Concept for a Safe Oil Train

[tree68]

Euclid

But I don't think anybody has proposed the effect of controlling that I am suggesting. 

There may be a reason for that...

[Euclid]

dehusman

Euclid

I believe this idea of controlling derailments has barely, if ever, been explored before. 

If you ignore air brakes, shelf couplers, guard rails in curves and on bridges, dragging equipment detectors, runaway tracks, etc. you are correct.

The best examples are guard rails and shelf couplers.  I don't think runaway tracks count.  Air brakes stop the train, and it is good for a derailing train to stop.  But they also often cause derailments or make a derlailment worse.

But I don't think anybody has proposed the effect of controlling that I am suggesting.  Maybe it has been proposed.  If so, I would be interested in seeing the proposal.  It might be an objective that has been targeted for passenger trains. 

[Anonymous]

Euclid

Murray

Why did Bucky change his name?

Euclid is the name; father of geometry is the game.

Thanks for the clarification Bucky.

[Euclid]

Murray

Why did Bucky change his name?

Euclid is the name; father of geometry is the game.

[dehusman]

Euclid

 I believe this idea of controlling derailments has barely, if ever, been explored before. 

 

If you ignore air brakes, shelf couplers, guard rails in curves and on bridges, dragging equipment detectors, runaway tracks, etc. you are correct.

[dehusman]

daveklepper

It is not the weight of the car that causes the friction, but the magnetic attraction.  Stopping like an automobile may be an exaggeration considering the greater weight of a loaded tankcar compared with an interurban or light rail car or streetcar.  But it will certainly be a very great improvement over disk or tread brakes alone.

 

Do you have any information on how the track structure will stand up to absorbing the force of stopping 100 286k tank cars in 200 ft?  Will the ballast and tie structure be able to handle that amount of loading? Will it shove the rails out of alignment in a curve?  The conventional system puts a lot of the energy into heat either burning the brake shoes or burning flat spots in the wheels.  Even at that the rail at the bottom of a hill can be shoved out of alignment by heavy braking.  With magnetic systems  there will be a lot more force transferred to the rails (and thus ties and ballast).  Stopping an oil train is several orders of magnitude higher than stopping a trolley car.  Will a stop by a magnetic system load up forces in the rails that may result in a subsequent train derailing if it stops in the same area?

[Anonymous]

Norm48327

BaltACD

Good idea Balt.

I'll bring the butter and salt.

This thread is going nowhere but in Bucky's usual circles.

Why did Bucky change his name?

[Euclid]

When it comes to controlling a train derailment, you need a tool that is big and powerful.  The best tool is a train. 

[Norm48327]

"I believe this idea of controlling derailments has barely, if ever, been explored before."

Probably because the laws of physics have never been repealed.

[Euclid]

Norm48327

I think rather than trying to stop a derail once it starts it's better to prevent it to begin with.  I think that is a much better and less costly approach than redesigning a train.

Adding a lot of sensors does lead to what might be called a redesigned train.  It takes sensors, cabling, connectors, processing, and a program of detection and response. 

But more to the point, I am not proposing the control of derailments to the exclusion of preventing them.  It does not have to be one or the other.  Indeed, I have mentioned several times that the electronic cable that is fundamental with ECP brakes also lends itself to transmitting data from sensors not directly related to ECP.  Those extra sensors can prevent derailments by detecting trouble before it causes a derailment. 

But I don’t think it is realistic to expect to prevent all derailments by the use of sensors.  Derailments can be caused by train or track.  Sensors can be applied to both.  Here is a document that details the prevention of freight train derailments by the use of sensors and ECP brakes:  http://www.era.europa.eu/Document-Register/Documents/DNV%20Study%20-%20Final%20A4%20Report%20-%2020110419%20-%20Public.pdf

So I see nothing wrong with using sensors to prevent derailments.  But what I am proposing here is to mitigate the destructive nature of derailments that are bound to occur despite sensors.  I believe this idea of controlling derailments has barely, if ever, been explored before. 

[daveklepper]

Is not that exactly what I am trying to do with the repurposed slip control used as a derailment detector and emergency magnetic track brakes to suppliment the usual tread brakes?

[Norm48327]

schlimm

Norm48327

This thread is going nowhere but in Bucky's usual circles.

I don't think that is true in this case.  You, dhusman, Dave Klepper, Overmod and others have made a lot of interesting and useful posts well beyond Euclid/Bucky's.

schlim,

I think rather than trying to stop a derail once it starts it's better to prevent it to begin with. That was the emphasis of the article in the March issue. The company developing this equipment in cooperation with BNSF is aiming to catch any and all defects prior to an incident so the offending car can be set out before trouble begins. I think that is a much better and less costly approach than redesigning a train.

