injurys are treated equally. I pride myself as being a safe worker however I have had 2 reportable injurys in 20 years of railroading. One time I cut my finger on a slip ring cover on a GP-9, it became a reportable injury because I got 6 stiches, there was no lost time.
The other reportable injury is one I'll include in the scary noises part of this thread.
On a hot summer night a few years back I was confirming a grounded traction motor on an SD-45. This was a routine job on a routine night at work, this was about to change!!
I got down off the locomotive with my tool pouch slung over my shoulder. I felt a stinging in my right hand and when I looked down a LARGE bat had bitten me and was hanging from my hand (I about passed out) . A quick look around I noticed about 15 bats flying around the diesel shop. my co workers witnessed this and since we don't have tennis rackets laying around, everone grabbed long handled shovels and started swinging at these things, real dangerous, some one was going to get a shovel upside thier head. everyone calmed down in about 10 minutes and the shovels wen't away. I thought that was all there was to it. I put a bandaid on and went back to work. When first shift came in about 6:00am I was called in the bosses office and he insisted that I see a doctor. I had no choice. I scheduled an appointment and was able to get in about 8:00am I lived 4 blocks from the doctor so I walked. The doc got my attention when he told me I needed to get the rabies series. Now it became a reportable injury, as if the shots didn't hurt enough. I couldn't even walk back home
Randy

[Anonymous]

We were office testing a Servo 8808 Hot Box Detector, meaning, we would hook everything up and let it run a while before it was to be taken out to the field for installation. After everything was connected, my fellow technician was about to power it up, I snuck behind the rack - which stood about 6 feet tall - and lit up a cigar. Just when he hit the power switch, I blew this huge smoke cloud from behind it. The smoke came out of the front and all you could hear was "ki-ki---ki--ki--ki--ki !!!" he was trying to say "kill the power!" but, he couldn't get it out!

Another favorite is when someone is about to take a meter reading, and, you can see they're nervous (high voltage, but, it only hurts for a few seconds), just before they touch the test points, you clap your hands by using the finger tips against the other palm, which makes a nice high pitch sounding "pop". Usually makes them jump everytime.

[jrw249]

Randy,
With all your stories, you should write a book!!!!!!!

[Randy Stahl]

Winter time in Wisconsin can be very challenging for railroaders. The extreme cold,blowing snow make safety a high priority. Freezing temperatures are hard on the skin, getting your hands frozen to a grab iron is one of the many hazards. Wading through knee deep snow to throw a switch is commonplace. The fine dry powder that we sometimes get will ruin traction motors and generators. Pulling a locomotive into the warm roundhouse sometimes is self defeating because after an engine has been in 10 below cold, the nice warm roundhouse causes the locomotive to frost up, including the traction motors. If you are looking for a ground relay problem once the motors frost up and begin to get wet , all the motors will show grounded. You really only have a very short time to isolate a problem. Most work is done outside in the bitter cold.
One cold night, working 3rd shift we were running into all sorts of these problems, it started snowing at about 1:30am and was showing no signs of letting up, add to this the temp was about 0 deg with a 40 mph north wind. locomotives were falling down left and right, we were having difficulties just getting the snow off the running boards, throw in a dozen engines that won't load or that are getting ground relays and things were pretty much at a stand still. The yardmaster was on the phone continuosly , either he desperatly needed power , or one of the yard engines went belly up, requiring an electrician to go to the yard and look at their engines. We never gave up, but there was only so much we could do. Due to the weather many T&E employees were not able to make it to work so the train dispatcher was calling around the shops for qualified conductors, thats how desperate the situation in the blizzard of 95 had become.
After my 8 hour shift was over I breathed a sigh of relief, I walked out side the diesel house and took a look at the RR yard covered in 2 feet of snow, I got to admit it is pretty. It appeared to me that nothing was going to move today so tomorrow will be another busy day. I turned around just in time to see an approaching train, I coul'nt really make it out at first but as it got closer I could see double stacks ,ah train 119 out of Green Bay, the hottest train on the RR. It got closer and I was able to get a look at the power, holy cow!!!! The Green Bay yard must have been really hard up for power because on the head end of 119 were 4 high nose GP-7s with 4119 in the lead. It was quite a sight seeing these wonderfull old locomotives on the point of a stack train, in the middle of a blizzard. I had to see more of them so I called the chief dispatcher and asked if these engines were going through to Chicago and THEY WERE!!! We didn't have any thing else to give them. I got my clothes changed and headed out the door, into the car and struggled at 20 mph to Byron wi, about 10 miles out. Good thing they were changing crews or they would have beat me there for sure. After a short wait I could hear them whistling for the next crossing south.. Oh boy here they come, This will be a great picture, I should have plenty of time, I don't think those old engines can go much faster than 20 mph WRONG... They whipped around the curve and they were upon me , in a cloud of snow ,567 exhaust I was so impressed that I forgot to get that picture I assure you that my mouth was agape and my eyeballs big. They were easily doing 60 as they passed me. The train passed out of sight and I made the long trip home, the whole time saying to myself WOW!!!!
The blizzard wasn't letting up, when I got home my wife told me that the RR called. I called the RR back and related what I just saw, my boss wasn't impressed. He wanted me to return to work, many people on day shift called in, I was standing next to the window watching my wife leave for work. I saw her back out, get stuck, go ahead and plow into the side of my car. I told my boss what just happened and said the only way I can make it to work now is if they sent a train for me ha ha . About 3 minutes after I hung up the yard called to tell me a train was on it's way into town, he would stop and pick me up!!!
I figured what the hell!!! At least it'll take my mind off my smashed car. My wife made it to work and I set off to walk the 5 blocks to the RR tracks, damn was it cold, the snow was so deep cars were abandoned on the street. I got to the tracks as fast as I could , no train!! After 5 minutes I was ready to go home to bed, when the crossing lights came on. Around the curve comes a train, a very short train. The engineer stopped on the crossing and I got on, the engineer said I must be pretty important to stop Mr. BURKHARDTS BUISNESS TRAIN....
Randy

[Anonymous]

Hey guys,
Thanks for the great explainations. Very informative.

