edblysard BroadwayLion dehusman The type of road crossing has no impact on the speed of the railroad. A dirt crossing can be on 70 mph track the same as a concrete panel crossing. The railroads don't really want "quiet zones". In most cases they would prefer not to have them. There tend to be more accidents in quiet zones. Quiet zones are favored by the cities and the cities pay for them. Better crossings are favored by teh cities and the cities pay for them. You have it pretty much backwards. Yup. The LION knows nothing. But now him knows more than before. And it makes such an interesting conversation, don't you think? If I do not post my ideas, who will give me new ideas. Besides, I still like my ideas. There is better monitoring of the lading, of the wheel sets, and better more uniform braking. NYCT has guard rails and timbers all over the place and seem to have no trouble inspecting them. The Chicago Transit Authority, not so. They got problems with thier inspections. ROAR BroadwayLion dehusman The type of road crossing has no impact on the speed of the railroad. A dirt crossing can be on 70 mph track the same as a concrete panel crossing. The railroads don't really want "quiet zones". In most cases they would prefer not to have them. There tend to be more accidents in quiet zones. Quiet zones are favored by the cities and the cities pay for them. Better crossings are favored by teh cities and the cities pay for them. You have it pretty much backwards. Yup. The LION knows nothing. But now him knows more than before. And it makes such an interesting conversation, don't you think? If I do not post my ideas, who will give me new ideas. Besides, I still like my ideas. There is better monitoring of the lading, of the wheel sets, and better more uniform braking. NYCT has guard rails and timbers all over the place and seem to have no trouble inspecting them. The Chicago Transit Authority, not so. They got problems with thier inspections. ROAR Brother , If I was looking for an informed, detailed answer to a theological question, or wanted to understand life in a monastery, or wanted to engage in a discussion on the relevance of religion in modern societies, I would seek out an expert on such matters, one such as you, who lives the life and has first hand, real life time experience...makes sense to ask the guy with hands on time, right? What startles me is that in this and other threads, experienced guys who do this for a living have tried to explain, several times over and in many way, why you have to have some slack in a freight train. There is Jeff, a UP engineer who does this every day, Paul North and MC, who design and build railroad s for a living, Zugman, who is now a engineer and was a conductor, (experience both on the ground and on the seatbox), Balt, who is management at CSX, D huesman who is also in mid management, and myself, who not only runs loaded oil trains every week, but flat switches all kinds of freight every day...all of us are in one way or another saying the same thing. Transit equipment and passenger equipment do have slack, but most of that is negated by the draft bumpers the cars are equipped with, and the cars all have suspension designed to offer a smooth ride for the contents, namely delicate easily damaged humans. Freight cars do not have to offer such care, because the contents really don't care if the ride is super smooth or not. There has to be some vertical movement between the coupler faces to compensate for small track defects, high frog points, batter rail ends and small roadbed defects...there has to be slack in between the faces to allow the car to negotiate curves, both mainline and in yards, and there has to be a wide gathering swing to the couplers to allow for switching....cars are humped or flat switched, it is totally uneconomical to shove each car to a coupling, it would increase dwell times to the point you couldn't run trains. Tightlock or shelf couplers were designed to keep cars locked together in the event of a derailment, the vertical movement is handled by springs under and above the coupler shank, the coupler has it's own suspension system to allow for the above mentioned small track defects...these couplers were mandated for all hazardous tank cars years ago, with retrofit programs and mandates for new construction. Another concern for me is the attitude both you and Euclid seem to hint at in most of your postings, that being that railroad management is made up of Neanderthals, robber barons whose only concern is "raping" the public for every dime they can and resist change simply because it is part of their DNA...that and the patronizing attitude that most railroaders are somewhat mentally slow slightly moronic blue collar dolts who couldn't pick their noses without someone "smarter" than themselves giving them instructions, nothing could be farther from the truth, but of course, without a villain the whole "us versus the evil company and it's minions" thing doesn't work, right? You both fail to understand that the carriers have to accept the cars offered, by law we can't refuse the cars if the placard matches the paperwork, and the cars passes a normal FRA defect inspection, then we move it...period. Railroads don't own many cars, shippers and banks do, we don't build them