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BrokenKnucklez posted:Last unit frac sand train i had on my desk was 32,000 tons. Yep. You just read that correctly. 244 short sand cars, 7 locomotives, and a length of 12000. I have to say, I read this, then I looked over at your big red text and chuckled.  That is one ginormous train. Do they tear up the tracks worse than smaller ones? Or is that more of a "weight per axle" thing that damages the track? Rough numbers looks like 130 tons per car, looks like 130-140 is allowed.
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Apr 3, 2014 22:39
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sincx posted:I am amazed that, in 2014, there are still passenger trains in the UK without automatic doors. The fact that the manual doors are opened and closed by passengers themselves is astounding. No agency in the United States would trust riders enough to shut the doors when they are supposed to be shut. In fairness, they do all have an amber light up on the side of the carriage that extinguishes when the doors are correctly shut & locked, so the guard can see what's up.
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Apr 3, 2014 22:42
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Touche` kastien. 143 gross tons per car is the maximum limit. Flat spots, cold weather and imperfections rip things up more than heavy trains. But heavy trains are usually "not looked after" so they have flat spots on the wheels, which in cold weather causes broken rails... etc.
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Apr 3, 2014 22:43
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sincx posted:I am amazed that, in 2014, there are still passenger trains in the UK without automatic doors. The fact that the manual doors are opened and closed by passengers themselves is astounding. No agency in the United States would trust riders enough to shut the doors when they are supposed to be shut. That would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act I imagine.
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Apr 3, 2014 22:57
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Figured I'd share this video of mine since we're posting trains making good noises and blowing lots of smoke. This train was either underpowered or had a dead engine (not sure which) because when they stopped it on the grade outside the yard it couldn't get itself moving again and they had to bring out the yard goats (two GP9s) to help it. Judging by the smoke show they put on it was probably the first time they'd been worked that hard in a long time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOH4J5l41LI
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Apr 3, 2014 23:42
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BrokenKnucklez posted:Last unit frac sand train i had on my desk was 32,000 tons. Yep. You just read that correctly. 244 short sand cars, 7 locomotives, and a length of 12000. That's massive, I'd hate to be the poor shmuck who has to check a hotbox or something. Our intermodals are upwards of 14000ft, but not nearly that heavy obviously. Doesn't help that we have a limit of 24 driving axles, and by the time they get down here to us it's usually down to 18. There's a 1.1 grade right in town that is kinda dicey if you haven't got a good run at it. Captain Postal posted:Which is about half the size of the ore trains in Which is just crazy. Looking it up, it had 48000hp between 8 locos, .48hp/t isn't unbearable if it was spread out and a pretty flat run. But the buff and draft on 7km of train would be a nightmare. Skeeber fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Apr 4, 2014 |
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Apr 4, 2014 00:48
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at 45,000t. And they are less than half the size of the special one-off ore trains at 100,000t. That's a loving Nimitz supercarrier. I can't comprehend how hard it is to drive one of those without breaking it
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Speaking of big haulage, one thing I've never been able to find out is why a 4-axle locomotive might be preferable to a 6-axle one - i.e. why would you buy a Geep over an SD? I figure that a six axle (Co-Co) locomotive would have a lower axle-loading and more tractive effort due to having more area of contact with the rail. I'd also imagine that it would be more stable on the track at speed. So what would the advantage of a Bo-Bo be?
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Apr 4, 2014 01:02
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I'm pretty certain that a 4 axle locomotive is better at high speeds, but I have no idea why. Maybe something to do with shorter rigid wheelbase? But modern 6 axle trucks are generally slightly steerable anyway so that can't be it.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:22
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Axeman Jim posted:Speaking of big haulage, one thing I've never been able to find out is why a 4-axle locomotive might be preferable to a 6-axle one - i.e. why would you buy a Geep over an SD? GPs have the advantage of working on low pound rate rail, and tight curves. Generally, GP units only work in yards or road switching locals. But you can't "purchase" new GP units anymore, most are rebuilt incarnations. The GP 38 is the roach of the locomotive world. They just don't die.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:47
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drunkill posted:Just a reminder about trains vs cars in the worst case. I love this video. The far side of the car doesn't even begin to move until the train is all the way through it. Just staggering levels of destruction.
