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String Lining

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Posted by Overmod on Sunday, December 29, 2019 11:17 AM

NDG
Much to see here

Perhaps we don't appreciate how BIG a C636 is until we see it leading other Alcos, particularly FA/B units.  Look at about 3:34, a regauged S scale model running with O gauge stock?

Baldwin alert!  (Probably much rarer than C-liners in Canada.)  And watch for the repurposed steam-locomotive tender, and the multiple appearances of the preserved Selkirk... at least I thought it was; did they edit it in 'out of sequence'?  If you wondered about robot cars, there are a couple to see.

Note all the cutting-edge modern architecture for its day.  Some of it still looks too modern for the second decade of the 21st Century... in that late-Sixties Expo-fever sense.

NDG
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Posted by NDG on Sunday, December 29, 2019 10:33 AM
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Posted by SD70Dude on Saturday, December 28, 2019 11:59 PM

NDG
Stainless Steel Memories.
 
Much to see here, most now gone.
 
Steam Heat, and so on.
 
 
Best surprise is the Engine leading a Three-Builder Lashup on the West @ Time 28:24. Note Icicle Breaker Cars and Gyra Lite on roof of No 2 Eng 1417

Thank You.

Switching with hand signals must have been interesting in the steam clouds around passenger trains!

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

NDG
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Posted by NDG on Saturday, December 28, 2019 10:48 PM
Stainless Steel Memories.
 
Much to see here, most now gone.
 
Steam Heat, and so on.
 
 
Best surprise is the Engine leading a Three-Builder Lashup on the West @ Time 28:24. Note Icicle Breaker Car and Gyra Lite on roof of No 2 Eng 1417
 

Thank You.

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Posted by SD70Dude on Thursday, December 26, 2019 12:48 PM

Miningman

NDG-- Really enjoyed the story of the CNR electric through the tunnel, engineer near retirement.  Felt like I was there. Yes and there was always that kind of humourous animosity between the French and the English. Usually unfolded like a Monty Python skit.

I, too, really enjoyed that story.  A shame cab rides like that can't happen any more. 

I also like how the Trainman took the time to go up to the head end and see what was going on, instead of just pulling the air or calling on the radio (if they had one).

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by Miningman on Thursday, December 26, 2019 11:59 AM

Wheel slip/rail burn

Must have been a locomotive with a little problem the other night,  while I was sleeping, didn't hear a thing.

Encouraged to post by Overmod.

NDG-- Really enjoyed the story of the CNR electric through the tunnel, engineer near retirement.  Felt like I was there. Yes and there was always that kind of humourous animosity between the French and the English. Usually unfolded like a Monty Python skit. 

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Posted by NDG on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 11:36 PM

Best Wishes to all.

Thank You.

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Posted by BaltACD on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 2:03 PM

Deggesty
Balt, from your account that the idiot wanted to talk with you (unless he wanted to apologize for his stupdiity/ignorance), he evidently did not get the message you sent. 

I have seen five cars stopped in a row in a left turn lane. #1 had its rear bashed in, 2-4 had their front and rear bashed in, and #5 had its front bashed in. I wondered if they had started moving when the light turned green and someone headed towards them suddenly appeared.

That was Tree's story - not mine.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by Deggesty on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 1:42 PM

BaltACD

 

 
tree68
 
charlie hebdo

Drafting semis is not a very sensible thing to do.  Most of the drivers don't appreciate your doing that and may give you a scare requiring a clothing change.  

Whilst on a business trip some years ago, I rode with another member of the team who seemed to think that proper following distance was measured in feet, not car lengths.  It was a bit of a white knuckle ride.

More recently, I had a fellow behind me (I was driving my pick-up) who seemed to have the same mindset.  I couldn't see his headlights - he was that close.

I sped up, I slowed down to well under the speed limit, hoping he'd give up and pass me.  I rode my brakes (brake lights on).  Still right on my bumper.

I finally brake-checked him, causing him to end up sideways in the road.  He passed me and pulled over, and indicated he'd like to talk.  I just drove on by.  He was headed in another direction at the next intersection and that's the last I saw of him.

I doubt he got the message.

 

Drive your own vehicle - not the one behind you.  

 

Balt, from your account that the idiot wanted to talk with you (unless he wanted to apologize for his stupdiity/ignorance), he evidently did not get the message you sent.

I have seen five cars stopped in a row in a left turn lane. #1 had its rear bashed in, 2-4 had their front and rear bashed in, and #5 had its front bashed in. I wondered if they had started moving when the light turned green and someone headed towards them suddenly appeared.