either, and while the carriers, through the AAR do have some input with design and specifications, we don't have much control over that aspect either. That said, we do have the ability to charge for handling cars we would prefer not to, take BNSF's current $1000.00 surcharge on crude in DOT111 cars, and I expect UP, KCS, CSX and NS to follow suite. The issue is not with the cars...at 45 mph, if a loaded tank car runs into anything stationary, like another railcar, or a house or building, a tree or just the ground, something is going to break. If you don't believe anything else, understand and believe this...once the flanges are on the outside of the rails, whatever else happens is purely a crapshoot. Next derailment, a broken rail might rip the sides out of five or six cars, or it might just fold back out of the way. A busted tie can send any tank car, no matter how it is designed or equipped, end over end, or sideways, or have no impact on the car at all...pretty much anything goes. The only reasons the cars are under scrutiny is because the media, or press if you will, understands that sensational stories sell, and that's what they are in business to do, sell news, (and advertising spots)...the politicians are jumping on this is because they understand and want their names sold in the news too...it is a win win for them no matter what. In one of the threads here, in one of the reports from the NTSB or the FRA, the author has the best, most safest and economical solution already...list all such crude, all tar sand and shale crudes as class 2 flammable gases, let railroads run the unit trains as Key trains on dedicated routes( which the railroads already maintain better than you realize for that very reason)...the shipper pays more for the movement, still less than building an entire new fleet of cars, the carrier already has the routes, crews and all than in place, and you price the movement in such a manner as to create the smallest impact on the cost passed on to the end user. Its not an equipment issue, or a track issue, it is an operational issue. What really amazes me more is that there are commodities out there that make this crude look like a puddle of lighter fuel next to a tank of Liquid oxygen..put a match to one, you get a little poof...the other goes boom...big badda boom! You even notice chlorine cars in any of the trains by your monastery? You do understand that what is inside that car is 100% chlorine, not the stuff in your laundry bleach, which is 3% chlorine and 97% distilled water? Here is a easy experiment for you...go into the laundry, pour a 1/4 cup of laundry bleach into a measuring cup, take that into your bathroom, close the door and windows, and pour the bleach out onto the tile floor....if you can stay in that room more than 30 seconds, you need to join an Ironman competition. That's a mild 3% solution...the tank car is 100%....yet we, (railroads) have managed to haul this stuff over a century and still not killed half the population of the US....and trust me, if you bang a hole in a chlorine car, what leaks out will kill everything within a hundred yards. The grass, the trees, the roaches, birds and people, it all dies....yet no one seems to care we haul stuff like that, and other stuff that makes even chlorine look tame. All this uproar over oil that burns....really? Oil burns? Go figure...
BroadwayLion dehusman The type of road crossing has no impact on the speed of the railroad. A dirt crossing can be on 70 mph track the same as a concrete panel crossing. The railroads don't really want "quiet zones". In most cases they would prefer not to have them. There tend to be more accidents in quiet zones. Quiet zones are favored by the cities and the cities pay for them. Better crossings are favored by teh cities and the cities pay for them. You have it pretty much backwards. Yup. The LION knows nothing. But now him knows more than before. And it makes such an interesting conversation, don't you think? If I do not post my ideas, who will give me new ideas. Besides, I still like my ideas. There is better monitoring of the lading, of the wheel sets, and better more uniform braking. NYCT has guard rails and timbers all over the place and seem to have no trouble inspecting them. The Chicago Transit Authority, not so. They got problems with thier inspections. ROAR
dehusman The type of road crossing has no impact on the speed of the railroad. A dirt crossing can be on 70 mph track the same as a concrete panel crossing. The railroads don't really want "quiet zones". In most cases they would prefer not to have them. There tend to be more accidents in quiet zones. Quiet zones are favored by the cities and the cities pay for them. Better crossings are favored by teh cities and the cities pay for them. You have it pretty much backwards.
Yup. The LION knows nothing. But now him knows more than before. And it makes such an interesting conversation, don't you think?
If I do not post my ideas, who will give me new ideas.
Besides, I still like my ideas. There is better monitoring of the lading, of the wheel sets, and better more uniform braking.
NYCT has guard rails and timbers all over the place and seem to have no trouble inspecting them. The Chicago Transit Authority, not so. They got problems with thier inspections.
