SD70Dude When did the railways replace switch lamps with reflective targets?
When did the railways replace switch lamps with reflective targets?
I recall seeing operating switch lamps on the C&O (now CSX Saginaw Sub) in the early 1960's, but it wasn't something I was tracking, so don't know when the changeover occurred.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Thank You.
Thank you, that was one of the precise videos I wanted Euclid to see when he was wondering the effective distance an open switch could be perceived 'unexpected' and then how long the human reaction time right up to emergency activation would take.
i would opine that the brakes were barely setting up by the time of initial contact. It might be interesting to see pictures of the 'result' on the overall consist, particularly as seen from the air.
I cannot see the engineer's hands clearly or tell from the audio whether he closed the throttle manually before or after big-holing the train. Seems like the engine goes down maybe a notch's worth of pitch before impact noise masks it, but as with Amtrak 91 this may not reflect what the EDR would have said the throttle position was. NDG, you have extensive experience in this, what do you think?
I never noticed the person walking before. Suspect he might have been doing something other than walking fairly quickly, perhaps in three-tone pants.
NDGAt this time it might be better to place this item over here??? Audio. FYI. The Sound Line here might be informative? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnOKIkhwPuA Note man in white shirt walking to the left. Thank You.
With the quality of the video and the application of the air - point detection and reaction weren't much more than 2 or 3 car lengths from the actual switch points.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
OvermodI cannot see the engineer's hands clearly or tell from the audio whether he closed the throttle manually before or after big-holing the train. Seems like the engine goes down maybe a notch's worth of pitch before impact noise masks it, but as with Amtrak 91 this may not reflect what the EDR would have said the throttle position was.
On our locomotives (all "vintage"), an emergency application triggers the PCS valve, which shuts down power, regardless of the throttle setting. In the video, there wasn't much time for the prime mover to spool down before other noise concealed it.
Where, when, and any more info about this accident?
From one of the comments to the video:
"This was in Etter, TX, around 2006. Google Etter TX BNSF and you should get some more info."
I've seen this before, and that seems about the right time frame. I believe the crew survived.
I did the Google, and here is one of the results:
http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/p/81341/974893.aspx
- PDN.
OvermodThank you, that was one of the precise videos I wanted Euclid to see when he was wondering the effective distance an open switch could be perceived 'unexpected' and then how long the human reaction time right up to emergency activation would take.
In the video, the switch points come into view about the same time as the emergency application, which does indeed look like just a few car lengths. But the video resolution is poor, and I suspect that the switch position would be apparent at a considerably greater distance than what the video shows. I am still thinking about 250 feet is a fair estimate.
One thing to keep in mind is that the postion of the points will not be recognized in just an instant. The mind's image will take time to develop into certain recognition as the distance closes. Just that part may consume 100 feet. You wouldn't want to jump the gun with an emergency application.
EuclidOne thing to keep in mind is that the postion of the points will not be recognized in just an instant. The mind's image will take time to develop into certain recognition as the distance closes. Just that part may consume 100 feet. You wouldn't want to jump the gun with an emergency application.
EuclidThis is what I would do. I would always look at every switch as I approached it and determine which way it is lined as early as possible. Even before seeing which way the switch is lined, I would plan on the need to make an emergency application. Then if I were to see a wrongly lined switch, I would immediately make an emergency application. My process for assimilation of the open switch and the making of the emergency application would take less than one second.
tree68 Euclid One thing to keep in mind is that the postion of the points will not be recognized in just an instant. The mind's image will take time to develop into certain recognition as the distance closes. Just that part may consume 100 feet. You wouldn't want to jump the gun with an emergency application. Euclid This is what I would do. I would always look at every switch as I approached it and determine which way it is lined as early as possible. Even before seeing which way the switch is lined, I would plan on the need to make an emergency application. Then if I were to see a wrongly lined switch, I would immediately make an emergency application. My process for assimilation of the open switch and the making of the emergency application would take less than one second.
Euclid One thing to keep in mind is that the postion of the points will not be recognized in just an instant. The mind's image will take time to develop into certain recognition as the distance closes. Just that part may consume 100 feet. You wouldn't want to jump the gun with an emergency application.