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Apr 4, 2014 02:45
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Skeeber posted:That's massive, I'd hate to be the poor shmuck who has to check a hotbox or something. Our intermodals are upwards of 14000ft, but not nearly that heavy obviously. Doesn't help that we have a limit of 24 driving axles, and by the time they get down here to us it's usually down to 18. There's a 1.1 grade right in town that is kinda dicey if you haven't got a good run at it. You work in Australia or on a west coast line?
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Apr 4, 2014 06:08
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Disgruntled Bovine posted:Figured I'd share this video of mine since we're posting trains making good noises and blowing lots of smoke. This train was either underpowered or had a dead engine (not sure which) because when they stopped it on the grade outside the yard it couldn't get itself moving again and they had to bring out the yard goats (two GP9s) to help it. Judging by the smoke show they put on it was probably the first time they'd been worked that hard in a long time. I love how Guilford bought the Pan Am name so they could rename their dinky Class II North Eastern railway after a former world wide airline that got its start serving South America.
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Apr 4, 2014 06:42
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Axeman Jim posted:BR Class 42 and 43 “Warship” From now on I shall hear Clarkson in my mind reading every Axeman Jim post
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Apr 4, 2014 15:44
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MassivelyBuckNegro posted:You work in Australia or on a west coast line? I'm on the west coast.
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Apr 4, 2014 18:20
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buttcrackmenace posted:From now on I shall hear Clarkson in my mind reading every Axeman Jim post Oh drat. Now that you've mentioned it, so shall I.
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Apr 4, 2014 19:08
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Disgruntled Bovine posted:Figured I'd share this video of mine since we're posting trains making good noises and blowing lots of smoke. This train was either underpowered or had a dead engine (not sure which) because when they stopped it on the grade outside the yard it couldn't get itself moving again and they had to bring out the yard goats (two GP9s) to help it. Judging by the smoke show they put on it was probably the first time they'd been worked that hard in a long time. The third locomotive, the Red SD45 seems not to be running from your video, which would explain the need to get the yard goats to help. Great video though.
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Apr 4, 2014 22:03
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buttcrackmenace posted:From now on I shall hear Clarkson in my mind reading every Axeman Jim post We make the worst trains... ...in the world.
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Apr 5, 2014 02:09
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I was watching an episode of The Railway (the BBC documentary) and there were Pacers in a scene where several people were being trained on Arriva Trains. I immediately cringed at the sight of them and they even had problems with the doors.
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Apr 5, 2014 02:16
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How to drive a spike http://youtu.be/aQjJoLpyGqE
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Apr 5, 2014 04:24
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Friend of mine posted this on facebook and I had to share... "I'm no train expert, but I'm pretty sure this isn't going to work..."
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Apr 7, 2014 00:24
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kastein posted:Friend of mine posted this on facebook and I had to share... Man, what's even the best case scenario there? Either the train cuts right through the hose without stopping, or by some miracle the protectors hold and now suddenly your train has jumped the tracks and you have an even bigger mess to clean up.
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Apr 7, 2014 00:42
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Here's hoping someone has called the control centre.
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Apr 7, 2014 02:25
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The hoses are rubber and cloth and the ramps are hard plastic. They don't stand a goddamn chance against a few hundred/thousand tons of train. Those firefighters are going to be without water very abruptly if a train comes through.
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Apr 7, 2014 02:31
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Maybe they were put down for rail-service vehicles. If not I refuse to believe anything other than those fire fighters have a great sense of humor.