ROAR
Brother ,
If I was looking for an informed, detailed answer to a theological question, or wanted to understand life in a monastery, or wanted to engage in a discussion on the relevance of religion in modern societies, I would seek out an expert on such matters, one such as you, who lives the life and has first hand, real life time experience...makes sense to ask the guy with hands on time, right?
What startles me is that in this and other threads, experienced guys who do this for a living have tried to explain, several times over and in many way, why you have to have some slack in a freight train.
There is Jeff, a UP engineer who does this every day, Paul North and MC, who design and build railroad s for a living, Zugman, who is now a engineer and was a conductor, (experience both on the ground and on the seatbox), Balt, who is management at CSX, D huesman who is also in mid management, and myself, who not only runs loaded oil trains every week, but flat switches all kinds of freight every day...all of us are in one way or another saying the same thing.
Transit equipment and passenger equipment do have slack, but most of that is negated by the draft bumpers the cars are equipped with, and the cars all have suspension designed to offer a smooth ride for the contents, namely delicate easily damaged humans.
Freight cars do not have to offer such care, because the contents really don't care if the ride is super smooth or not.
There has to be some vertical movement between the coupler faces to compensate for small track defects, high frog points, batter rail ends and small roadbed defects...there has to be slack in between the faces to allow the car to negotiate curves, both mainline and in yards, and there has to be a wide gathering swing to the couplers to allow for switching....cars are humped or flat switched, it is totally uneconomical to shove each car to a coupling, it would increase dwell times to the point you couldn't run trains.
Tightlock or shelf couplers were designed to keep cars locked together in the event of a derailment, the vertical movement is handled by springs under and above the coupler shank, the coupler has it's own suspension system to allow for the above mentioned small track defects...these couplers were mandated for all hazardous tank cars years ago, with retrofit programs and mandates for new construction.
Another concern for me is the attitude both you and Euclid seem to hint at in most of your postings, that being that railroad management is made up of Neanderthals, robber barons whose only concern is "raping" the public for every dime they can and resist change simply because it is part of their DNA...that and the patronizing attitude that most railroaders are somewhat mentally slow slightly moronic blue collar dolts who couldn't pick their noses without someone "smarter" than themselves giving them instructions, nothing could be farther from the truth, but of course, without a villain the whole "us versus the evil company and it's minions" thing doesn't work, right?
You both fail to understand that the carriers have to accept the cars offered, by law we can't refuse the cars if the placard matches the paperwork, and the cars passes a normal FRA defect inspection, then we move it...period.
Railroads don't own many cars, shippers and banks do, we don't build them either, and while the carriers, through the AAR do have some input with design and specifications, we don't have much control over that aspect either.
That said, we do have the ability to charge for handling cars we would prefer not to, take BNSF's current $1000.00 surcharge on crude in DOT111 cars, and I expect UP, KCS, CSX and NS to follow suite.
The issue is not with the cars...at 45 mph, if a loaded tank car runs into anything stationary, like another railcar, or a house or building, a tree or just the ground, something is going to break.
If you don't believe anything else, understand and believe this...once the flanges are on the outside of the rails, whatever else happens is purely a crapshoot.
Next derailment, a broken rail might rip the sides out of five or six cars, or it might just fold back out of the way.
A busted tie can send any tank car, no matter how it is designed or equipped, end over end, or sideways, or have no impact on the car at all...pretty much anything goes.
The only reasons the cars are under scrutiny is because the media, or press if you will, understands that sensational stories sell, and that's what they are in business to do, sell news, (and advertising spots)...the politicians are jumping on this is because they understand and want their names sold in the news too...it is a win win for them no matter what.
In one of the threads here, in one of the reports from the NTSB or the FRA, the author has the best, most safest and economical solution already...list all such crude, all tar sand and shale crudes as class 2 flammable gases, let railroads run the unit trains as Key trains on dedicated routes( which the railroads already maintain better than you realize for that very reason)...the shipper pays more for the movement, still less than building an entire new fleet of cars, the carrier already has the routes, crews and all than in place, and you price the movement in such a manner as to create the smallest impact on the cost passed on to the end user.
Its not an equipment issue, or a track issue, it is an operational issue.
