One man crews: Spread the enthusiasm

[Euclid]

tree68

 

 

Euclid

How could you find a dynamiter by the conductor walking the train?

 

 

See Jeff's post.

 

 

I did read Jeff's post.  He explained two methods of preventing a dynamiter from dynamiting.  I want to know how you find a dynamiter by walking the train.  I suppose you could find it if it dynamited right alongside of you.  

[tree68]

Euclid

How could you find a dynamiter by the conductor walking the train?

See Jeff's post.

[Euclid]

My impression in reading the story was that it was a case of bad train handling and the engineer was using an alleged dynamiter as an excuse. I think he told the official something to the effect of "It was an act of God and God was not the engineer."  The gist of the story was that the engineer really put the official in his place.  I wrote to the magazine and asked how the engineer knew which car was the dynamiter.  

I also asked an engineer that I knew, and he said the only way you could find a dynamiter is if there was fresh snow on the ground so you could see the first car to dynamite by the plume of snow.  

How could you find a dynamiter by the conductor walking the train?

[rfpjohn]

We used the feed valve method to get around "kickers", as we always called them. This involved running the feed valve setting up about 5 lbs to "unbalance" the train line, then slowly reduce the brake pipe pressure, using the feed valve, to get the desired brake application. Lots of fun! You now had an effectively less-than-fully charged train line to work with and you had to draw off enough air to ensure that they wouldn't start a chain reaction release from the rear! As far as avoiding the kicker, even the feed valve method was only sometimes successful.

On modern locomotives, you can't even change the feed valve setting while in motion.

[jeffhergert]

Assuming it went every time he set air, you could find the culprit.  It might take a while if it's a long train and towards the back.

The question is, if he knew which car was doing it, why didn't they cut out the car?  (Cutting out the air brakes, not setting out the car.) 

There are a couple of tricks that one can try to keep a known dynamiter from going off.  Experts will say they don't work, but they do seem to work some times.  Enough that I use one of them when the inbound says there is one in the train.

One is to cut out the brakes on the first car behind the engines.  It not responding to the application "slows" the transmission of the signal to cars further back.  (There is a rule that you can't have two consecutive cars with the brakes cut out.  It might not transmit an emergency application signal because it slows the drop in pressure.)  Some say it works with any freight cars, others only with the 89 foot flats/autoracks.

Another trick is before making a brake pipe reduction, go to minimum service on the brake valve and then right back to release/running a couple of times.  Get the air moving just a little and then go to minimum reduction and stay there, increasing the application as needed.  I've had some success with this method. 

I haven't had a train with a dynamiter for quite awhile now.  I'm going to be "annoyed" if all this talk about them has jinxed me.

Jeff 

[tree68]

Euclid

How could the engineer know which car it was?

Because his conductor had walked the train after the UDE and may have figured out which car it was.

[Euclid]

Somewhere lately, somone made the point that brakes dynamiting due to a derailment is not a UDE.  I can see the point being that the dynamiting is the proper thing to happen, so it is desired.  Although it was not intentionally done by the engineer, so not directly desired.  

Once there was a story in Trains about an engineer who was confronted by an official and accused of bad train handling.  The engineer blamed it on a dynamiter.  And to further bolster his excuse, he told the official exactly which car it was in the train.  How could the engineer know which car it was?

[jeffhergert]

A Dynamiter or Kicker (we use Dynamiter in my area) is when making a service application on the automatic brake and some car's control valve goes to the emergency position instead.  The car that caused it is the "Dynamiter."  

We also talk about letting the train line dynamite, leaving the anglecock open like you're supposed to do and letting the air all escape at once.

A hose coming apart or the EOT falling off may cause the train line to dynamite, but it's not a true Dynamiter.  It's just a UDE or Undesired Emergency.  Although a Dynamiter is also a UDE. 

I've always thought it funny that needing to use the Emergency position could ever be desired.  I know it's a distiction between an engineer application as compared to an in-train condition, but if you desire to use emergency things aren't well.  I have had to go to emergency a couple of times.

Jeff

[dehusman]

Deggesty

I wonder: after the lung is back in place, how long does it take to secure it and make certain the brake line is also secure?

That's nothing that's going to be fixed in the field.  It has completely ripped the center frame beyond the center sill out of the car.  That is a seriously damaged car.

[BaltACD]

Deggesty

BaltACD

Deggesty

Yesterday, one our posters expressed the thought that perhaps knuckles should be made stronger so that they would hold up better under certain stresses. 