[daveklepper]

Overmod

daveklepper

With magnetic track brakes, it goes into friction between the magnetic shoe and the rail.   Rail wear? Sure.

I thought at least some of this was eddy-current braking.  ISTR some of the streetcar brakes working this way, with nonfrictional contact being touted as an advantage.  Surely that makes better sense than mutual magnetic attraction with a friction acting at right angles?

And have you actually calculated the amount of magnetic current, and the path for the lines of force, necassary to provide orthogonal clamping force of the designed magnitude when the only available material for the magnet to attract is... a rail section? What's saturation for a length of rail?

When I run some preliminary numbers and compare them against the mass of loaded freightcars, I do NOT see 'automobile-like' stopping distances.   Can you provide some sample physics, including required currents (and friction material on your track shoe or sled) for substantiation?

I repeat (perhaps erroneously) that I expect some leverage transfer of car weight onto the frictions before a system of track brakes actually produces short stopping distances -- this would use 'electromagnetism' more for the deployment and release control than to exert the force to induce friction.  Not saying that would be a good idea as a default emergency-brake option...

1.  It is a combination of eddy current and firction.  Both produce heat.  But the rails are obviously better heat sinks than even 400 freightcar wheels.

And you are again correct, that is intended iin an oil train, FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY

But the point is, this is all existing technology getting a new application.   The derailment detector is just repurposed slip control apparatus.  Magnetic track brakes have been around since 1912, maybe earlier.  I am not going to argue whether couplers or drawbars are better.  For a test train, I would like to see couplers so the coupler technology can be perffected and demonstrated.   I think the train should be tested in a variety of lanes and lengths of consists.  Some with distributed power.   Because of electrical control, even normal braking will be faster, and the uniformity of cars will help with electric brake control in train handling.   But it should also, at the engineer's discrsion, allow for normal airbrake operaton, but with the graduated release feature taken from passenger equipment, to allow slack control when desired.  In all of this, I would give the engineer as many options for brake and power control as possible.

Magentic track brakes were used on both the Cincinnati and Lake Erie "Red Devils" and on the Indiana High Speeds, and the latter ran in three and occasionally four car trains.  This is admittadly a far cry from 100 cars.   That is why I stress that the cars must be identacle.  Possibly a reason for couplers is that train length must exactly fit the load.  We cannot have empties and fulls in the same train, either all full or all empty.  (As experience is developed, this problem can also be solved with two settings for each car.)

It is not the weight of the car that causes the friction, but the magnetic attraction.  Stopping like an automobile may be an exaggeration considering the greater weight of a loaded tankcar compared with an interurban or light rail car or streetcar.  But it will certainly be a very great improvement over disk or tread brakes alone.

[schlimm]

Norm48327

This thread is going nowhere but in Bucky's usual circles.

I don't think that is true in this case.  You, dhusman, Dave Klepper, Overmod and others have made a lot of interesting and useful posts well beyond Euclid/Bucky's.

[Norm48327]

BaltACD

Good idea Balt.

I'll bring the butter and salt.

This thread is going nowhere but in Bucky's usual circles.

[Euclid]

I don’t know that the solid, semi-permanent drawbars need to be stronger than usual.  The weakest point may be the draft gear, as some have suggested.  But can’t we just omit the draft gear?  Normally, you have coupler slack and draft gear slack.  Coupler slack is needed to provide enough lost motion to free the pin to drop.  Draft gear slack is only needed to cushion coupler slack as it responds to braking propagation and power application. 

So, eliminate the couplers and there is no need for draft gear; and also no more slack.  And it goes perfectly with the ECP brakes which apply simultaneously rather than propagating through the train over time. 

ECP brakes and no slack is a quantum leap in train handling performance potential.         

[Overmod]

Euclid

The point of my proposal is to prevent or reduce the pileup effect of a derailment at speed.  Such pileups have the potential to produce an enormous crushing force that is capable of rupturing tank cars even if they are strengthened to the newly planned standards of crashworthiness.

One of the interesting things to me about the way this thread has been developing is that much of the 'opposition' to the plan involves the exclusive use of very heavy/strong drawbars (without much discussion of the draft gear arrangement between them and a presumably-armored center sill).  To the full extent that the braking system mods can keep a derailed car or cars  -straight' while decelerating, a more normal combination of drawbar, and 'antitorque' provision will fully accomplish the job.  Meanwhile, if the braking fails to work as necessary, just about any drawbar that has meaningful draft-gear attachment will not prevent a tendency for car ends to misalign up to accordioning...the 'real' issue being more that throwing all the torque and eccentric loading on what amounts to no more than two knuckles and pins is more likely to produce separation than whatever is in the draft gear at either end of one of the drawbars.

