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On the subject of weird crossing, here's one in Taveres. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sou...6,0.002411&z=19 Why yes, that is a crossing going through a roundabout. And yes, the tracks do run down the center of the street. They do have some very heavy duty steel guardrails around the tracks though.
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Jun 6, 2011 20:21
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rcman50166 posted:Hmm, I don't see anything on Google Maps where a railroad and the Beltline intersect. Though there are three railway underpasses. But looking around I found a few retarded crossings in the area: Geoj posted:There's one of these across US 250/30 in Wooster, OH. Can't find it on google maps as I believe the line may be inactive (crossing has "EXEMPT" signs on it,) but they do exist. And yes...stopping to look both ways before proceeding is just as dangerous as blindly trusting the gates in a 60 MPH zone. I get the feeling being rear-ended by a semi at highway speed is going to have the same effect as being broadsided by a train. The other issue there is that if the crossing malfunctions and one has a green light, one will likely just proceed as normal in that situation nm fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Jun 6, 2011 |
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Jun 6, 2011 20:53
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Wow, look at that.  I made someone mad enough to spend money. e: twice. Geoj fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Jun 7, 2011 |
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Jun 6, 2011 23:25
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Geoj posted:Wow, look at that.
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Jun 6, 2011 23:51
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Should have kept it, that's pretty funny.
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Jun 7, 2011 00:02
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auzdark posted:I'm pretty sure this video has been posted earlier in the thread... leica posted:Should have kept it, that's pretty funny.
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Jun 7, 2011 00:08
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ijustam posted:Also, why do diesel locomotives only have 8 throttle notches? Why not 10? 16? Why even have notches and not just a back and forth lever between idle and loud? You Am I posted:Geoj was doing his best to poo poo up this thread. Actual content:  I think this is the biggest MOW truck I've ever seen. The truck was pulling nine or ten hopper cars (with solar panels on the sides) and the crew were dumping new ballast on the track. Arse Porn Cage fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Jun 7, 2011 |
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Jun 7, 2011 01:43
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Arse Porn Cage posted:MOW truck They are Brandt trucks. They are so MOW doesn't have to have a train crew with an engine run around dumping ballast for them. Sucks for us though, eliminates jobs. Anyways, rail cars are not very hard to move around. I have personally got a car to roll into a track by just using a little elbow into it. Steel wheels on steel rails are very easy to roll. Why do you think 12000 HP can move 20,000+ easily? The turbines are long gone. To bad, would have been neat to see those thunder along.
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Jun 7, 2011 01:49
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MOMMY DADDY STOP FIGHTING!!!!! Group hug please.
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Jun 7, 2011 02:03
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BrokenKnucklez posted:The turbines are long gone. Too bad, would have been neat to see those thunder along. Every text I've read about these describes them as being extremely loud. The sound in this video is rather subdued by comparison. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP9rqpVrFEw About 2:30 in the previous video, plus new sound. Made me laugh when I saw it, and it's quite the contrast compared to the original narration.
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Jun 7, 2011 02:07
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^ Thats a fairly low speed run, I would have to imagine it would be considerably louder with the throttle cracked open.
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Jun 7, 2011 03:04
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Geoj posted:There's one of these across US 250/30 in Wooster, OH. Can't find it on google maps as I believe the line may be inactive (crossing has "EXEMPT" signs on it,) but they do exist. And yes...stopping to look both ways before proceeding is just as dangerous as blindly trusting the gates in a 60 MPH zone. I get the feeling being rear-ended by a semi at highway speed is going to have the same effect as being broadsided by a train. I cross those tracks on the way to Ashland all the time since i live on rt 43 outside of Canton. I've never actually seen a train there but i do slow down since you don't have a really good line of sight. I don't stop since it's a 50mph? freeway. The thing i'm loving though is the rest of 30 being built so i no longer have to go through Wooster to get to ashland, columbus, or huber heights.
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Jun 7, 2011 07:18
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auzdark posted:In regards to crossings, there are hardly any in Australia where I drive around, the trains are all elevated across the roads until they hit the city, then its all underground. There are plenty around in the bush and even a bunch in Sydney. There's even one on Parramatta Road. It's always surprised me that there is a level crossing on perhaps one of the busiest roads in Sydney. I think it's on the Carlingford line so it sees fairly regular passenger services.