I will ask: How many of you have seen a drawbar lying  between the rails in front of the car that it was in? I have a memory of seeing one (50-60 years ago?), and it was not a pretty sight. I do not know what one weighs, but I am confident that it would take more than two men to handle one drawbar (drawhead, lung, etc.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's cheating! 

 

I wonder: after the lung is back in place, how long does it take to secure it and make certain the brake line is also secure?

 

As much time as the Car Dept and their Brandt truck require to place the draft gear in place and get it welded securely to the car and patch up the trainline - a work day (give or take).

What is pictured is part of the set out process - getting 'rid' of the pulled out draft gear - crew will need Car Dept assistance to uncouple the draft gear from the car it is coupled to - the angle creates a bind that has to be relieved before the bad draft gear can be released.

[Mookie]

Wow!

[Deggesty]

BaltACD

 

 

Deggesty

Yesterday, one our posters expressed the thought that perhaps knuckles should be made stronger so that they would hold up better under certain stresses. 

I will ask: How many of you have seen a drawbar lying  between the rails in front of the car that it was in? I have a memory of seeing one (50-60 years ago?), and it was not a pretty sight. I do not know what one weighs, but I am confident that it would take more than two men to handle one drawbar (drawhead, lung, etc.)

 

 

 

 

 

That's cheating! 

I wonder: after the lung is back in place, how long does it take to secure it and make certain the brake line is also secure?

[BaltACD]

Deggesty

Yesterday, one our posters expressed the thought that perhaps knuckles should be made stronger so that they would hold up better under certain stresses. 

I will ask: How many of you have seen a drawbar lying  between the rails in front of the car that it was in? I have a memory of seeing one (50-60 years ago?), and it was not a pretty sight. I do not know what one weighs, but I am confident that it would take more than two men to handle one drawbar (drawhead, lung, etc.)

 

[Mookie]

dehusman

 

 

Euclid

Dynamiters are cars that happen to have a defect in their air brake control valve which causes them to suddenly, unpredictably put that car into "Emergency".....

 

 

It can be any defect which causes the train to go into emergency.  Many times its not a defect in the brake valve, its a defect in the train line, in particular the unions (slip joints) or connections to accomodate movement in the draft gear.

 

 

Euclid

I speculate that the term “dynamite” in reference to an “Emergency” application of the brakes refers to the ability for one stick of dynamite to detonate and thereby detonate a second stick nearby

 

 

Actually its just that when the train goes in emergency it is a sudden, loud, unexpected "bang".  Dynamite describes the noise.

 

 

BNSF or KCPL owes me a new pair of knickers.  I had my car door open and "dynamite" went off just around a curve from me.  Thought I bought the farm!

[Deggesty]

Yesterday, one our posters expressed the thought that perhaps knuckles should be made stronger so that they would hold up better under certain stresses. 

I will ask: How many of you have seen a drawbar lying  between the rails in front of the car that it was in? I have a memory of seeing one (50-60 years ago?), and it was not a pretty sight. I do not know what one weighs, but I am confident that it would take more than two men to handle one drawbar (drawhead, lung, etc.)

[Euclid]

dehusman

 

 

Euclid

I speculate that the term “dynamite” in reference to an “Emergency” application of the brakes refers to the ability for one stick of dynamite to detonate and thereby detonate a second stick nearby

 

 

Actually its just that when the train goes in emergency it is a sudden, loud, unexpected "bang".  Dynamite describes the noise.

 

 

My guess is that the common term “Dynamiting” when applied to train air brakes comes from the chain reaction propagation that only occurs when the brakes are put into an “Emergency” application.  Specifically one car sets off the next car, unlike a service application where the brake pipe communicates to more than one car at a time. 

Dynamite was very familiar to people in the earlier times, and was capable of sympathetic detonation.  Charges were placed in a way that utilized sympathetic detonation.  When placed in a long line for ditching, one stick detonates the next stick, just like the train brakes where one car dynamites the next. 

The term may also be related to the sound of an “Emergency” application, as you say.  A lot of terms have more than one meaning or origin.  But to me, the sound of a train going into emergency is more like a loud sneeze as opposed to the “boom” of dynamite. 