 

 

Johnny

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Posted by BaltACD on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 1:19 PM

tree68
 
charlie hebdo

Drafting semis is not a very sensible thing to do.  Most of the drivers don't appreciate your doing that and may give you a scare requiring a clothing change.  

Whilst on a business trip some years ago, I rode with another member of the team who seemed to think that proper following distance was measured in feet, not car lengths.  It was a bit of a white knuckle ride.

More recently, I had a fellow behind me (I was driving my pick-up) who seemed to have the same mindset.  I couldn't see his headlights - he was that close.

I sped up, I slowed down to well under the speed limit, hoping he'd give up and pass me.  I rode my brakes (brake lights on).  Still right on my bumper.

I finally brake-checked him, causing him to end up sideways in the road.  He passed me and pulled over, and indicated he'd like to talk.  I just drove on by.  He was headed in another direction at the next intersection and that's the last I saw of him.

I doubt he got the message.

Drive your own vehicle - not the one behind you.  

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by tree68 on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 12:22 PM

charlie hebdo

Drafting semis is not a very sensible thing to do.  Most of the drivers don't appreciate your doing that and may give you a scare requiring a clothing change. 

Whilst on a business trip some years ago, I rode with another member of the team who seemed to think that proper following distance was measured in feet, not car lengths.  It was a bit of a white knuckle ride.

More recently, I had a fellow behind me (I was driving my pick-up) who seemed to have the same mindset.  I couldn't see his headlights - he was that close.

I sped up, I slowed down to well under the speed limit, hoping he'd give up and pass me.  I rode my brakes (brake lights on).  Still right on my bumper.

I finally brake-checked him, causing him to end up sideways in the road.  He passed me and pulled over, and indicated he'd like to talk.  I just drove on by.  He was headed in another direction at the next intersection and that's the last I saw of him.

I doubt he got the message.

LarryWhistling
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Posted by Deggesty on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 11:06 AM

I first became aware of drafting 12 1/2 years ago when I was driving from Little Rock to Memphis. I had decided that there was too much traffic on I-40, and was on US 70. At one point, I looked to the north and saw several big rigs running (it seemed to me) too close together. Later, I became aware of the practice of drafting.

Apparently some car drivers believe in the same practice. I was driving from Bristol to Savannah 5 1/2 years ago, by way of Asheville. Southeast of Asheville, there were at least two occasions for me to pass someone moving more slowly than I was--and, before I could move over to pass, a string of cars with each following the car ahead too closely passed me.

And, many times, I have seen cars too close to big rigs for the drivers to see the cars.

I'm glad I do not drive any more.

Johnny

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Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 10:15 AM

charlie hebdo
Drafting semis is not a very sensible thing to do.  Most of the drivers don't appreciate your doing that and may give you a scare requiring a clothing change. 

That is why you talk to them on the CB and confirm that you're going to be 'back there' before you do it.  They will then advise you (usually with the same sort of 'light show' they'll give when you flash to let them merge over) as a courtesy, a couple of seconds before they start service braking for something they see coming up.

I have only encountered two drivers (out of a sample of, probably, hundreds at this point) that actively disliked the idea that a four-wheeler was drafting them.  I've heard considerably more express a complaint that another trucker was trying and 'not doing it right' in some respect they didn't appreciate.  A common concern in that era was that automobile drivers who pulled close in to 'disappear' behind trailers were unmarked police or, worse, commercial DMV agents, looking to make lucrative arrests...

Of course the whole concept of close drafting is fraught with potential perils out of all reasonable proportion to the amount of fuel actually saved -- considerable though that was in my experience at the time.  In the early days of commercial 'laser rangefinding' I built a rig that would keep me in a range of following distance with auditory feedback; auto manufacturers quite sensibly took the same idea (sequential range measurements or relative Doppler with processing) and integrated it with cruise control (e.g. the original Daimler-Benz 'Distronic' radar system) and, in the case of some early Japanese experiments around the time 'fuzzy logic' became a marketing buzzword, brakes and lane maintenance.  This in no way made close following any safer than 'tailgating', and no, I don't do it any more or recommend that anyone else do so.

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 9:56 AM

Drafting semis is not a very sensible thing to do.  Most of the drivers don't appreciate your doing that and may give you a scare requiring a clothing change. 

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Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 9:31 AM

Deggesty
Overmod, in other words, "Don't think you are on autopilot when when you are following your GPS"?

