Cline Ave north, 1st exit, on right.
-18 here in Gary, considering most places are closed for the weather, will stay here and keep the truck running. Even the railroads are curtailing operations.........
Randy Vos
"Ever have one of those days where you couldn't hit the ground with your hat??" - Waylon Jennings
"May the Lord take a liking to you and blow you up, real good" - SCTV
rvos1979 Cline Ave north, 1st exit, on right. -18 here in Gary, considering most places are closed for the weather, will stay here and keep the truck running. Even the railroads are curtailing operations.........
I noticed that last night on the Rochelle webcam- it got pretty quiet as the night wore on.
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
24 below with a wind chill of about 10,000 below this morning. On Christmas Day a small airplane crashed into a big fireball 4 blocks from my house. Because of the bitter cold, every small plane that went over last night had the engine howling like the plane was going down. I think I have a sore neck from instinctively ducking all night.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Wind and snow have now arrived here at the house. Closings are starting to pile up around the area.
The Tug is forecast for upwards of four feet of snow - lesser amounts in my area.
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...
At 17 below, we're up five degrees from this morning. Metra came up with a curtailed schedule for this weather, but I'm still seeing delay reports. Said reports are all that I'm going to see of railroading today, thank you very much!
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)
Much amused with the reporting on the track gangs using fire-snakes, kerosene rags and wood scraps/chips to fight pull aparts in your backyard Carl. (OOOH fire! - new technology? Whatever happened to simple physics?)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/chicago-is-so-ridiculously-cold-that-the-railroad-tracks-need-to-be-on-fire-to-keep-the-trains-moving/ar-BBSVFbJ?ocid=spartandhp
(Fighting sun kinks and raising the rail neutral temperature creates pull aparts, especially in switches and crossing frogs with all the bolts in otherwise welded rail country. The rail anchors can only hold back so much. This is the polar opposite of fighting sun kinks in the summer. You don't want those manganese frog inserts getting loose or free...)
afternoon
Ns was clear when I left work.Trailers,docks,plates,gates and other things were frozen.Maintenance was kept busy all day.Matt's work called.He does not have to do dishes tonight.Chores to do inside here.Guessers say cold tomorrow but 2-4 inches of snow Thursday night into Friday.Yay.
stay safe
Joe
Deshler Ohio-crossroads of the B&O Matt eats your fries.YUM! Clinton st viaduct undefeated against too tall trucks!!!(voted to be called the "Clinton St. can opener").
If your weatherbubba is like the ones here, double or triple the snow totals.
A balmy 40 degrees here while next door in Kansas is considerably colder. Thanks Johnny, for keeping the freezer door shut.
mudchicken Much amused with the reporting on the track gangs using fire-snakes, kerosene rags and wood scraps/chips to fight pull aparts in your backyard Carl. (OOOH fire! - new technology? Whatever happened to simple physics?) https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/chicago-is-so-ridiculously-cold-that-the-railroad-tracks-need-to-be-on-fire-to-keep-the-trains-moving/ar-BBSVFbJ?ocid=spartandhp (Fighting sun kinks and raising the rail neutral temperature creates pull aparts, especially in switches and crossing frogs with all the bolts in otherwise welded rail country. The rail anchors can only hold back so much. This is the polar opposite of fighting sun kinks in the summer. You don't want those manganese frog inserts getting loose or free...)
M.C. it was kinda interesting to get up early this AM [Temps were at the Holy Cow levels ! The wind chil levels were just down-right ugly, for Kansas.] It was fascinating to watch the AM news, talking heads, marveling over the footage of what appeared to be piles of coal burning on the tracks, and switches. Your explanation of the why of the fires would never made the news, they wouldNEVER have understood the purposes of those efforts.
samfp1943 mudchicken Much amused with the reporting on the track gangs using fire-snakes, kerosene rags and wood scraps/chips to fight pull aparts in your backyard Carl. (OOOH fire! - new technology? Whatever happened to simple physics?) https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/chicago-is-so-ridiculously-cold-that-the-railroad-tracks-need-to-be-on-fire-to-keep-the-trains-moving/ar-BBSVFbJ?ocid=spartandhp (Fighting sun kinks and raising the rail neutral temperature creates pull aparts, especially in switches and crossing frogs with all the bolts in otherwise welded rail country. The rail anchors can only hold back so much. This is the polar opposite of fighting sun kinks in the summer. You don't want those manganese frog inserts getting loose or free...) M.C. it was kinda interesting to get up early this AM [Temps were at the Holy Cow levels ! The wind chil levels were just down-right ugly, for Kansas.] It was fascinating to watch the AM news, talking heads, marveling over the footage of what appeared to be piles of coal burning on the tracks, and switches. Your explanation of the why of the fires would never made the news, they wouldNEVER have understood the purposes of those efforts.
When the Halethorpe Interlocking still existed in Baltimore Terminal, it had 'fire breathing' smudge pots as the switch heaters - they had to be installed and manually lit by MofW personnel in the tie cribs.
No sooner than the plant would be lit and the Dispatchers able to operate the switches then the Baltimore County Fire Dept. would show up and hose down all the pots and freeze the switches solid. It is difficult to explain to non-railroaders why 'the track' is not on fire and what they are seeing is a desired action.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACDIt is difficult to explain to non-railroaders why 'the track' is not on fire and what they are seeing is a desired action.
Just watched CSX use a fire snake or two to deal with a pull-apart right at the Deshler diamond. Someone commented about the FD being called, but the station is within sight of the diamond, so they'd be able to squelch that in a hurry.