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Jun 7, 2011 13:06
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upsidedown posted:There are plenty around in the bush and even a bunch in Sydney. There's even one on Parramatta Road. The frustrating thing about the ones we do have that aren't too country is the train station is sometimes next to the crossing and when a train pulls in, traffic is left waiting while the train sits in the station.
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Jun 7, 2011 13:13
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DarkCuddles posted:The frustrating thing about the ones we do have that aren't too country is the train station is sometimes next to the crossing and when a train pulls in, traffic is left waiting while the train sits in the station. At the ones that are slightly more country, you're left waiting a whole lot longer. Seriously though, here in Queensland we have idiot road drivers. So much so, that the government has decided to start installing red light cameras on certain level crossings that pose the highest risk. For example, on my 35 minute, 19 kilometre trip from my home station to the CBD, my train crosses six level crossings. The one that has the red light camera is directly adjacent to a T-intersection, has a train board speed of 100 km/h, an almost blind corner for the train driver and a neutral section about 300 metres before the crossing to boot. I can think of three crossings in my particular corner of Brisbane that all have a high traffic T-intersection built directly next to the level crossing: Telegraph Rd at Bald Hills, Robinson Road at Geebung and St. Vincents Road at Banyo. The one at Banyo has two. upsidedown posted:Parramatta Road Looking at that map further, I note it's not far from Bold St, where the Granville rail disaster occurred. Any chance that the fact that this was designed as a level crossing was influenced by that particular event? BlackShadow fucked around with this message at 14:21 on Jun 7, 2011 |
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Jun 7, 2011 14:14
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BlackShadow posted:Seriously though, here in Queensland we have idiot road drivers. So much so, that the government has decided to start installing red light cameras on certain level crossings that pose the highest risk. Same here in WA, they've installed two so far at the most worrying intersections. Believe it or not, they actually had to put in an extra (third) boom gate as well to presumably stop people dodging through.
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Jun 7, 2011 15:14
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upsidedown posted:There are plenty around in the bush and even a bunch in Sydney. There's even one on Parramatta Road.
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Jun 7, 2011 16:04
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I know the conversation has degraded to crossing talk, but I want each of you to read this: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/sep/17/local/me-engineer17
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Jun 8, 2011 04:15
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and this http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/20/local/la-me-metrolink-ntsb20-2010jan20
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Jun 8, 2011 04:18
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BlackShadow posted:
No. The Carlingford line predates any development in the area by some margin and also the Granville disaster - in fact there used to be many more lines that crisscrossed Parramatta Road towards Auburn near the present Boral site. In fact there was three major crossings in the area before James Ruse Drive was built - all at the race course where you crossed the line twice and another nearby It's been long talked about how to get rid of the crossing on Parramatta Road, but the cost verses any real benefit has always won - it would cost many multi millions and is not an easy engineering solution, given the nearby Duck Creek and other developments around the area. The Carlingford line is a quiet track so there's not much train traffic. Plus, there is a speed lmit of 20kph which means anyone stupid enough to try to beat the train is very, very likely to do it - and anyone stuck on the track is seen well in time for a train to stop. So there's not a lot of motivation The other level crossings in Sydney are on the Richmond line past Riverstone - which are long straights with good visibility and dickheads who try to beat a train going at 110 kph
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Jun 8, 2011 05:05
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Arse Porn Cage posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPh1JkIhoOk  Enjoy some top '70s synth music and beards!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9rBcSZb3bE It looked awesome, so it was killed stone dead, of course. (The electric APT-P that followed did no better.) The HST seen after it fared better, but the prototype looks drat weird with its snub nose compared to the units that went into service.
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Jun 8, 2011 15:28
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B4Ctom1 posted:and this http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/20/local/la-me-metrolink-ntsb20-2010jan20 Wait, are they saying that the eye witnesses saw green, but they are all wrong? With the money out there, I wouldn't be surprised if they could get an expert that says the light was pink and flashing purple.
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Jun 8, 2011 17:28
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InterceptorV8 posted:Wait, are they saying that the eye witnesses saw green, but they are all wrong? WRONG! Neon green then brown.
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Jun 8, 2011 21:18
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B4Ctom1 posted:and this http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/20/local/la-me-metrolink-ntsb20-2010jan20 The NTSB report was posted in another thread a while back. The guy was sending text messages to high school kids (kinda creepy) up to a few seconds before they crashed. They also detail how it's extremely unlikely the light could have been green due to the way the electric system is designed.