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Apr 7, 2014 04:21
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Fire fighters can be stupid too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj2Q0NpnEUQ
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Apr 7, 2014 04:23
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I imagine the panels are simply to lift the hose clear of the rails, perhaps to prevent abrading against the metal or getting caught in the gap. Worst-case, it's someone powertripping and demanding you follow this procedure to the letter dammit!
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Apr 7, 2014 05:25
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kastein posted:The hoses are rubber and cloth and the ramps are hard plastic. They don't stand a goddamn chance against a few hundred/thousand tons of train. I think firefighters are probably 3rd in order on the list of people who know what a train can do. 1st being people hit by trains, and second being the crew. I don't think anyone has any illusion here. The policy probably says place ramps anywhere a vehicle may need to cross your hoses and someone didn't feel like getting bitched at.
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Apr 7, 2014 05:54
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It's hard to believe that planners didn't have the foresight to put hydrants on both sides. Well, maybe not that hard to believe.
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Apr 7, 2014 05:59
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Skeeber posted:That's massive, I'd hate to be the poor shmuck who has to check a hotbox or something. Our intermodals are upwards of 14000ft, but not nearly that heavy obviously. Doesn't help that we have a limit of 24 driving axles, and by the time they get down here to us it's usually down to 18. There's a 1.1 grade right in town that is kinda dicey if you haven't got a good run at it. For the record-setting special train, long enough: quote:Australia BHP Run on 21 June 2001, comprising 682 wagons and hauled by eight 6000 hp General Electric AC6000CW diesel-electric locomotives controlled by a single driver with a total length of 7.353 km on the 275 km iron ore railway to Port Hedland in Western Australia – total weight 99,734 tons[17] Half of a typical ore-train. As you can see, Western Australia is flat enough.  Our most famous passenger train isn't short either. The Ghan can pull upto 49 coaches, approx 1.2Km. drunkill fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Apr 7, 2014 |
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Apr 7, 2014 07:15
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quote:Australia BHP Run on 21 June 2001, comprising 682 wagons and hauled by eight 6000 hp General Electric AC6000CW diesel-electric locomotives controlled by a single driver with a total length of 7.353 km on the 275 km iron ore railway to Port Hedland in Western Australia – total weight 99,734 tons[17] That poor soul. Probably clenched tight enough to forge diamonds the whole trip.
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Apr 7, 2014 07:27
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Neddy Seagoon posted:That poor soul. Probably clenched tight enough to forge diamonds the whole trip. They are (or soon will be) driven remotely from Perth, 1500km away (I think - they might be remote from somewhere closer like Port Headland?). That's gotta make it a fun job. No idea what the lag is/will be on the controls, but they'll be earning their pay
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Apr 7, 2014 09:01
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Australian rail never ceases to amaze, I guess that's what you get when your country is an entire continent most of which is a flat desert and you need to move a lot of goods from one end of it to the other. Heck you even have trains made out of trucks. My contribution is M62 extreme freight cornering: .jpg) It almost looks like it would fall over here really: .jpg) Dunno how usual-unusual this sort of situation is, it's banked that hard because this line is intensively used by both freight and passenger trains, the passenger EMU's run at 120-160km/h so the banking is pretty much necessary.
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Apr 7, 2014 12:03
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TheCoach posted:Dunno how usual-unusual this sort of situation is, it's banked that hard because this line is intensively used by both freight and passenger trains, the passenger EMU's run at 120-160km/h so the banking is pretty much necessary. It's quite usual: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superelevation
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Apr 7, 2014 12:06
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Captain Postal posted:They are (or soon will be) driven remotely from Perth, 1500km away (I think - they might be remote from somewhere closer like Port Headland?). That's gotta make it a fun job. No idea what the lag is/will be on the controls, but they'll be earning their pay That seems like a really bad idea to me.