Old signal supervisor used to refer to this type of thing as "dinosaur tech" [please don't use around insulated joints ]....seeing it on about every news feed out there. One of the Chicago area newsworkers tried to explain the purpose about what was going on in terms of rail expansion and fixing pull aparts, but it came out backwards like they were just trying to heat up the track bolts.
(fire snake is a brand name, but all it is is treated cloth/rag rope in a plastic pail that you add kerosene to and light after you lay it on top of the base of rail.)
Has anyone noticed the terrible irony of this thread to the present northern weather? ? ?
Hey, I was out on the motorbike today in Calgary (Canada), many miles north of Mudchicken. Maybe it was only about +40F, but the roads were dry. Should be OK again tomorrow, but then the cold hits, with a high under 0F by Sunday and real ugly lows, and not much warming for a while beyond. Very little in the way of snow though. The story is different in the mountains just west of us though.
Now I hate Calgary even more.
Edmonton hasn't been too bad this winter, only been brushed by the dreaded polar vortex a couple times. Gonna get it again next week, but only for a couple days, and it's nothing we Canadians can't handle.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
MC, that's an older shot taken at Mayfair (UP NW and Metra MN crossing). But I guess the gas melters under the puzzle switches made the news again today (at what appears to be Western Avenue). "Setting fire to the tracks", indeed!I'm showing -16 right now; -26 projected for tonight. I think -28 is the record, and I was working in that one, back in 1983. There was wind and precipitation accompanying that one.
Hovering just above zero F, with negligible wind - a good thing, considering the six inches of snow that fell between 9PM and now (3AM). Woke up and decided to take a measurement of the snow. Had to dig my way out to the snow board...
A neighboring township decided to pull their plows off the road last night, it was so bad along the lakeshore.
Very disappointed this morning- they were predicting lows here below -30, but my weather station never made it below -20.9 last night. So the previous night's record of -22.5 stands...
Mudchicken I hear you on the stupidity of the modern-day media. Our local rag came out yesterday to see how we deal with the severe cold when it comes to equipment issues like brakes failing to release. Our shop foreman looked this 20 something in the eye and said nothing a bottle of alcohol and a 5 lb sledge hammer wouldn't fix. The alcohol goes in the air line to remove the ice and the sledgehammer goes bam on the drums. This reporter went your insane no heaters. To which the shop all looked at her and said it's been done this way for 70 years in this industry. We call it the Keep It Simple Stupid principles. She went what they said the KISS motto less things for idiots like yourself to screwup. Less than 1 hour later the editor called and said sorry we won't be running a story on this so no releases needed.
Lake effect is wreaking havoc on truckers in my area. The Interstate was closed to semi's, and the "surface" roads are not handling the overflow well. Not to mention that the four wheelers are still running in full ditchfinder mode on the Interstate. The county law enforcement radio is non-stop, and has been all day.
On the other hand, the sun is out at my house, and has been all day after about 10 inches of snow in the past 24 hours.
Pulaski, usually ground zero for lake effect, is also clear right now based on a Virtual Railfan cam located there.
Ns had a stack train in the siding.A westbound frieght passed it slowly as I left work.Matt went in to do dishes tonight.We did get mail today.Some areas kept the mail people inside.Glad tomorrow is Friday.Oh yeah snow for tomorrow morning too.
joe
BOB WITHORNIf go outside, you're not spending much time looking at the sky.
Right - if you're outside, you're figuring out how quickly you can get back inside...
-5 here in Sturtevant, WI, almost a heat wave.......
Braved the cold on the highway today, lots of trucks on the side of the road with frozen brakes or gelled fuel. As I type this, a wrecker is hooking up another frozen truck on our drop lot. I may have lost two days' work this week, but at least it was somewhere warm where we had a shop if needed.........
Randy - be glad you didn't have to head into northern NY via I-81 today.
The governor decided to close the Interstate to big rigs due to the ongoing winter weather (currently a very persistent lake effect band).
Big mistake.
All the semi's shifted over to US11. The Interstate is relatively flat. US11 has some very challenging hills in the snow, and the semi's couldn't handle them.
It was a zoo. All day.
Of course, the four wheelers still managed to find the ditches on the Interstate.
The sheriff's patrols and the state troopers here both use the county sheriff's radio channel. Couldn't hardly get a word in edgewise all day.
Larry, I had heard that the governor banned trucks from all the interstates and the Thruway because of the storm. State patrol was handing out tickets left and right to the trucks. Could get interesting if many decide to fight them.........
My wife asked me yesterday about a picture with a news story that showed the switch heaters on the Chicago Union Station leads. I explained that they were lit to keep the switches from freezing and that it was quite routine during the winter.
Keep them dragons burning.
Matt was just delayed today.Ns still has a stack train in the siding.An eastbound frieght passed by after work.Came home and shoveled left over slush.Tomorrow is groundhog day.I doubt there will be autoracks on the shortline here in Defiance.We will go see what csx has to run.
Just over three feet of snow just south of Watertown since Tuesday, which is less than the upwards of five they were forecasting for some areas...
Got a whole ten inches here at the house.
People are starting to express their displeasure with the whole closing the Interstate to trucks thing - one fellow got a ticket because he was on while the ban was still in effect, despite the fact that the skies were clear, and so was the road.
The ban caused pure chaos on the "surface" roads, with many trucks stuck on hills they wouldn't have encountered had they stayed on the Interstate.
In fact, it's been suggested that rather than banning trucks on the four-lane, they should ban cars, and allow the semi's to stay on the freeway.
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