Anyway, enough of the tech questions for now. How about some more of your great stories Mr. Stahl.

[Randy Stahl]

Adrianspeeder is right positive to negetive =smoke, sparks,fire and scary noises.
The governer used most on locomotives is a PGR type governer, basicly they use a combination of 4 valves to control the rpm's. jruppert gave a very accurate summary of how the governer works and if you want to go deeper on EMD locomotives chapter 12 in the engine maintenence manual is devoted to governers, but I think jrupprt did a fine job on the governer mechanics, remember that we want 8-9 speeds from the governer the 4 valves are the speed servo's.
About pin #6 all this controls is the gen field contactors on each locomotive. The actual gen exitation on each locomotive is stand alone.
As for pin#16, you are correct, the ER relay in effect turns the governer and throttle response off.
Pins # 4, 13 are the control negative and positive, on trailing locomotives the control devices on all locomotives must be controlled from the lead locomotive, for example , the FOR (forward relay) has no power going to it as a trailing unit, unless you were to go back in each unit in the consist and throw all the reversor handles you could not change direction. this power comes from the lead unit and passes through the control breaker on the lead unit.
The MU brake warning light operates when the grid current for any reason is exessive, warns the engineer to back off on the dynamics, or look out the rear window and watch the fire. One interesting thing that happened to me shows the MU incompatability problem that some times pop up, on the IC they used pin 1 for emergency sand, some times this relay will get stuck and when it does and it is MUed with an engine equipped with slow speed control, the trailing engines will not load, that was a fun one to figure out.
As for ALCO stories yea I got a few, on the WC we inherited the GB&W fleet and ran them in reguler sevice in the dead of a wisconsin winter. I worked for the BRC and we had a fleet of ALCO's. I have an ALCO S-6 I am trying to sell to a good home.
My fondest memory of an ALCO is of the RS-20 -chopped & repowered RS-3 what a nice little engine, quick snappy throttle response, pull just about any thing, easy to get in and out of the cab and simple to work on. It had great all around visability was fairly quiet in the cab, fast brakes and good brakes, if it sounds like an engineers dream locomotive it was. I hope this is a good answer....
Randy

[AlcoRS11Nut]

Any Stories about ALCo's?

[AlcoRS11Nut]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Randy Stahl

I don't know if anyone else has this problem? I have a hard time staying awake on freight trains. Often times I ride trains to diagnose a mysterious problem, I'll take my trusty laptop, my tool pouch,food etc.sometimes I ride a train right after my usual shift. One time I got into trouble. On a train to Chicago I fell asleep, I was sleeping very soundly because I failed to notice the crew change. The WC crew delivered the train to the CSX, the CSX crew took over and I was happily sound asleep. When I woke up the train was just like I remembered it exept I didn't recognize the countryside. I was riding the 3rd unit in the consist. I waited for the train to stop for a meet and walked up to the cab. I must have scared the hell out of the crew, they weren't expecting someone coming in the back door. I didn't recognize the crew and I started getting that old sinking feeling. Turns out I was somewhere in eastern Indiana, I was in a panic. It was decided that I should get on the next westbound train and get back to Chicago. I arrived back at the BRC and had to wait several hours for the next WC train so I climbed into the cab of the WCs and took a nap...

Woops!

[Anonymous]

Randy can explain the governor valves, but to help you understand his answer I will chime in a few basic ideas about governors.

Your typical mechanical governor has other components, but basicaly, flywheights, a spring, and a balance bar. The flyweights are spinning when the engine is running, and their centrifugal force pushes a collar that moves the balance bar in a direction that moves the injectors to less fuel. On the other end is the spring, which moves the balance bar in the direction of more fuel. The balance bar has a break in it, where input from the shutdown lever enters.

Changing spring pressure changes how hard the flywheights have to pu***o decrease fuel, which they do with greater force as engine speed increases. At some point balance between spring force and flyweights are achieved. The shutdown lever "breaks" the balance bar so that the spring and the flyweights relax and the fuel rod moves to "no fuel" position. When the shutdown lever is in run position, the balance bar cannot move below idle position. This is a bare bones explanation of a mechanical governor.

There are diferent types of governor. A limiting speed or LS governor, gives direct control of engine speed, but only between a minimum and maximum rpm, this is typical of truck and automobile engines. It is possible to let the clutch out without touching the throttle, and the governor will pick up the load.

A constant speed or CS governor holds engine rpm to a single set rpm, and will vary fuel output to keep that rpm. This is typical of stationary engines.

A variable speed governor or you guessed it, VS governor, is like a CS governor, but the set point can be varied. This seems to be the type used in locomotives.

An LS/VS governor is typical in trucks with a large PTO, like a garbage truck. when you hear the engine go to a single higher rpm while the hydraulics are being used, the governor is in VS operation. Often in the cab there is an adjustment for VS rpm.

The type of governor in a locomotive engine is not mechanical but hydraulic, which is typical of larger engines because of the amount of force needed to move the fuel racks.

I have not been able to find a way to buy an engine manual directly from EMD or GE, but have seen used ones for sale on E-bay. But, if you go to your nearest Detroit Diesel dealer, buy the 71 series manual because the way it is set up, it is an excellent primer of everything you need to know about operation and maintenance of diesel engines. It has been written so that somebody with no prior knowledge can operate and maintain a diesel engine.

[Anonymous]

Inside all those electronic boxes is magic smoke. If you let the smoke out, they stop working!