I don't see anything about maintaining, say, a ten-car set of dedicated unit-train tanks than would be required for something like a FuelFoiler, and it's not 'that' difficult to devise means of handling and servicing road failures of the kinds that have been hinted at.  On the other hand, you will NOT want 60-car blocks of oil cars semipermanently joined -- this is not a coal train, and isn't run or serviced as one.  What I might concentrate on, at this point, is what's involved in making the drawbars field-demountable without compromising their strength -- and providing means to disconnect the electrical and air, etc. in the field under inclement conditions, etc. -- and designing a proper torque-resistant kind of coupling (it can be proprietary in this intended service) that has the strength expected of a 'drawbar' while being easily mated and separated by normal procedures.

[Euclid]

CLARIFICATION FOR THIS THREAD:

I made an original proposal for a new oil train concept to address the rising regulatory response to the public safety concern about exploding oil trains.  My concept is detailed on page one of this thread.

There have been many comments and questions, and along the way, Dave Klepper has proposed his own concept for accomplishing what my concept intends to accomplish.  I am certainly willing to consider Dave’s proposal, but so far, I prefer my approach to the oil train safety improvement.

I do not fully understand Dave’s proposal, and I have several questions about it that I will post soon.  But in the meantime, I will clarify that I am not proposing magnetic brakes with the objective of stopping the train as quickly as possible. That is part of Dave’s proposal.   

While I don’t expect the industry to jump onboard my concept, I do want to lay it out in the public domain.  I am working on a fully detailed and illustrated presentation article to explain it further.  This is not science fiction or pie in the sky.  It is just a new combination of basic railroad technology.  It is certainly far less grandiose than universal PTC, for example. 

The point of my proposal is to prevent or reduce the pileup effect of a derailment at speed.  Such pileups have the potential to produce an enormous crushing force that is capable of rupturing tank cars even if they are strengthened to the newly planned standards of crashworthiness.

As a pileup grows in size, it becomes more and more unyielding.  The string of cars rolling in behind the pileup are still on the rails and perfectly guided into the heap like a baseball into a catcher’s glove.  The force has nowhere to go other than being dissipated in the complete crushing of cars.  It is like the effect of a freight train crashing into another freight train inside of a tunnel.       

[Overmod]

daveklepper

With magnetic track brakes, it goes into friction between the magnetic shoe and the rail.   Rail wear? Sure.

I thought at least some of this was eddy-current braking.  ISTR some of the streetcar brakes working this way, with nonfrictional contact being touted as an advantage.  Surely that makes better sense than mutual magnetic attraction with a friction acting at right angles?

And have you actually calculated the amount of magnetic current, and the path for the lines of force, necassary to provide orthogonal clamping force of the designed magnitude when the only available material for the magnet to attract is... a rail section? What's saturation for a length of rail?

When I run some preliminary numbers and compare them against the mass of loaded freightcars, I do NOT see 'automobile-like' stopping distances.   Can you provide some sample physics, including required currents (and friction material on your track shoe or sled) for substantiation?

I repeat (perhaps erroneously) that I expect some leverage transfer of car weight onto the frictions before a system of track brakes actually produces short stopping distances -- this would use 'electromagnetism' more for the deployment and release control than to exert the force to induce friction.  Not saying that would be a good idea as a default emergency-brake option...

[daveklepper]

With magnetic track brakes, it goes into friction between the magnetic shoe and the rail.   Rail wear? Sure.

Certain PCC operated lines in Brooklyn developed corregated track at car stops because the emergency feature was being used routinely instead  of being reserved for emergencies.  A stop was put  to this practice.   In addition to the rail not liking it, neither  did the standing passengers.

And yes, it will stop a 100-car freight train as quickly as an automoble can stop   -if all cars are identacle and all brakes adjusted the same way.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

As mentioned before, where does all of the kinetic energy go when a sudden stop occurs?  Most of the proposals made tend to sound like a lot of the "gee-whiz" technology that could be found in the pages of "Popular Science".

[Modelcar]

Gentlemen...I have no knowledge concerning the braking discussion taking place here...However just one comment.

The statement:  with magnetic brakes on ea. {railroad}, car it brakes to a stop in an emergency as fast as an automobile does in an emergency.

A modern automobile can brake to a stop with full effort applied thru it's braking system in a very short order.  Example:  From 60 mph to 0 mph in a range of 100 ft. to perhaps 125 ft...!!