Euclid This is what I would do. I would always look at every switch as I approached it and determine which way it is lined as early as possible. Even before seeing which way the switch is lined, I would plan on the need to make an emergency application. Then if I were to see a wrongly lined switch, I would immediately make an emergency application. My process for assimilation of the open switch and the making of the emergency application would take less than one second.
Have you ever played the game where someone holds a dollar bill between you fingers, and if you can catch the bill when he releases it, you get to keep it. It is hard to do. It take time for the mind to sense the change (motion) in the situation and to cause the action. Reaction time is a real phenomena. Have you ever tailgated and caused an accident. Or worried that someone is too close to your bumper. It is because if you have to stop suddenly, the time for the driver behind you can not react fast enough to avoid running into you. And if you claim you can always catch that bill when it is dropped, I think you are either exceptional or ...
Electroliner 1935Reaction time is a real phenomena.
I understand that. I said I would allow up to one second for reaction time. Every fraction of a second is deadly critical. How much time should it take?
This is getting more complicated than it deserves. All Euclid is really talking about is keeping himself ready to stop at any facing-point switch, but instead of the sensible restricted-speed ability to stop short of the switch, he comes up on it at high speed and surprise! big-holes it when he sees and then reacts to it being open.
Now this is not one piece of psychophysics but several. i suspect any good engineer knows where the facing point switches are, as part of qualification, and will know where they are on the railroad, again from qualification, so they will at least be ready to react approaching the switch but not be constantly and neurotically expect one to appear suddenly. In such a situation that dropped dollar bill is a good analogy ... except that there's another one, exemplified in riding a bicycle over obstacles. For convenience we can separate this into 'foreground' and 'background' attention, the problem with the former being that it requires more arcs of processing in the brain to produce the necessary motor impulse. This is especially true if you NEVER want to put the train in emergency before you HAVE to, which Euclid just made a contradictory statement about without apparently realizing it.
The whole line of discussion is already pretty silly; I'd expect an experienced engineer to recognize a wrongly-lined switch and react through full emergency about as quickly as his nerve chemistry would allow, and while 'the rest of us' might dither or overthink the decision a bit... well, that's part of why we're not behind a throttle.
And it is ridiculously unsafe to run in any manner depending purely on simple or complex RT that does not reasonably assure a safe stop short of any dangerous condition. (I would argue that EO 24 attempts to provide additional assurance that RT-based action at a mislined switch will not be required, even though it failed to do so at Silica Siding).
Overmod This is getting more complicated than it deserves. All Euclid is really talking about is keeping himself ready to stop at any facing-point switch, but instead of the sensible restricted-speed ability to stop short of the switch, he comes up on it at high speed and surprise! big-holes it when he sees and then reacts to it being open. Now this is not one piece of psychophysics but several. i suspect any good engineer knows where the facing point switches are, as part of qualification, and will know where they are on the railroad, again from qualification, so they will at least be ready to react approaching the switch but not be constantly and neurotically expect one to appear suddenly. In such a situation that dropped dollar bill is a good analogy ... except that there's another one, exemplified in riding a bicycle over obstacles. For convenience we can separate this into 'foreground' and 'background' attention, the problem with the former being that it requires more arcs of processing in the brain to produce the necessary motor impulse. This is especially true if you NEVER want to put the train in emergency before you HAVE to, which Euclid just made a contradictory statement about without apparently realizing it. The whole line of discussion is already pretty silly; I'd expect an experienced engineer to recognize a wrongly-lined switch and react through full emergency about as quickly as his nerve chemistry would allow, and while 'the rest of us' might dither or overthink the decision a bit... well, that's part of why we're not behind a throttle. And it is ridiculously unsafe to run in any manner depending purely on simple or complex RT that does not reasonably assure a safe stop short of any dangerous condition. (I would argue that EO 24 attempts to provide additional assurance that RT-based action at a mislined switch will not be required, even though it failed to do so at Silica Siding).
How do you arrive at the idea that an engineer being ready to spot an improperly lines switch means that he is "constantly and neurotically expecting one to appear suddenly."