What really amazes me more is that there are commodities out there that make this crude look like a puddle of lighter fuel next to a tank of Liquid oxygen..put a match to one, you get a little poof...the other goes boom...big badda boom!
You even notice chlorine cars in any of the trains by your monastery?
You do understand that what is inside that car is 100% chlorine, not the stuff in your laundry bleach, which is 3% chlorine and 97% distilled water?
Here is a easy experiment for you...go into the laundry, pour a 1/4 cup of laundry bleach into a measuring cup, take that into your bathroom, close the door and windows, and pour the bleach out onto the tile floor....if you can stay in that room more than 30 seconds, you need to join an Ironman competition.
That's a mild 3% solution...the tank car is 100%....yet we, (railroads) have managed to haul this stuff over a century and still not killed half the population of the US....and trust me, if you bang a hole in a chlorine car, what leaks out will kill everything within a hundred yards.
The grass, the trees, the roaches, birds and people, it all dies....yet no one seems to care we haul stuff like that, and other stuff that makes even chlorine look tame.
All this uproar over oil that burns....really? Oil burns?
Go figure...
Thank you getting so tired of folks that are not railroaders acting like the industry is stupid and they, the posters, have all the answeres. The AAR through is research program spends $20 M + each year on its research/accident reduction program. Guess they should save that money and just listen to what folks here tell them what is the way to go. They have all the solutions the experts should be fired!
Euclid I think oil trains could start without slack.
Based on what experien?
Euclid Paul, I remember Kneiling ruffling feathers with his ideas back in that timeframe. I never did buy his book, but I think I will now. I want to find out how he expected to get trains started with those solid drawbars eliminating the slack.
Yes he ruffled feathers for belittling folks for not doing things they knew wouldn't work and won't even now, ring a bell?
schlimm edblysard I am currently trying to find out more about the underground railroad in Chicago that connected all the downtown stores. True. Not much about it. Before I went back to grad school, I was with Marshall Field & Co. on the buying staff. In the 2nd sub-basement ((among other things such as the large room where the gunsmiths test fired weapons) was Field's entrance to the underground railroad, sealed off by a locked heavy steel door. I always wanted to take a look, but opening it was taboo because it was supposed to be infested with water and rats and we didn't want that problem. The Budget Floor entrance to the State Street subway (Englewood-Howard, now Red line) was problematic enough.
edblysard I am currently trying to find out more about the underground railroad in Chicago that connected all the downtown stores.
True. Not much about it. Before I went back to grad school, I was with Marshall Field & Co. on the buying staff. In the 2nd sub-basement ((among other things such as the large room where the gunsmiths test fired weapons) was Field's entrance to the underground railroad, sealed off by a locked heavy steel door. I always wanted to take a look, but opening it was taboo because it was supposed to be infested with water and rats and we didn't want that problem. The Budget Floor entrance to the State Street subway (Englewood-Howard, now Red line) was problematic enough.
The book "Fourty Feet Under" Covers it all, i'm sure Amason can get you a copy!
beecause he had no practical experience on railroad operations!
BaltACDRail Grinder?
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
BroadwayLiondehusman Search for NYCT images and LOOK at the track. Really LOOK at the track. Then search for pictures of railroad track. Really LOOK at the track. What is different? NYCT track is for the most part on bridge structures, on concrete pads or steel ties. It hlso has very tight curves and a LIVE third rail within inches of workers and equipment. But they get the job done, nonetheless. All MOW equipment is limited to 9' wide and 50' long so that it can access the IRT division. The MOW equipment is built with third rail and tunnel clearances in mind. The CWR cars are old passenger cars with the storm doors removed and the rails pass right through a half dozen of them. The Signal Dolly: No Hi-Rails down here, all work on signals is done from trains like this: The Vacuum Train: Aka the Super Sucker... The RAT... aka The Rail Adhesion Car Welding Cars: Rail Inspection Cars: And Yes, We even have TANK CARS! ROAR
Search for NYCT images and LOOK at the track. Really LOOK at the track. Then search for pictures of railroad track. Really LOOK at the track. What is different? NYCT track is for the most part on bridge structures, on concrete pads or steel ties.
It hlso has very tight curves and a LIVE third rail within inches of workers and equipment. But they get the job done, nonetheless. All MOW equipment is limited to 9' wide and 50' long so that it can access the IRT division. The MOW equipment is built with third rail and tunnel clearances in mind.
