After 29 years on the railroad (yesterday was the anniversary according to the RRB) I can say I have never experienced any suction on my person which would pull me into a train. What I have experienced is a form of vertigo which draws you towards large objects you are close to. Try walking down between two tracks full on cars in one of those old yards with very narrow space between the tracks and you will think you are drunk as you try to avoid brushing against the cars on either side. The effect gets even worse if you are close to a track with cars which are moving. at even slow speeds. So based upon my experiences in the yards and on the mainlines I think the suction of the train is bunk and just an old wives' tale so far as this suction pulling people into moving trains. I even had a driver try to tell me how his automobile was sucked into the side of a train at a grade crossing he had stopped behind the gates for. Sure kid, perhaps that will work with your Dad but not with me.
I will be watching for the results from the TV program should it ever run.
I haven't seen anything in the "prologue" to suggest that this segment will be there.
(toward the end of the show): Black powder and air tanks to cause propulsion. I won't say the program sucked, but no trains did!
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)
Driving between 1 and 2 seconds separation (4-8 car lengths) can result in as much as a 10 percent reduction in gas mileage (like going from 32 to 35 MPH).
I see you haven't been watching any NASCAR races.
Is this in any way related to the fact that if a person jumps off of a tall building they get sucked into the wall before they hit the ground?
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The story is that to get the major drag reduction, the two bodies have to be pretty close together -- there are studies that missing containers in stack trains, uneven cars in freight trains, truck trailer and truck tractor with a big gap are all pretty draggy. It is also said that you could save gas if you drove your car behind a truck.
I have run some experiments with driving behind trucks, SUVs and minivans while monitoring a gas mileage computer (ScanGauge). Now driving too close to a truck is not recommended and driving while monitoring some instrumentation in your car may also be a concern. But I found that you don't have to follow that closely to have an effect. Driving between 1 and 2 seconds separation (4-8 car lengths) can result in as much as a 10 percent reduction in gas mileage (like going from 32 to 35 MPH).
A couple things I have noticed. A regular truck is not the best because it breaks the wind up high -- campers that break the wind closer to the road appear to work better. If you have any appreciable crosswind, you lose the effect. Remember I am not tailgating anyone on account of safety considerations, I am just driving a normal traffic separation, and you can see the turbo-lag smoke come off the stacks of a truck during gear shifts and see it drift off to the side of the road before it gets to me.
The other problem is that while SUVs make good windbreaks, a lot of these vehicles are driven 10 over the limit -- without crosswinds, you can get gas mileage readings at 75 that you would otherwise get at 60, but I don't feel comfortable driving that fast.
But driving aside, the observation is that the windbreak tail of a vehicle such as a truck or train is pretty long and crosswinds interact with that tail. So what you experience on the train platform may depend on both the kind of train and what the winds are doing.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Last year near Galesburg, 2 teens stood between the mains for a rush. Soon, two fast moving trains passed by in opposite directions. They were tossed about like pieces of paper. They suffered only broken bones and abrasions. Not sure if they were sucked in or up.
Bob
It will be fun to see the result of their test.
I don't recall ever reading any reports of persons sucked into trains. Leads me to believe that (1) people are so aware of the myth that they always stand well back form the train (yea, right!), or (2) the force is not great enough to draw a person into or under a train.
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo Possum "We have met the anemone... and he is Russ." Bucky Katt "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in physics
the percentages:
"I reject your reality, and subsitute my own" -- A. Savage
beaulieu wrote: the shape of the wing creates a low pressure area on top of the wing and a high pressure area beneath it, the airplane is sucked upwards, unless it is flying upside down, then it quacks up.
That's only true for ducks.
cprted wrote:I don't get the discovery channel where I am now. What's the verdict?
One time my younger daughter and I were eating our lunch trackside, on a bench on the station platform. A stack train came by on the closest track, and, despite being several feet to the safe side of the warning line, we had to hang onto our lunches and grab our bicycles to keep them from following the train down the platform. I didn't want to take the chance that we/they would be sucked under, but "sucked along" seemed like a more distinct possibility.
Daughter gained a new respect for track condition and train speed on that trip--never realized that a freight train could take the curve just beyond the platform at 70!
Close clearance in confined spaces can create a pretty good suction.
Think inside a tunnel, or between a standing train and a moving train.
But, unless the moving train was pulling pretty darn quickly, an average person can withstand the suction.
I work in a yard, and often I am in between a standing train and a moving one...there is a small amount of under pressure there, but not enough to worry about.
Now, say a Metro train passing by while you are in a tunnel, or next to anything solid, like a wall, and the clearance is tight, you might, just might experience enough suction to scare you…
With a freight train, the “space” between the cars allows enough air movement to break any suction…with a passenger train, and the diaphragms between the cars sealing that space, you could get a fairly large negative pressure under the train, but still…
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JSGreen wrote:I would guess "Sucked Out"....and we can blame Bernoulli.When two trains pass, they are moving relatively quickly. After the first "Wave" of pressure passes, the trains rushing by each other will tend to accelerate the air between them. Bernoulli says if the air is moving faster, the static pressure will be less...therefore the air pressure in the coach would be greater than the air pressure outside. If it is even 2psi difference, over a 24x24in window, that would generate 1152 lbs of force OUTWARDS.
I second that explanation!
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
I would think that if someone indeed get "sucked" under a train, it would be a result of losing their balance from the "blast" from the passing train. As the air flow pushed them back, they panic, and throw their weight forward, there by falling forward into the train and into the airflow along it.
Of course that wouldn't be a result of any suction (if there is any) caused by the train...
I love it, the ways they think up to destroy their trusting mannikin. But with this one that might not happen. Can't see it anyway.
greetings,
Marc Immeker
From my experiences here in the Netherlands I would say that an effect is definitely there. The faster the train goes the more the effect. Ditto for the length of the train. However, the effect dimishes rather rapidly the more you move away from the edge of the high level platforms we have here.
Trainspeed is between 120 and 140 kph on most tracks. Counting the gap between train and platform, size of the structure that forms the side of the platform (about 10 cm) and a full tile (full tiles are 30x30 cm) before you get to, and then including, the safety tile (which has a width of another half tile) that means the safe zone begins about 55 cm from the trains. The effect is still noticible there, though.
Lines where the speed limit is 160 kph have a wider margin, I guess 30 cm, or a tile, more.
See the picture below for a typical platform even if it is at a big station.
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