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Apr 7, 2014 12:57
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The alternative is paying drivers $250k+ per year to work in a shithole. Same thing with the giant trucks and digging equipment. fake edit: I just checked - Yes, those trains are now driven remotely and semi-autonomously, at least as field trials. Google Rio Tinto and "Mine of the Future" - that's what they call the project. Captain Postal fucked around with this message at 13:11 on Apr 7, 2014 |
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Apr 7, 2014 13:08
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Captain Postal posted:The alternative is paying drivers $300k+ per year to work in a shithole. Same thing with the giant trucks and digging equipment. I did and I think you'll find it is in fact Mine of the Future™ not Mine of the Future. What a ridiculous trademark.
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Apr 7, 2014 13:12
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:What a ridiculous trademark. Welcome to Australia!
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Apr 7, 2014 19:26
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British Rail Class 159 - brought to you by the surly teenager school of train-building The 159 may have the body profile of a coffin and have an engine sound like a swarm of bees arguing in a lunchbox, but it's not all that terrible a train, compared to many of the others I've discussed. What stands out about the 159 was the jaw-dropping idiocy of the way it was procured. I wrote in a previous post about the class 456 and how it wasn't built properly, resulting in a long impasse about fixing the design errors between Network SouthEast (the division of BR responsible for London's commuter services) and BREL (the train-building arm). But if you think that it's problematic when two divisions of the same nationalised industry fall out, wait till you end up privatising one of them. Thus is the amazing dumbness of how the 159 came into service. BR's Regional Railways division (responsible for slower inter-urban routes) sought to replace a load of life-expired diesels on a variety of quieter routes and procured the class 158 from BREL's Derby factory (which still makes trains for Bombardier). However, passenger numbers were falling on those routes and Regional Railways found themselves with more trains on order (and already paid for) than they needed to deploy (though sardine-tin conditions one some of those routes once 5-car loco-hauled trains were replaced by 2-car DMUs suggest that it was more a matter of how many they could afford to run). Either way, there were too many DMUs on order. In the meantime, Network SouthEast had a problem, which was that the Class 50s (see earlier post) were spluttering to a standstill on the London-Exeter line and urgently needed replacing. Some class 47s were drafted in from Scotland, but they were old and not much better, and the coaching stock dated from the 60's and was disintegrating. They struck a deal with Regional Railways to take on 22 of the planned 3-car 158s for the Exeter line. These trains would need some modifications compared to a standard 158, such as first class sections and retention toilets (even as late as 1990 class 158s were still being built that emptied raw sewage onto the track). It's important to note at this point that these were paper orders and no start had been made on actually building the trains.  New features include: does not squirt poo poo in your face It was around this time that the government sold off BREL, BR's train-building arm. Network SouthEast spoke to BREL and asked them to vary the order for the last 22 class 158s, with the changes required for them to become class 159s. BREL, in the spirit of capitalism, told them to go gently caress themselves. BREL refused to vary the order unless NSE re-negotiated the entire contract from scratch, paying for a 22-train run of a non-standard class (at a non-standard price) rather than accepting a variation on the 200+ unit run of 158s. NSE couldn't afford that, so the 159s were built as 158s, with no first-class seating, squirt-poo poo-on-the-tracks toilets and even, despite the fact that they knew the units were destined for NSE and that it would have been cheaper to leave them in undercoat, painting them in Regional Railways livery complete with big “Regional Railways” titles on them, because gently caress you, that's why. So NSE hauled all 22 of them from Derby to a contractor in Portsmouth who they paid to rip out the seats and toilets (which had only been installed on the trains for a few days and never used) and fit the modifications that BREL had refused to make. Yup, privatisation sure made things more efficient.
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Apr 7, 2014 20:03
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sincx fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Mar 23, 2021 |
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Apr 7, 2014 21:42
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What I never understood was what is the point of first class in the 159s? They're the same seats with different colour cloth and that's it. The price difference isn't justified by anything, really. East Coast had the best first class, and although FGW had a first as well it wasn't as nice (nor as well utilized) as the rest, let alone what Virgin had going before FGW came along. I have to wonder how things will look now that Virgin lost their Pendolino contract.
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Apr 8, 2014 02:24
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