The CWR cars are old passenger cars with the storm doors removed and the rails pass right through a half dozen of them.
The Signal Dolly: No Hi-Rails down here, all work on signals is done from trains like this:
The Vacuum Train: Aka the Super Sucker...
The RAT... aka The Rail Adhesion Car
Welding Cars:
Rail Inspection Cars:
And Yes, We even have TANK CARS!
Rail Grinder?
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
dehusmanSearch for NYCT images and LOOK at the track. Really LOOK at the track. Then search for pictures of railroad track. Really LOOK at the track. What is different? NYCT track is for the most part on bridge structures, on concrete pads or steel ties.
Euclid I would start out with dedicated consists having solid, semi-permanently connected drawbars and ECP brakes. From there I would add derailment sensors. At the very least, the sensors could set the brakes as early as possible in the derailment process.
Oil trains are essentially "dedicated consists" - the owners / lessees would scream like mad if the cars were diverted to any other shipper or service.
Many other types of traffic are frequently similar cars in solid consists blocks or entire trains. I saw a grain train on Friday, plus 2 intermodals and a multi-level (auto-rack) in just a few minutes up at Cresson, PA (the summit above Horseshoe Curve). So why must obvious progress take so long ?
- Paul North.
BroadwayLion NYCT has guard rails and timbers all over the place and seem to have no trouble inspecting them. The Chicago Transit Authority, not so. They got problems with thier inspections.
You earlier said you were in the dark because you couldn't see anything. Here is a case when it is obvious if you actually look at what you are talking about.
Search for NYCT images and LOOK at the track. Really LOOK at the track. Then search for pictures of railroad track. Really LOOK at the track. What is different? NYCT track is for the most part on bridge structures, on concrete pads or steel ties. Railroad track for the most part is on ballast. You don't tamp, surface and line concrete pads. You have to tamp, surface and line track on ballast. You can't adequately tamp track with guardrails or track that is buried under timbers.
NYCT track is in a subway or on bridges for the most part. The subway isn't subject to rain, snow, 60 degree temperature swings in a matter of hours. It isn't subjected to heavy loads and trains hundreds of cars long. The only thing its is subject to is frequent trains (if you count trains the frequency is much higher on subways, if you count cars the frequency between a freight railroad and subway line evens out). The freight traffic wears out faster, has more environmental damage and requires more maintanence. The track is more subject to fatigue failure from the tremendous loading cycles.
The railroads have a tremendous investment in the physical plant and its equipment. For example, the largest US railroad, the UP has a an annul captial improvement budget larger than the the highway department budget of 43 of the 50 states.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
gardendance Euclid Or you could leave the wall relatively thin, and add internal rings. But the rings would have to be substantial, and they will add considerable weight. Rings also require a lot of extra welding and make the car harder to clean. I bet they'd add less weight than thickening the entire wall. How often do they clean tank cars now? Do oil tank cars sometimes carry different types of cargo? I would expect that they're dedicated to oil, so why would they need to clean them?
Euclid Or you could leave the wall relatively thin, and add internal rings. But the rings would have to be substantial, and they will add considerable weight. Rings also require a lot of extra welding and make the car harder to clean.
Or you could leave the wall relatively thin, and add internal rings. But the rings would have to be substantial, and they will add considerable weight.
Rings also require a lot of extra welding and make the car harder to clean.
I bet they'd add less weight than thickening the entire wall.
How often do they clean tank cars now? Do oil tank cars sometimes carry different types of cargo? I would expect that they're dedicated to oil, so why would they need to clean them?
edblysardI am currently trying to find out more about the underground railroad in Chicago that connected all the downtown stores.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
After my personal experiences with crude trains I thought that a blanket of inert gas in the car to remove oxygen would at least lower the threat of explosion at the time of impact. There would obviously be a major spill and all the cleanup costs but this would be true with pielines also. The reason pipelines don't explode is a lack of ignition sources, maybe the tank cars need to be made out of aluminum?
I've been in the Chicago tunnels, very interesting.
Randy
Brother Elias,
City boy, country boy or suburban kid, it makes little difference to me.
If I implied otherwise, my apologies.