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Jun 8, 2011 21:53
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Elukka posted:MSTS has lots of additional paid content, Trainz has the most free content, I believe, and Railworks looks a lot better than either of them and also runs a lot smoother than Trainz which seems to have had poo poo-all optimization done to it. As a downside there's less additional content available for Railworks since it's the newest one. Thanks for that info! Regarding level grade crossings, a kid I went to school with wound up dead when the idiots he was riding with drove INTO the side of a train as it went through an intersection at 70mph. The signals were not operating, but everyone in the car was high and drunk so as far as I ever heard, it was considered the fault of the driver and not the train.
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Jun 8, 2011 23:59
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CharlesM posted:The NTSB report was posted in another thread a while back. The guy was sending text messages to high school kids (kinda creepy) up to a few seconds before they crashed. They also detail how it's extremely unlikely the light could have been green due to the way the electric system is designed. I agree, trainspotters are kinda creepy.
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Jun 9, 2011 01:55
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Stupidity knows no bounds. I caught some kids on video crawling under an actively switching train at the MBTA station in Ayer, Massachusetts. Two of them crawled under it before I started filming then the other two followed them. Why? So they wouldn't have to walk 500 feet to cross the tracks on a nearby bridge or wait for the train to clear the crossing. Link: http://youtu.be/5uXq0ZOQU1c?hd=1&t=3m34s
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Jun 9, 2011 02:22
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Disgruntled Bovine posted:Stupidity knows no bounds. I caught some kids on video crawling under an actively switching train at the MBTA station in Ayer, Massachusetts. Two of them crawled under it before I started filming then the other two followed them. Why? So they wouldn't have to walk 500 feet to cross the tracks on a nearby bridge or wait for the train to clear the crossing. I saw you trying to zoom in on that girl there. 
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Jun 9, 2011 02:27
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He sounds like a lonely guy who'd been kicked in the teeth a bit, and he was happy to give some rail fans more access to the behind-the-scenes stuff than he was allowed to / should have. But whatever happened, the evidence is that he was texting while bearing a heavy responsibility and as nice as the guy may have been, that's lovely.
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Jun 9, 2011 02:32
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InterceptorV8 posted:I saw you trying to zoom in on that girl there. I'm a train nerd, clearly a smoking locomotive is far more interesting than some girl's butt. 
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Jun 9, 2011 03:05
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BrokenKnucklez posted:
 CharlesM posted:The NTSB report was posted in another thread a while back. The guy was sending text messages to high school kids (kinda creepy) up to a few seconds before they crashed. They also detail how it's extremely unlikely the light could have been green due to the way the electric system is designed. If you read the first LA Times link you can see he was likely suicidal. He was on a collision course too, one with a return to prison. I think he offed himself and took 25 people whom he considered a daily pain in his rear end with him. The text messages are just him wanting a little human contact before he did it. As an engineer with 13 years of RR experience, every red signal run through I have ever seen or read of results in the engineer stopping within a few hundred feet. When an engineer runs through a red signal he usually realizes what he had just done and emergency stops his train, or just stops, puts the call out that he just screwed up. Then the managers come with another engineer and you get 1 or 2 months off depending on the situation. This guy ran through not one, but two signals, never touched his brakes, even though he could see the freight train coming for about a minute and a half. That was how long the UPRR crew was in emergency when they saw him coming at them. He rode headlong into that train looking at it and never touching the brake. sigtrap posted:He sounds like a lonely guy who'd been kicked in the teeth a bit, and he was happy to give some rail fans more access to the behind-the-scenes stuff than he was allowed to / should have. But whatever happened, the evidence is that he was texting while bearing a heavy responsibility and as nice as the guy may have been, that's lovely. Yes, this guy was texting with some foamer teen because he was reaching out for a little contact before he offed himself plain and simple. The feds, the media, everyone else HAS to go after the cellphone issue because it is a hot-button issue right now. That and they can assign a cause they have been looking to enforce for a while. They needed a watershed event and they got it in spades. Since this wreck there have been a few cell phone related accidents of buses and trains. They were right to make the law, they just shouldn't have waited until a reason had occurred. Ironically they picked an wreck to highlight that had only a passing connection to cellphones use, but they got their end result, a good result. B4Ctom1 fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Jun 9, 2011 |
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Jun 9, 2011 04:13
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Disgruntled Bovine posted:Stupidity knows no bounds. I caught some kids on video crawling under an actively switching train at the MBTA station in Ayer, Massachusetts. Two of them crawled under it before I started filming then the other two followed them. Why? So they wouldn't have to walk 500 feet to cross the tracks on a nearby bridge or wait for the train to clear the crossing. It looks like the track needs new ballast or something, its warping pretty badly.