[BaltACD]

Kickers, Dynamiters or whatever term one desires to use for the unintended emergency application of the brakes with no discernible cause - in many cases emanate from the air hose couplings that change their geometrical relations to each other as slack moves throughout the trains - bunching and stretching.  The only hope the crews have of finding the offending leak is if the train stops in the condition that caused the leak and the walking inspection finds where the air is escaping from the trainline and the conductor can take corrective action.

With today's longer cars, the air hose coupling have to deal with a high degree of angularity when these long cars round curves - the mechanism that the car builders have used to support these angularities have created a number of 'Rube Goldberg' sliding trolley air hose apparatus on the ends of long cars - apparatus that can be easily damaged in normal operations and not function as intended by it's designer.

[dehusman]

Euclid

Dynamiters are cars that happen to have a defect in their air brake control valve which causes them to suddenly, unpredictably put that car into "Emergency".....

It can be any defect which causes the train to go into emergency.  Many times its not a defect in the brake valve, its a defect in the train line, in particular the unions (slip joints) or connections to accomodate movement in the draft gear.

Euclid

I speculate that the term “dynamite” in reference to an “Emergency” application of the brakes refers to the ability for one stick of dynamite to detonate and thereby detonate a second stick nearby

Actually its just that when the train goes in emergency it is a sudden, loud, unexpected "bang".  Dynamite describes the noise.

 

[Euclid]

Dynamiters are cars that happen to have a defect in their air brake control valve which causes them to suddenly, unpredictably put that car into "Emergency" (“dynamites” the brakes) which then puts all the other cars into emergency, thus dynamiting the train.  You can pump up the air and resume, and it might or might not happen again.  The main problem is that a car that does this leaves no trace of problem by which it can be identified and set out.  It may dynamite once and never do it again, or it may dynamite ever few miles. 

I speculate that the term “dynamite” in reference to an “Emergency” application of the brakes refers to the ability for one stick of dynamite to detonate and thereby detonate a second stick nearby, as is done with ditching, for instance.  In the “Emergency” phase of brake application, the same type of propagation happens where each car goes into Emergency in response to the car next to it doing so. 

[zugmann]

Mookie

Seems like a particular mt coal comes thru and each time, it slows way down and then jerks violently and starts moving a little faster. I think it is bad train handling, but that is just from my perspective.

 

Coming out of dynamic braking and into power.  Proper train handling according to the rules.  Just the slack being stretched out (which sounds a lot worse with empties than it does with loads).

[Mookie]

Comment - we watch on Sunday early am.  Seems like a particular mt coal comes thru and each time, it slows way down and then jerks violently and starts moving a little faster.  I think it is bad train handling, but that is just from my perspective.  I keep thinking there will be a broken something since it jolts those cars pretty hard.  

Ed - dynamiters or kickers - I read something on these, but i need you to explain it so I can understand it better.  I will wait.

[edblysard]

In my experience, the major causes of broken knuckles are,(in no particular order) defective from foundry, very rare, in 18 years I have seen one.

Existing defect, hairline crack not found on car inspection and then completely fails in route.

Train handling.

Dynamiters or kickers.

Of the four, the next to last, train handling is the easiest to remedy, most engineers, if they get a knuckle in a particular location, remember the incident and take measures to prevent it next time, engineers who don’t learn from their mistakes get the reputation of being rough and no one wants to work with them.

As for the time spent replacing the knuckle or broken air hose, most of that is spent simply finding the problem.

Once identified, you have the engineer toss off the appropriate parts, knuckle and pin, or hose and wrench, and you button up the last cars air valve and drag yourself up to the parts.

If the car I ride out on is the defect and we have no crossing blocked, I repair the car there, if the car we leave is the bad order, I put all the stuff on the crossover platform and shove back to the car and repair it.

Time wise on a knuckle, 5 minutes, even if it isn’t working and playing well with others.

Air hoses about the same, although often getting the old hose off is a lot more work than you expect, rust can almost weld those things in.

Always do a brake test, not only is it the rule, but if you have a dynamiter, you want to find it now, while the train is standing still.

Getting back to the head end is pretty straightforward….have the engineer toss off a lit fusee, drag yourself up to that point, and if you are not going to shove back over a crossing, have the engineer shove back and pick you up.

In CTC, most dispatchers will suggest this, they want you gone as soon as possible, in ABS, you own the block anyway, you can do pretty much what you need to do at will.