I don't discredit the input from the "amateur" sector, in fact, throughout history, its the polymaths who seem to make the most significant contributions to science...Ben Franklin, Tomas Jefferson, Da Vinci, Westinghouse and Edison come to mind, people whose broad range of self taught disciplines allowed them to make discoveries that still have impact long after their deaths.
These guys didn't let the current science of their day interfere with their theories and experiments, and look at what they accomplished.
And I don't discredit you for trying to learn more, nor do I offer a blanket dismissal of your idea, rather usefulness and application of the idea.
Its like a Lamborghini Aventador compared to a Mini Van...both are automobiles, but with very different purposes, and very different designs to accomplish those purposes.
Its hard to do the soccer mom thing with the Lambo, and a lap on the F1circut in a mini van isn't much fun!
As for my idea for a safer tank car, I wouldn't change much, other than thickening the headshield, (end cap of the tank) and beefing up the protection around the intake and off loading valves.
I agree with the author of the article I mentioned...reclassify the tar, shale and Bakken crude to a flammable gas, classify all trains with 20 or more cars loads of the stuff as Key trains, run them on dedicated specific routes.
And as for your choice of railroads to model...when I was a young man, my Dad was stationed in London, and I got to ride the "tube" a lot...fascinating people mover that is, with its own culture and manners...in fact, under ground and elevated railroads are becoming more interesting to me...I am currently trying to find out more about the underground railroad in Chicago that connected all the downtown stores.
There isn't much on the net about it other than a wiki entry, and one book that seems to be well researched with photographs.
23 17 46 11
Norris,
Depends on your railroad's train handling rules and operational practices, but yes, you bunch up the slack with a small reverse move to create some slack.
With the slack bunched up, when you begin pulling, once the first car starts moving, it's inertia and mass combines with and helps the locomotives start the next car in line, which then adds its inertia and mass to the pulling force, so on and so on back through the train...if you ever listen to a train starting out with the slack bunched, you will realize that the coupler noise speeds up as more and more as the train begins to move.
With the slack out, starting a train can be a hard pull, especially if the train is in a curve or on a upward incline, even a small grade can cause problems, you are trying to move all that mass and weight at once, instead of one car at a time.
Again, each railroad has it's own train handling rules, and operating procedures, certain carriers may require DPUs to run the whole trip, some may not, some may add mid train DPU, some simply keep more then enough head end power on the train to make slack a non issue, each carrier differs.
Down here, most of the seasoned engineers prefer the slack bunched up, even with a rear DPU...just their preference I suppose, but the trains do seem easier to start that way, especially the loaded grain trains, those things are seriously heavy.
We also get unit "steel trains" made up of 70 to 80 loaded coil cars.
Those guys always have a rear DPU, and if the slack is stretched out when you try to start it, the rear unit will bang the heck out of the train, and with all those cushioned center sills, the slack slams everything around pretty good.
Murphy Siding BaltACD edblysard Then you have never started a loaded oil train or a loaded grain train...without a DPU, if the engineer who brought the train in fails to bunch the slack in before he stops, the next engineer will be cussing and discussing his bad train handleing for a while. If the choice was the accordian pattern, or telescoping loaded tank cars...well, I like Zidaco music better. Depends upon the neighborhood where the crew change takes place. If the locals like to cut trains - you stop with the slack streched out to prevent the 'assistant to the brakeman' from pulling the pin. In a case like that, do you have to back the train up first, in order to put in some slack before going forward?
BaltACD edblysard Then you have never started a loaded oil train or a loaded grain train...without a DPU, if the engineer who brought the train in fails to bunch the slack in before he stops, the next engineer will be cussing and discussing his bad train handleing for a while. If the choice was the accordian pattern, or telescoping loaded tank cars...well, I like Zidaco music better. Depends upon the neighborhood where the crew change takes place. If the locals like to cut trains - you stop with the slack streched out to prevent the 'assistant to the brakeman' from pulling the pin.
edblysard Then you have never started a loaded oil train or a loaded grain train...without a DPU, if the engineer who brought the train in fails to bunch the slack in before he stops, the next engineer will be cussing and discussing his bad train handleing for a while. If the choice was the accordian pattern, or telescoping loaded tank cars...well, I like Zidaco music better.