 

[BaltACD]

[Euclid]

As I have mentioned, onboard detectors or sensors will be a key component of the oil train concept that I am proposing.  To start with, it needs derailment sensors as an essential ingredient to the design.  Those would probably detect a derailment occurrence based on several different inputs such as car alignment with the rest of the train, vibration, truck tracking, and sound.  Some of this input might actually begin before a car derails.

There are a variety of onboard sensors that have been considered for trains, but they all require a means of data transmission.  Because ECP brakes require a data transmission cable for control, that cable is also then available for all the sensors that might be applied to the train.  So this expanded use of the cable is considered to be one of the big benefits of ECP.  It opens the door to the extensive application of onboard sensors. 

[dehusman]

Norm48327

Something I see being totally ignored in this thread is finding defects on cars that can prevent derails. I'm referring to an article in the March issue about BNSF installing and testing detectors that evaluate truck performance while a train is on the move. What they are testing is much more comprehensive than the average hotbox detector. It appears one of those sophisticated detectors could have found the broken axle that derailed the grain train in the North Dakota accident. Wouldn't installing such detectors be more practical and less costly than redesigning a train?

 

Its been mentioned before by various people (including me) that improved defect detectors is one way to improve safety across the board.  Having said that it might not have been possible to detect the ND derailment.  Without knowing the exact cause, if it was a broken axle  or a wheel that came loose, there are no detectors that can find those defects (until the wheel comes loose).  The up side is those defects are relatively rare (in 2013 nationwide there were 20 broken/bent axle incidents and 7 loose wheel incidents, or 0.4% of the incidents reported to the FRA in 2013).  The ND incident was one of those being struck by lightning while being attacked by a shark on the day you win the lottery odds kind of things.

 

There are detectors for the journals overheating, some acoustical journal detectors, dragging equipment, cracked wheels, wide loads, shifted loads and wheel impacts.

 

[Norm48327]

Something I see being totally ignored in this thread is finding defects on cars that can prevent derails. I'm referring to an article in the March issue about BNSF installing and testing detectors that evaluate truck performance while a train is on the move. What they are testing is much more comprehensive than the average hotbox detector. It appears one of those sophisticated detectors could have found the broken axle that derailed the grain train in the North Dakota accident. Wouldn't installing such detectors be more practical and less costly than redesigning a train?

[daveklepper]

There are, of course, major savings in first cost and in maintenance through the use of drawbars.  However, for the first test train, I woujld recommend couplers on all cars, so the train can be tested in a variety of haxmat liqiuid applications' lanes, with the number of cars exactly suited to the test situation.

[daveklepper]

There may applications for both ideas, Euclid, but the kind of modern coupler used on mu cars has the same advantages that drawbars do, in that they are stronger, have far less play, and carry the electrical and air connections.

[Euclid]

I don’t think the semi-permanent coupling would be a showstopper.  It might require doing some things differently, but whole train concept that I am proposing is not business as usual, to say the least.  This sort of coupling is not common is because there has not been a good reason to use it.  Yet, there are several positive benefits to the train concept that I am proposing that are provided by the use the semi-permanent drawbars as follows:

1)    Semi-permanent drawbars eliminate slack for better train control which is highly beneficial for a train such as I am proposing with an ultra-sophisticated, enhanced ECP brake system intended to mitigate the destructive effect of a derailment.

 2)    Semi-permanent drawbars eliminate the electric/electronic connectors which have proven to be a weak point in the ECP brake system.

 3)    Semi-permanent drawbars eliminate the air hose couplings which are prone to leaks.

 4)    Semi-permanent drawbars provide the strongest coupler method which has the greatest ability to stay connected during derailments; a characteristic that is crucial to the train concept I am proposing.   

In 1970, the Duluth Messabe & Iron Range RR used semi-permanent drawbars to connect ore cars in sets of four.   The advantage cited was “fewer couplers and air-hose connections resulting in easier handling and fewer breakdowns.”  It is from this reference:

 http://books.google.com/books?id=cYs_kM1qAOgC&pg=PA24&dq=reason+for+dm%26ir+quad+cars&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OEr4UsjLDs2FyQGm9YDgDg&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=reason%20for%20dm%26ir%20quad%20cars&f=false

[dehusman]

tree68

 

I would imagine the equipment uses standard railroad brake systems.  

Then, again, I could be mistaken - it's possible that the "semi-permanent" connection is a hose, not a drawbar....

 

They were tank trains, they were "conventional" cars with a hose connecting them so that you could pump  the oil out of the train from one location.  The "semi-permanent connections" are the hoses between the cars.