[jeffhergert]

The rule of thumb I've always heard is this.  If the break happens in the first third of the train it's usually, but not always, due to train handling.  If it's further back it's more likely in-train forces.  The longer the train, the harder it is to control slack.  DP has helped a lot, but hasn't eliminated the problem entirely. 

When ever a break happens, the forms filled out (paper or online) ask for the percentage of new break and the location of the broken knuckle.  The older the defect (the more rusty it is) the better for the engineer.  After a broken knuckle or pulled out drawbar, a manager will download the event recorder to determine if it was the engineer's fault or not.  Often, even if the break happened in the first part of the train, the download will show circumstances beyond the engineer's control that played a part.

Jeff  

[schlimm]

BaltACD

The cause of 90%+ of broken knuckle is not excessive pulling forces on it.  The primary cause of broken knuckles is unrestrained slack action,  normally it is the instantianeous change from draft to buff forces or vice versa.  That change in forces can easily exceed the strength of even the heavy duty knuckles that are used in unit train service.

The engineers primary duty in moving the size trains that are being handled today is control the slack throughout the train.  When everything works as intended, that can usually be accomplished.  When an engine starts loading erratically, when a kicker or air hose issue cause a UDE all bets are off in being able to control slack.

 

Very interesting.  So what, if anything can be done to improve train handling so as to reduce the forces from slack action?

[Deggesty]

Quoting Wizlish: "This one-hour knuckle service reminds me of the current trouble finding nurses. " I know about that problem; sometimes when I press my call button it seems to take half an hour before a nurse responds. 

[BaltACD]

The cause of 90%+ of broken knuckle is not excessive pulling forces on it.  The primary cause of broken knuckles is unrestrained slack action,  normally it is the instantianeous change from draft to buff forces or vice versa.  That change in forces can easily exceed the strength of even the heavy duty knuckles that are used in unit train service.

The engineers primary duty in moving the size trains that are being handled today is control the slack throughout the train.  When everything works as intended, that can usually be accomplished.  When an engine starts loading erratically, when a kicker or air hose issue cause a UDE all bets are off in being able to control slack.

Slack in a normal coupling -

[Deggesty]

"Incidentally, I had the impression that Euclid, with his description of the roads beside tracks and fast, rubber-tired, vehicles was being a bit sarcastic." Sorry; I was conflating, from memory, two posts. That's what I get for reading all of today's posts (45) at one sitting.

 

 

[Deggesty]

cx500

As far as I can see, nobody has explicitly pointed out that one of the significant parts of the delay is simply identifying why the brakes suddenly went into emergency.  And that will require a crew member walking the train. 

There is no point in instantly calling in the local "knuckle repair service" when it turns out that it was an air hose that burst or disconnected, or a derailment.  Maybe it was just a kicker.  An undesired emergency brake application has many possible causes.  In those cases where it is found to be a broken knuckle, usually the fastest way to get it replaced and trains running again is by the train crew already on the scene.  Perhaps if they are lucky there will be other rail employees around (crew or managers) to assist and speed the process.  In most cases, getting an outside contractor on the scene will take at least a couple of hours, by which time the crew can have replaced the knuckle.

John

 

 

John, I am not a railroad man, but it was obvious to me, from the start of this discussion, that before the conductor can carry a replacement knuckle to where it is needed, he needs to know where it is needed. Though it may be that some of the contributors to this topic who have had no hands-on experience had not realized this.

Incidentally, I had the impression that Euclid, with his description of the roads beside tracks and fast, rubber-tired, vehicles was being a bit sarcastic.

I was unaware that most of the knuckle failures were nearer the front end than nearer the rear end--and was not amazed to learn this since, given the absence of DPU's, the draft gear of the forward cars is subject to far more strain than that of the rear cars.

 

[schlimm]

Prevention?

 

[cx500]

As far as I can see, nobody has explicitly pointed out that one of the significant parts of the delay is simply identifying why the brakes suddenly went into emergency.  And that will require a crew member walking the train. 

There is no point in instantly calling in the local "knuckle repair service" when it turns out that it was an air hose that burst or disconnected, or a derailment.  Maybe it was just a kicker.  An undesired emergency brake application has many possible causes.  In those cases where it is found to be a broken knuckle, usually the fastest way to get it replaced and trains running again is by the train crew already on the scene.  Perhaps if they are lucky there will be other rail employees around (crew or managers) to assist and speed the process.  In most cases, getting an outside contractor on the scene will take at least a couple of hours, by which time the crew can have replaced the knuckle.

John