Then you have never started a loaded oil train or a loaded grain train...without a DPU, if the engineer who brought the train in fails to bunch the slack in before he stops, the next engineer will be cussing and discussing his bad train handleing for a while.
If the choice was the accordian pattern, or telescoping loaded tank cars...well, I like Zidaco music better.
Depends upon the neighborhood where the crew change takes place. If the locals like to cut trains - you stop with the slack streched out to prevent the 'assistant to the brakeman' from pulling the pin.
In a case like that, do you have to back the train up first, in order to put in some slack before going forward?
Depends on the terrain - in some cases, release the train brakes and the slack runs in. In others, you may shove back against the brakes to get a small amount of slack before releasing the brakes and starting to pull as each brake releases - there are as many different ways as there are engineers performing the actions.
Reading this thread reminds one of the immortal satirical words of Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire's Candide:
"In this best of all possible worlds, everything is for the best."
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Oh man. I think you said it better than anyone has. Thank you, thank you, Thank you. Railroads are common carriers and by law must accecpt the freight offered. Company presidents, legal depts. & employees are not villans, they want to do a job, earn their pay, and go home after their shift like normal people.
After chlorine, you forgot to include Propane and LNG. I still suspect that the Bakken Crude is much more volitile than most crude and includes significant amounts of propane or Butane like components which are the cause of the fireballs that have occurred. Most crude oil will burn but not explode. Bakken seems too prone to explode and should be labeled as explosive. And handled accordingly.
Euclid My ideas are based on practical knowledge. But I would never expect to convince someone that an idea has merit simply because I say it does, and expect them to believe it because I have practical knowledge. The best approach is to explain the idea in terms that others can understand, and let them decide whether the idea has merit.
Are you saying you have experience as railroad operating personnel, maintenance, or other occupations in the industry?
Norm
dehusman Neither Euclid nor Lion have any practical knowledge of derailments or track/train dynamics They just have pet projects and that is the solution to everything. Lion models subways so the answer is obviously subway train couplers.
edblysardThat's a mild 3% solution...the tank car is 100%....yet we, (railroads) have managed to haul this stuff over a century and still not killed half the population of the US....and trust me, if you bang a hole in a chlorine car, what leaks out will kill everything within a hundred yards. The grass, the trees, the roaches, birds and people, it all dies....yet no one seems to care we haul stuff like that, and other stuff that makes even chlorine look tame. All this uproar over oil that burns....really? Oil burns?
Chlorine? We get a lot of that stuff around here. There was a rail leak of that stuff up in Minot a few years back. The residents wondered why EMS did not come to their door and tell them to stay inside. EMS understandably enough, went the other way and got them selves out of dodge. At least they would be alive to assist people when it was safe to go back in. And actually, I do not remember if there were any deaths with that one.
I really do appreciate what you have written, as it makes things much more clear.
I do not belittle anybody who works, that is a great gift in itself. And to have things explained so patiently surely helps. If your train brings you up to North Dakota, be sure to stop in and say hello.
Even though I live in North Dakota, I am still a 'city boy', and do like the subway system.
But tell me, since everybody (at least those who write newspapers, whose thoughts I take with a 50# block of salt) thinks that "something should be done" what would you do to design a perfect freight car or train. Curious minds would like to know.
Meanwhile, I have some locomotives on my work bench that want some service.
Lucky for me all the unit trains we handle terminate in our receiving yard, and go to the final destination with no stops after that, so the assistant brakeman issue is not that much of a problem for us....besides, it seems to be more of a engineers issue, they hate having to bunch up the slack first for some reason....I dont really care myself, I am smart enought to wait till the train is moving in the right direction with all the slack out before I pour my coffee!
dehusmanThe type of road crossing has no impact on the speed of the railroad. A dirt crossing can be on 70 mph track the same as a concrete panel crossing. The railroads don't really want "quiet zones". In most cases they would prefer not to have them. There tend to be more accidents in quiet zones. Quiet zones are favored by the cities and the cities pay for them. Better crossings are favored by teh cities and the cities pay for them. You have it pretty much backwards.
