Euclid Well, I don't if it is true, but most of the news stories say that antelope are sort of wired to out-run rather than make evasive moves to escape. If they can outrun it, they can escape it. They are probably thinking about other 4-legged predators, though, and not trains. I don't know how much of their decision is based on snow depth and the snow on the track being shallow. Being that they are trying to escape by out-running the train, they probably figure they can run the fastest in the shallow snow on the tracks. They may not know that trains need to be on tracks in order to chase antelopes.
Well, I don't if it is true, but most of the news stories say that antelope are sort of wired to out-run rather than make evasive moves to escape. If they can outrun it, they can escape it. They are probably thinking about other 4-legged predators, though, and not trains.
I don't know how much of their decision is based on snow depth and the snow on the track being shallow. Being that they are trying to escape by out-running the train, they probably figure they can run the fastest in the shallow snow on the tracks. They may not know that trains need to be on tracks in order to chase antelopes.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
BackshopThey heard stories from "down south" about how their relatives used to outrun MILW and CRI&P trains on bad track.
The ACS - Antelope Communication System
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
The reason antelopes try to outrun trains rather than attempt to evade them is that they do not realise that the train cannot follow them as they change course. They don't realise it because they have never tried it to learn that it works.
Euclid The reason antelopes try to outrun trains rather than attempt to evade them is that they do not realise that the train cannot follow them as they change course. They don't realise it because they have never tried it to learn that it works.
The bad thing is that pronghorn (they aren't really antelope) aren't supposed to be very good eating, so no one even got a good meal out of it.
Operation Herdsaver
Murphy Siding Euclid The reason antelopes try to outrun trains rather than attempt to evade them is that they do not realise that the train cannot follow them as they change course. They don't realise it because they have never tried it to learn that it works. I understand that you don't like references to Darwin, but this isn't too far off from how it was explained back in grade school. Those antelope that veer off live to reproduce and have babies that are probably a little more train smart. Those that keep running until they get hit by a train do not. You talked about what kind of horn honking would scare antelope off the tracks. Maybe there's your opportunity. Develop an auxiliary horn for use in antelope country and sell it to western & Canadian railroads.
I understand that you don't like references to Darwin, but this isn't too far off from how it was explained back in grade school. Those antelope that veer off live to reproduce and have babies that are probably a little more train smart. Those that keep running until they get hit by a train do not. You talked about what kind of horn honking would scare antelope off the tracks. Maybe there's your opportunity. Develop an auxiliary horn for use in antelope country and sell it to western & Canadian railroads.
Yes, maybe there would be a market for some sort of horn-like signal acting as a wild animal prod to get them to move out of the way. It might be well received in animal country.
Lots of animals get killed in India Railway train videos. In many cases, the animals are oblivious to the danger. Often, they just stand there looking at the train until they are struck. Sometimes the trains make an emergency application and stop just short of the animal. Sometimes, they hit elephants. Sometimes, the train slows down and just follows the animal because they stay on the track.
Let me add some more to this nonsense.
Once in my B&SV days, I was running the afternoon train back into town. A deer wanders onto the tracks and stops. He's far enough away, so I turn on the bell. He turns his whole body towards us, I guess to get a better look. And he justs stands there. We get a little closer and I give a few toots on the horn. At the sound of the horn, he finally runs off the track.
One night (post B&SV days) out west where we parallel US 30, a deer slowly starts walking across both tracks. We're on the south track. He crosses the north track ands starts across the south one, our track. It's not close but we were going faster than the B&SV would be going. I blow the horn, expecting it to "hurry up" across the south track. Nope, it turns around, slowly walks across the north track, into the ditch and out onto US 30. Where it promptly gets hit by a vehicle.
Speakingof deer whistles, which I don't think anyone has recently, I think there effectiveness depends on the what the deer is doing. If it's just casually walking around, grazing on the grass along the right of way, they might get the deer's attention. It might look around fo where the sound is coming from. (For all I know, the whistles might be playing "Ode to Joy.")
If the deer is on the run, either scared by something or just in a hurry, the whistles might not make much of an impression. At least not enough to get them to stop to look or listen.
JeffK
The most frequent result of trains running over wildlife is that they will get entangled in the traction motors and/or cause air hoses to become uncoupled and placing the train in emergency. This happend more than once on Amtrak operating on my territory. In one case as the Amtrak crew inspected their train that found out that not only had the animal caused air hose to uncouple, it had also damaged the HEP cable and left the train without power for lighting, heating or cooling. Animal's revenge.
When my wife and I lived near Richmond, she would drive to Williamsburg once a week. We installed deer whistles on her bumper because if it worked, it was cheap insurance. If it didn't, it was cheap confidence.
My Wrangler has a rack I fabricated eighteen years ago. I evidently did something with the way the steel tubing is aligned because after installing it, deer would run away fast. Before it, I could spot the deer and not have them react. After....they clearly were scared of it. I never noticed any sounds myself. I recently built a new rack, but oriented the cross bars sideways so no open steel ends exposed to the front. The deer ignore me again.
So there may be something to those little plastic confidence boosters.
Time to bring back cowcatchers!
BaltACD The most frequent result of trains running over wildlife is that they will get entangled in the traction motors and/or cause air hoses to become uncoupled and placing the train in emergency. This happend more than once on Amtrak operating on my territory. In one case as the Amtrak crew inspected their train that found out that not only had the animal caused air hose to uncouple, it had also damaged the HEP cable and left the train without power for lighting, heating or cooling. Animal's revenge.
Back in the days of light, wood freight cars some railroads had instructions requiring crews to stop and inspect the train after running over a large animal, as the carcass could become wedged underneath and potentially cause a derailment.
I could see it happening in specific circumstances even today, moose, cattle and bison are pretty substantial creatures with thick bones, and empty aluminum cars only weigh about 20 tons.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Watched (again) the episode of Mighty Trains about the Rocky Mountaineer the other day.
They had a section discussing how they were putting remote battery powered warning devices attached to the rail giving the animals more warning time reducing the collisions.
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