I was following for a while the story of the fellow who wrecked his Tesla in somewhat similar circumstances to that RV joke ... he trusted the 'autopilot' function in the nav system to be what he thought the word meant.  I have now had considerable 'rental' experience with the very recent 'inexpensive' implementation of both lane-tracking and radar cruise in the same vehicle, and I note that these have been somewhat carefully had their interfaces designed not to be 'automatic' in lane following or controlled distance cruise independent of predictive braking.  Even so there's a temptation to rely on the lane-departure correction and the distance-keeping settings of the laser cruise to do quite a bit of background-attention driving: the way I noticed I was doing this is that a number of the radar-cruise systems are not set up to alert you that they're operating in accommodation, and I would find myself supposedly set to be going 65mph happily following a truck at 58 for miles and miles... when all I'd have had to do was pull out to pass and the system would have returned me to laser-precise cruise speed... Dunce

Once I saw a complaint from someone who was navigating a new route during a heavy rainstorm and was upset because the GPS did not indicate that a certain stretch was flooded and impassable.

This is actually a legitimate concern, because what he thought he was running -- and in my opinion he was right to think he was running -- is not a "GPS" but a navigation system.  Even decades ago, there were provisions for 'traffic radio' in some of the RDS stereo systems, and IIRC in the early satellite systems for cars, that would report where blockages, heavy traffic and the like were to be encountered and suggest ways to get around them.  It is almost trivial to integrate control information of this type into a nav system; in fact at one time it was my understanding that crApple was trying this (I have seen two instances where I was stopped in traffic for a long time and saw my Apple Maps guidance spontaneously reroute and start prompting for a 'way around').  It would not be technically difficult to expand the range of input data to "GIS" information from local sources, one very clear example being instances of flooding severe enough to pose a 'turn around, don't drown' warning.  

I still find it inconceivable that local police that close roads for accidents don't post detailed information at exits on how to navigate, turn by turn, or provide some way to program or reprogram a commercial GPS or nav system to negotiate detours without tinkering by drivers. 

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Posted by tree68 on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 9:08 AM

Cue the joke about the fellow who turned on the cruise control in his motorhome, then went into the back to make a sandwich...

LarryWhistling
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Posted by Deggesty on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 8:04 AM

Overmod, in other words, "Don't think you are on autopilot when when you are following your GPS"?

Once I saw a complaint from someone who was navigating a new route during a heavy rainstorm and was upset because the GPS did not indicate that a certain stretch was flooded and impassable.

Johnny

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Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 7:19 AM

In a great many places on Virginia interstates you will encounter 'microweather' associated with crossing streams and the like, where you see heavy banks of well-defined cloud on the road.  You go from clear air to less than 15-foot visibility in a car length.  If you were to brake inside such a cloud, even if you had the presence of mind to put your hazards on for at least 'reaction time' for truckers before doing so, the likelihood of being rear-ended by someone inattentive following even at 'normal' Interstate following distance (in clear driving conditions) is high.  

There are other situations where this kind of problem comes up quickly and suddenly.  I was coming over the summit near Fort Knox on I-65 one night, when without warning there was a cloudburst that instantly produced rain far in excess of what wipers could clear.  This was in fairly heavy mixed traffic, in an area with fairly substantial grade and curve.  All I could do was put on flashers and 'fly with inertial navigation' while gently bleeding off speed; I had no idea where lanes on the road or other vehicles were other than vague blotches of lighting.  That could easily develop into what would look like a high-speed chain accident.

I regularly drafted trucks in the days I was commuting between Shreveport and LA.  There's a sweet spot in the near-standing-wave wake behind many trailers that a car can  'lock into' - you can put the driver's side window down and feel almost still air. This could be both a blessing and a curse.  I was getting 562 miles indicated out of one tankful (in a 1988 Lincoln Town Car) when the driver I was drafting pulled off to a truck stop.  Within 3 miles my estimated range plummeted to zero and then dashes... in the Mojave where exits can be over 10 miles apart and not all of them have convenient fuel.  That was no fun!

Very famous documented case of a European BMW E38 driver, I think in Poland, who drove off a ferry slip at high speed.  Turns out he was using his onboard GPS to navigate in unfamiliar territory and the BMW nav CD had been programmed using Soviet-era data that showed a bridge rather than a ferry at that particular crossing.  Never even hit the brake!

This might be a place for some stereotype jokes except that I have experienced very similar issues with crApple GPS, often associated with jitter due to thermal excursion in the phone.  You will hear the prompt say 'turn left' followed almost immediately by 'turn right' in exactly the same tone of voice, with no indication at all more than one turn ahead, all presented in a way that gives very little map read-ahead.  Many places this puts you merging across three or four lanes of what may be high-speed traffic with essentially no warning...