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Jun 10, 2011 21:47
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Disgruntled Bovine posted:Stupidity knows no bounds. I caught some kids on video crawling under an actively switching train at the MBTA station in Ayer, Massachusetts. Two of them crawled under it before I started filming then the other two followed them. Why? So they wouldn't have to walk 500 feet to cross the tracks on a nearby bridge or wait for the train to clear the crossing.  Down here in Philly we have a pedestrian and bike trail that follows the Schuylkill River which is separated from Center City by a very active CSX line. It's common for trains to block the grade-level city-to-trail ramps for hours at a time, but that doesn't stop Darwin Award-wannabes from just climbing over the railcars at the couplers. CSX has been sued and summoned to install additional ped bridges, but you still have to wonder how lazy and unaware people can be when they can access the trail via a couple bridges without endangering their lives.
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Jun 10, 2011 22:17
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^ If the train is truly blocking the ramps (as in, not moving) for "hours" I don't think passing through the cars at the couplers is on the same plane of stupidity as crawling under the cars when the engine is spooled up, getting ready to move. Would you say that crossing a gridlocked three lane highway is equally as stupid as crossing the same highway when traffic is moving at ~65 MPH? Also if they're parking the trains across the grade-level crossings and its never acceptable for someone to pass through the cars, then why not just do away with the crossings entirely? From your description it sounds like they're blocked more often than they're open. Geoj fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Jun 10, 2011 |
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Jun 10, 2011 23:09
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Geoj posted:^ You probably won't know if the engine is spooled up, ready to go at the trail because the locos are far away from the crossings. Personally, I will always use the bridge crossings rather than hopping over a coupler. The best part is that the idiots usually have bikes with them, which would make a frantic jump even more nasty if the train were to accelerate. I can't give you exact stats on what percentage of time there is a train blocking the crossings as I am not a  like the people on Railroad.net. All I can tell you is that there have been plenty of legal battles over the crossings and they are gradually being replaced by ped overpasses.
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Jun 10, 2011 23:21
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I'm starting my last training in driving now  I'll be driving the Di8  The EL14  The EL16  And maybe the CE119  Can't wait to get certified!
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Jun 11, 2011 01:29
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flooding and washouts in Montana http://misostudios.com/temp/MONTANAFloodsMay21_25.pdf
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Jun 15, 2011 03:31
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Hey so is anyone else sick of Railroad.NET? There are occasionally great threads about interesting topics, but it's mostly foamers jacking off to one another. There should be a rule that you are permanently banned if you post a train number, it would clear the aspies out right quick.
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Jun 15, 2011 13:58
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Fixed Gear Guy posted:Hey so is anyone else sick of Railroad.NET? There are occasionally great threads about interesting topics, but it's mostly foamers jacking off to one another. There should be a rule that you are permanently banned if you post a train number, it would clear the aspies out right quick. God, I can't stand Railroad.net. I'm really into Commuter Rail, and used to hang out on the MBTA/MBCR subforums and if those guys aren't being complete toolboxes to newbies just curious about trains, they're closing threads for going "off topic" as the conversation migrates around the same general subject.
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Jun 15, 2011 16:10
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Fixed Gear Guy posted:Hey so is anyone else sick of Railroad.NET? There are occasionally great threads about interesting topics, but it's mostly foamers jacking off to one another. There should be a rule that you are permanently banned if you post a train number, it would clear the aspies out right quick. It's gotten a little better since Jeff Smith took over as admin. Otto Vondrak seemed like a whiny bitch in some of his posts, and loved to close threads while making huffy little comments. I like hearing the stories some of the old timers tell of their days on the job, usually pretty interesting stuff. You're right though, there's a lot of people on there who think they know everything.
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Jun 15, 2011 22:14
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