Of course you know where the switches are ahead of time. Being on the lookout for a switch really just means being on the lookout for which way it is lined. The switch position is what appears suddenly and without any foreknowledge; not the switch itsef. Being on the lookout also means not being distracted and fogetting that you are appoaching a switch.
And of course you don't want to overreact and put the train into emergency before you see that a switch is wrongly lined. I think you need to read what I said because it has nothing to do with your interpretation. It is not that I fail to realize that I made a contradictory statement; the point is that I did not make a contractictory statement.
Also yes, I am talking about coming on the switch at high speed. That is what happens. It happened in this wreck. And it is exactly what Zumwalt described in his reference to an engineer's responsiblity to be on the lookout for the switch position in relation to this wreck of Amtrak No. 91.
But the responsibility to watchout for the switch position also applies at lower speeds such as restricted speed, although it might not require an emergency application.
As to the part I highlighted in blue, I could not disagree more. The reaction I describe entails no overthinking. That is the point. Think and react fast. It is exactly that process that you describe would be done by an experienced engineer. It has nothing to do with your weird charaterization of what I said.
That is a new one for me. I've never seen one where the stator is allowed to spin around the armature, and then the stator is braked to apply the torque to the armatue. I was not tought to be in the EE courses I took in the late fifties. Where was this and when was it built? Thanks.
Electroliner 1935That is a new one for me. I've never seen one where the stator is allowed to spin around the armature, and then the stator is braked to apply the torque to the armature.
It's a clever solution for starting a synchronous motor under heavy load. Look at a couple of Bowes drive patents for a similar way of matching shaft speed to load.
It's a GE Super-Synchronous motor. This one is in a flour mill and dates from the early 1930s, according to some of the comments.
Here is I.L.Kosow's account, from his "Electrical Machinery and Controls":
"The super-synchronous motor does not operate at hyper-synchronous speed, but its title is a misnomer. It would have been better to have called it a super-torque motor. The motor was developed by General Electric in order to provide a synchronous motor which was self-starting under heavy loads. The super-synchronous is described as a special construction having five slip-rings and employing a wound rotor in combination with the DC field winding. "It is a well known fact that unless equipped with an "Amortisseur" winding, a synchronous motor has no starting torque, but, the super-synchronous motor was designed to take advantage of the fact [that] its pull-out torque is between 250 and 300 per cent of full-load torque. The super-synchronous motor is capable of developing that torque on starting, but in a unique manner. "It requires a special construction, however, and it is probably the costliest motor of its kind for a given horsepower rating between 400-500 HP, at 440V. The rotor is the standard cage-type rotor with the DC field winding brought out [to] two slip-rings on the rotor shaft. It is coupled directly to the mechanical load which it must drive. "The entire stator, however, is free to rotate on trunnions, in the same manner as an AC dynamometer. But, whereas the latter is limited in its angular displacement, the stator of the super-synchronous motor is free to rotate on bearings at synchronous speed. The stator-armature winding, therefore, is also excited through three (3) slip-rings and is usually started at a reduced voltage by means of three-phase reduced-voltage methods. "Its uniqueness is that a large brake is provided around the outside of the stator frame to apply a braking action and to secure the stator in its running position. Because the rotor is coupled to the load, when a reduced polyphase AC voltage is applied to the stator with the brake released, the induction motor torque produced by the rotor poles reacts against the "stator" conductors; this reaction imparts to the stator a torque that is opposite in direction to the direction of rotation of the load "The stator picks up speed as the AC stator voltage is increased; and, as the stator reaches synchronous speed, full supply voltage is applied in addition to the d-c field excitation. The stator pulls into synchronism with the rotor at a standstill, held by the inertia of the fixed heavy load coupled to its shaft. At this instant, the motor is operating as a synchronous motor without load, generating a counter-emf which limits its stator current.