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Posted by BaltACD on Monday, December 23, 2019 8:25 PM

tree68
 
Paul_D_North_Jr
  From personal observation on interstate roads near me, too many of those trucks are 'tailgating' - insufficient 'stopping distance' space between them in the event of a sudden event calling for slowing quickly 

I've heard stories of truck drivers (and probably automobiles, as well) flying "IFR" using their GPS...

They aren't 'tailgating', they are drafting. 

I know you hear the term applied in many forms of racing, from endurance running, the Tour de France bike race, the many forms of automobile racing.  Well its benefits for truckers is real.  Draft the lead truck for miles and miles and your fuel economy benefits - even the leader of the draft gets some benefits.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by tree68 on Monday, December 23, 2019 7:46 PM

Paul_D_North_Jr
  From personal observation on interstate roads near me, too many of those trucks are 'tailgating' - insufficient 'stopping distance' space between them in the event of a sudden event calling for slowing quickly

I've heard stories of truck drivers (and probably automobiles, as well) flying "IFR" using their GPS...

LarryWhistling
Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) 
Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you
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Come ride the rails with me!
There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...

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Posted by Paul_D_North_Jr on Monday, December 23, 2019 5:30 PM

Snow squalls and next to zero visibility the likely immediate cause.  From personal observation on interstate roads near me, too many of those trucks are 'tailgating' - insufficient 'stopping distance' space between them in the event of a sudden event calling for slowing quickly.  Also going too fast for conditions - and no practical enforcement to prevent either of those causes.  Also poor weight distribution for traction and braking with the doubles and/ or empties.  Some combinations - including RVs and small trailers on cars and SUVs - are now banned when a snowstorm can be reliably forecast.  Maybe that should happen more often.   

- PDN. 

"This Fascinating Railroad Business" (title of 1943 book by Robert Selph Henry of the AAR)
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Posted by SD60MAC9500 on Sunday, December 22, 2019 9:09 PM
 

NDG

 

FedEx Ground isn't the culprit this time.. One of the deceased in this wreck didn't live that far from me...R.I.P.. The new class of so called professional drivers. You know since the Gov't forced RR's to adopt PTC.. It's time to pass legislation making it mandatory to complete 1 year of drivers training before acquiring a CDL instead of 6 weeks..

 
Rahhhhhhhhh!!!!
NDG
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Posted by NDG on Sunday, December 22, 2019 7:46 PM
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Posted by Overmod on Friday, December 20, 2019 12:46 AM

Where's the big red X through Jim Thorpe and the pictures of the coal and switches Santa's bringing the City Attorney?

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Posted by SD70Dude on Thursday, December 19, 2019 11:40 PM

For those in a hurry to get to the Great White North.  And just in time for Christmas!

Image may contain: sky and outdoor

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by SD60MAC9500 on Monday, December 16, 2019 11:35 PM
 

SD70Dude

FYI, fresh paint was unveiled today in Squamish, BC, at the West Coast Railway Association:

Image may contain: train, sky and outdoor

Image may contain: train, sky and outdoor

Image may contain: night, train and outdoor

 

 

Just gorgeous! I somewhat wish CN would revive this paint scheme. The solid black with the noodle and website is quite the drag..

 
 
Rahhhhhhhhh!!!!
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Posted by BaltACD on Monday, December 16, 2019 1:13 PM

SD70Dude
Squirrels are the worst for that.  They run out into the middle of the road, forget why, and then zip back and forth repeatedly until your vehicle is upon them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40kPEjZpM8M

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by SD70Dude on Monday, December 16, 2019 9:31 AM

Squirrels are the worst for that.  They run out into the middle of the road, forget why, and then zip back and forth repeatedly until your vehicle is upon them.

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by Deggesty on Monday, December 16, 2019 8:00 AM

The question about why does this or that cross the road reminded me of what my wife and I saw several years ago when we stopped on our way from Lake Louise to Jasper--a Rocky Mountain goat bounded back and forth across the highway--he apparently crossed so he could cross back.

Johnny

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Posted by SD70Dude on Sunday, December 15, 2019 9:46 PM

It was quickly recaptured by its owner.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/see-you-later-alligator-reptile-spotted-on-jarry-st

At least this didn't turn out like the escaped Python in New Brunswick a few years ago:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/python-enclosure-in-n-b-boys-deaths-had-flaw-1.1384533

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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