BroadwayLion The slack or no-slack will not change the possibility of a derailment. But in the event of a derailment, couplers that will not let go will reduce the accordion effects of the event, and could prevent punctures of the equipment. What a transit type coupler does buy you is an electrical train line of controls. Brakes applied by electrical command apply to the whole train at once, helping to prevent a run-in accordion event. The train is handled like a pipe instead of a rope.
The slack or no-slack will not change the possibility of a derailment. But in the event of a derailment, couplers that will not let go will reduce the accordion effects of the event, and could prevent punctures of the equipment.
What a transit type coupler does buy you is an electrical train line of controls. Brakes applied by electrical command apply to the whole train at once, helping to prevent a run-in accordion event. The train is handled like a pipe instead of a rope.
Not so much on either count.
A train is a chain, not a rope or a pipe. It is made up of rigid links (cars) that can rotate with respect to each other (coupling systems). Regarless of the coupler/drawbar system, the cars have to be able to rotate with respect to each other to negoiate curves (and switches). With a conventional coupler that rotation occurs in the coupler, between the knuckles, and in the draft gear. With a drabar or a rigid couling system that rotation occurs in the draft gear where the coupler attaches to the car. Either way, the same cars going around the same curve have to allow for the same amount of rotation. Depending on the length of the drawbars and the distance from the centers and the distance between the truck centers, the forcesay be more or less than with conventional couplers.
In any case its not a pipe and they will not prevent cars from accordianing.
Combine this with guard rails and timbers through towns and cities will help to keep an event to the right of way. Perhaps steel and concrete walls will help retain equipment and will certainly help in noise abatement.
Guardrails make maintenance difficult and really aren't that effective against loaded cars. I really don't know what you are expecting timbers to do.
The BIGGEST advantage to such VISIBLE IMPROVEMENTS is to keep the public and the lackey lllllest media off of your caboose. Visible efforts even of little value do have great value when looked at differentlly.
Only if they work. If they end up reducing safety by making it more difficult to maintain or inspect the track then they aren't very good from either an operational or a publicity standpoint.
Adding the guard rails and timbers, and installing sound walls go a long way to mittigate the public and their press.
As long as you can keep the public and the press from talking to somebody who knows anything about derailment prevention it will work. As soon as they find the first person who has any actual knowledge of railroad operations, the jig is up. It may be the press and the public are that uninformed. Obviously you are. Sothey could do those thing and they would fool you into thinking they had done something good. I think there are enough people out there that will know the difference that it wouldn't last very long. Why would you want the railroad to waste money on things that don't work, wouldn't it be better to use their resources on doing things that actually improve safety?
The railroad does not *have* to improve the grade crossings, but doing so will allow them to operate at higher speeds, and will allow the railroad to proactively institue quiet zones to head off complaints before they occur. This is important to the peaceful operation of the railroad.
The type of road crossing has no impact on the speed of the railroad. A dirt crossing can be on 70 mph track the same as a concrete panel crossing. The railroads don't really want "quiet zones". In most cases they would prefer not to have them. There tend to be more accidents in quiet zones. Quiet zones are favored by the cities and the cities pay for them. Better crossings are favored by teh cities and the cities pay for them. You have it pretty much backwards.
Is the LION all wet?
You are probably qualified to serve at a Baptist order since you are doing full immersion.
edblysardIf the choice was the accordian pattern, or telescoping loaded tank cars...well, I like Zidaco music better.
Well, now we are looking at physics and load management. Just because you slow the train car down does not mean that the oil inside of the train car is going to slow down very much. There are no brakes for the lading inside of an oil car. It wants to move. There is no doubt about that.
But better train control? Electric brakes are better than air brakes since application is uniform across the whole train. Perhaps the derailment can be avoided. Maintaining the track and ROW goes a long way in preventing a derailment. Of the three most recent disasters that made the head lines...
1) Lake Megantic: Failure to apply sufficient hand (parking) brakes. System of LION would apply all parking brakes at once.
2) Casselton: Derailment on adjacent tracks fouled the mainline with the oil train too close to react. . Prayers Required. Keeping that train in line and moving might have mitigated the issue, but brobably not.
3) Some Swampy River down south: Clearly bad track and maintenance. An ROW problem. Train should not have been on such a marginal line in the first place.
DICKINSON ND) The Bakken Oli Express Terminal: No problems that I have ever heard of and that thing has been up and running for more than four years.
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