End of Train Devices

[Anonymous]

How long do the batteries last on an End of train Device? This includes normal recharging, use in the field ect..

[wabash1]

It depends on the manufacture but it last from 12hrs to 2days

[Mookie]

Wabash: That doesn't seem very long - I assume they are battery operated, but seems like they could come up with something that lasts a little longer - in this day and age. And what if it goes out "on the road"? It is just "out" until replaced or recharged?

[Jackflash]

Hey j, have you seen those new EOTs that use a
small flow of air from the train line to operate ?
I havent seen em yet, but have heard of them,
I expect they are air over battery, the air probably powers a small generator. jackflash

[Justicar]

I'm not sure what your asking....are you asking about the useful life of a battery or how long a battery will last fully charged? I have no idea what the useful life of a FRED battery is but I'd hazard to guess that its directly proportional to the abuse that it gets....and that would be considerable. If the type of battery used in a FRED is Nickel-Metal Hydride or similiar then each time the battery is thrown on the charger without being completely discharded is abuse and will significantly affect its "working" time next trip. I'd be interested to know if they're NmH batteries like old cell phones use and many other home electronics such as cordless phones.

I know our Trains which originate in Chicago (ostensibly fresh new batteries) that we handle from St Paul to Glenwood rarely have low batteries. However, Eastbounds originating somewhere in Canada occasionally need new batteries while enroute. I do see documentation on the trains indicating batteries are checked routinely in Harvey, ND...so apparently the ones that go dead on us are ones that they "forgot" to check or got bad or not fully charged batteries.

Typically if you have any kind of low battery indication on your head end device you check/change batteries before leaving the terminal. Usually if you get a low battery indication even when first leaving the terminal the FRED will continue to work until we reach our next terminal even if its an all night run (flashing light drains more current). After the low battery (yellow) light you can get a (red) low battery indication and then its pretty close to not functioning. If its daylight by then you can sometimes still make it in w/o issue. Eventually the battery will fail and you lose communication with your rear end. Our rules require a maximum speed of 30mph and on certain designated portions of the mainline (steep grades) you cannot operate. Time to change the batteries. Pretty easy if your near a terminal but nearly impossible if your not...we don't carry spare batteries on the locomotives.

From looking at the locomotive console, especially the integrated ones on GE's and Mac's, I'm not sure what exactly the FRED's battery status is. On our FRED's when you run the self-test by holding the button down for 3-5 secs you get a 0-99% indication on how much charge the battery contains. Anything 80 or above I leave town with and don't think twice. But, when you look at the information on the locomotive its represented differently. I'm not an engineer so I'm guessing that the locomotive indicates the percentage of charge used??? Thereby the lower the number the longer you have? Seems like sometimes you get no information until a yellow low battery light comes on. Anyone know more about this?

jc

CP-St Paul

[Mookie]

Ventrue: Wow - I learned a lot and never left my chair! Thank you for all this information. I only knew they were there and they blink. Now I can educate the rest of my friends/family.

[wabash1]

Jen sometimes depending on the manufacture of the device the charge will last several days. One thing i have noticed on our engines certain H.O.T. devices will tell us what charge is in the battery. 13.2 12.1 10.9 so on and on the intergrated engines like the dash-9 engines it just pops up yellow as week battery, or red as dead battery. Most of the time when the eot battery gets week they will stop flashing that is why there is a reflector built in to them. the unit quits flashing but saves the power left for a emergency dump from the rear (if needed) also if the battery is being reported as dead from the rear of train device we wont register a brake pipe reading either and are required to only run 30mph. Hope this answers your question

[Anonymous]

Hello group I am Rodney and I work for the BNSF in TY&E service there is another type of ETD on the road now we have a few of them they are the AX type. The power supply comes from the train air system as there is an air driven turbine to genteate it`s own power. Rodney

[fec1engineer]

Hi. I'm Dave in St. Augustine, Fl. I've been with the FEC since 1971 and have used E.O.T.'s since the the late 1970's when our cabs were cut off. Our Digitair EOT boxes can use 2 - 12 volt batteries which easily keep the EOT functioning for the 12 hour crew duration, even though I have seen them still working way past that. We have used the new turbo driven EOT's also, which keeps the battery charged but has not yet been put in regular use as of yet.
Dave(East Coast Hogger)

[Soo2610]

Rodney, excuse my ignorance, but I'm not sure I understand what you mean by TY&E service.

[Mookie]

Wabash: Thanx for info - and in reading all the answers, I too was thinking about why something couldn't be added to take advantage of the air on the train. Looks like they are way ahead of me...

[Anonymous]

Train, Yard & Engine
Ken

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for replying. It was very informative. A lot more than I expected. Thanks again.

[Soo2610]

Thanks!