Flat wheels and frog-pounding make different sounds, and are not likely to be confused with each other. If the o.p. says he heard flat wheels, he's probably correct.As Don says, there has to be a threshhold before they're condemnable and billable. Also, consider that some of these cars with flat spots may not have had them when the train left the point of last inspection.I have long suspected (and by "long" I mean decades) that one seems to hear a lot more flat wheels these days than in the good old days because their sound used to be drowned out by the omnipresent clickety-clack over the scores of joints within hearing range.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Norm48327 Are you sure it is flat wheels you are hearing or is it the sound of wheels pounding the diamond?
Are you sure it is flat wheels you are hearing or is it the sound of wheels pounding the diamond?
Johnny
Norm
The other consideration for flat and out of round wheels would be prevention. It's likely that an ancillary benefit of ECP might be wheel slip/slide prevention.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
I'm not so sure there's any measurable energy penalty for flat wheels. The big problem is the impact the rail.
There are a couple of ways to find problematic defects. One is the traditional way where car inspectors visually look for and measure flat spots. Not all flat spots are condemnable.
The other is WILD detectors which measure the impact of the flat spots (and equally dangerous, but silent, out of round conditions) by using strain gauge equipped sections of track.
In either case, the problem has to reach a threshold before a RR can change a wheelset and bill the car owner. Negotiating changes to the thresholds are often time conuming and difficult because of the cost impact to the car owners. The AAR is the place where the agreed upon standards are maintained and enforced.
I watch the Rochelle, IL videocamera site almost every day, and am constantly amazed at all the "flat wheels" on many of the cars as they pass by the camera, which as you know also supplies sound. It seems to me that rolling efficency could be vastly improved by maintenance of the cars. Or, would it be more expensive to fix the flat wheels? Junior Yardmaster
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