"The brake is now slowly applied to the rotating stator. Since a synchronous motor must run at synchronous speed, the reduction in stator-speed must be made up by rotation of rotor-speed in the opposite direction, i.e., for a synchronous speed of, say 1,800 rpm, a stator-speed of 1,790 rpm counter-clockwise requires a rotor-speed of 10 rpm clockwise. "The torque-angle, therefore, increases to provide maximum torque, i.e., pull-out torque, in starting the heavy applied load. The armature current, although high, is limited by the generated emf in the stator. Reducing the speed of the stator by increased braking increases the speed of the rotor, until the stator is at a standstill and the rotor is rotating with the full applied load at synchronous speed."
The value of spray can 'art'!
http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2018/02/13/judge-awards-graffiti-artist/
YOU FOUND IT!!!
You have probably totted up all the costs and disadvantages of trying to put disc-brake calipers on a 3-piece truck (vs. comparatively lightweight beams and shoes for single tread brakes. It is a fairly long list even before you get to inspection of potential points of failure or how to see release for brake tests...
Potentially interesting too to see why these didn't catch on but AP roller bearings in 3-piece design trucks did. That alone might be an interesting dissertation subject...
$5.95 for the ad on ebay plus $3.75 shipping - pretty good deal for someone who's into the mechanical history of such things!
Paul_D_North_Jr $5.95 for the ad on ebay plus $3.75 shipping - pretty good deal for someone who's into the mechanical history of such things!
And to be honest a quick right-click or Mac screen-capture nerve pinch gives me all the historical reference I need -- and I don't care about whether it's watermarked so the seller has no proliferating copy risk...
Time for a bump.
Progress is being made, the inspections have been completed and 1392 has passed her hydro test. Now the re-assembly begins, the first steps being painting and insulating the boiler.
A big step forward was taken last weekend, as a team of journeymen & apprentices from the International Association of Heat & Frost Insulators, Local 110 were recruited and convinced to spend their Family Day weekend Saturday at the Museum. Thanks to their hard work all the insulation was put on in one day; she went from this:
To this:
Ok so that second photo was taken at lunchtime, but you get the idea. All the volunteers are very thankful that this job was done professionally, and at no cost to the Museum as the crew volunteered their time.
Many thanks to everyone involved!
Most of the sheet metal cladding was put on today, there is still lots of work to be done but she is starting to look like a proper locomotive again.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Overmod: I believe the super torque motor you describe has largely been replaced by the non-synchronous induction motors, or hystoresis non-synchronous motors, that are constructed similarly to regular synchronous induciton motors, but with slanted rotor bars instead of bars paralllel to the axis. Efficient and a lot simpler to build.
AC-motored diesel locomotives today have this type of motor. Some transit vehicles, light rail cars, trolleybuses, dual-mode, triple-mode and straight bsttery buses, have an inside-out "wheel-motor" version, where the computer controled field coild are around a stationary axis, and slanted bard around the rim that rotates. This kind of motor can be the hub of a transit vehicle's wheel.
The next variation is replacing the bars with permanent magnets. This increases efficiency, but also increases unsprung weight. Magnet-motor in Germany and Stored Energy Systems in Derby, England, make this type of motor.
Terrific. Kudos To all. Hope to get up there this summer. High time for that trip.
NDG First time I arrived in Edmonton was on CNR at the downtown station, a chromed driving wheel from one of the exterior dry-pipe S 2-8-2's developed especially for the poor water districts of the CNR was on display. ... ... Wonder where the driving wheel is, now??
The internet is a wonderful thing, but boy am I a dummy for not finding this stuff sooner!
The wheel from 3805 was donated to the Fort Saskatchewan station museum in 2009, and remains there today.
http://canadiannorthern.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Vol22No3.pdf
Norm Corness was a founding member of the APRA, and was a key part of the restorations of both NAR 73 and CN 1392 after they were first acquired. I only met him a few times before he passed away in 2015, but even in his 80s he still had that youthful enthusiasm for steam. A real loss.
While looking up info on the wheel I rediscovered something else I had forgotten about, the 1978 royal train. It was part of the Commonweath Games festivities and tours. Those F7's sure look splendid!
https://diamondjubileeproject.wordpress.com/2013/09/28/1978-the-queen-visits-fort-saskatchewan/
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