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Hezzy posted:Is that a 152? There's definitely one still running; used to do Barrow in Furness to Buxton a few years ago. I see it sometimes on the Blackpool line these days It's a 142 and all the units that weren't reduced to matchwood in alarmingly low-speed accidents are still around. They've been shunted around the network quite a lot as various regions and operators got sick of them, so it may be that they haven't been polluting the rails in his particular neck of the woods for a few years. The colour scheme on that unit dates that picture to the early 90's at the latest. 
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Jul 14, 2014 15:11
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A guy I work with worked for the Rock Island when it went bankrupt in 1980. He said you couldn't cash the checks, but you just had to keep working. Then one day the word came through that they had put some money in their bank account from selling off rolling stock and trackage and everyone ran down and cashed their checks and went away to work for other railroads.
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Jul 14, 2014 19:52
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Axeman Jim posted:It's a 142 and all the units that weren't reduced to matchwood in alarmingly low-speed accidents are still around. They've been shunted around the network quite a lot as various regions and operators got sick of them, so it may be that they haven't been polluting the rails in his particular neck of the woods for a few years. The colour scheme on that unit dates that picture to the early 90's at the latest. Actually it relates to the story in your avatar. It was during the demonstration that your country was putting on for the British Columbian government. We ended up choosing to just extend the SkyTrain network across the river that very bridge goes over.
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Jul 15, 2014 00:47
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I don't know if I ever mentioned it here but Strasburg, Pennsylvania is a loving fantastic railroad town and I've been out there once when I was younger. Family and I went to the Red Caboose Motel, where you can sleep in a caboose, and slept in a baggage car for the night (they were out of cabooses I guess). Also, the Strasburg Rail Road does revenue freight services with their steam locomotives.
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Jul 15, 2014 02:36
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I went there a couple years ago, it was pretty great. Stayed at the Red Caboose, rode the Strasberg RR and went to the museum. The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania is definitely worth the stop as well while you're there, I think it has all but 3 of the Pennsylvania Railroad's surviving steam locomotives. Sadly, it doesn't run them.
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Jul 15, 2014 04:05
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That's a pretty nice road they're running on, too.
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Jul 15, 2014 04:12
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OSI bean dip posted:Axeman Jim, you might find this relevant to your avatar: Was there any other information from the site where you got this image? I've never seen passenger service on that line. That picture way predates that road's improvement. Around 20 years ago I was driving a 5-ton along that road, heading east, with freight oncoming along the rails west-bound and a semi oncoming in the opposite lane. I managed to bang my mirror on the semi's mirror and bounce the top of my box off of a boxcar.
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Jul 15, 2014 05:20
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Ah, didn't realise that was a picture from our little Canadian adventure. Not sure why sending a Pacer of all things was meant to showcase the "Best of British". It's like sending Justin Bieber on tour and saying "come to Canada, we're all like this."
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Jul 15, 2014 10:52
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FISHMANPET posted:That's a pretty nice road they're running on, too. That's the NS mainline, I assure you their own track isn't nearly as nice.
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Jul 15, 2014 17:22
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I live kinda near a steam train line, and I saw a video where the carriages had electric lights, how do they generate and distribute the power to run electric lights on a steam train? (Bluebell railway in England)
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Jul 15, 2014 20:09
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Crankit posted:I live kinda near a steam train line, and I saw a video where the carriages had electric lights, how do they generate and distribute the power to run electric lights on a steam train? (Bluebell railway in England) If you look up underneath the carriages they probably hid a gasoline powered generator to run the car lights.
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Jul 15, 2014 20:25
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Crankit posted:I live kinda near a steam train line, and I saw a video where the carriages had electric lights, how do they generate and distribute the power to run electric lights on a steam train? (Bluebell railway in England) in the past? They ran a turbine and generator in the locomotive. Now.. it's probally generators.
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Jul 15, 2014 20:31
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Some cars used to have generators tied to the axle (way back when). Not sure how prevalent this was in any country, though.
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Jul 15, 2014 22:07
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ijustam posted:Some cars used to have generators tied to the axle (way back when). Not sure how prevalent this was in any country, though. Dynamos and batteries was pretty much the standard for electric lighting and steam locomotives, so pretty prevalent. Even then only the prestigious routes would have had the modern carriages though - everyone else would be making do with gas lamps.
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Jul 15, 2014 23:48
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Axeman Jim posted:It's like sending Justin Bieber on tour and saying "come to Canada, we're all like this."
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Jul 16, 2014 03:56
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Welp, here is the future  http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blogs/frank-n-wilner/bnsf-smart-seek-historic-crew-consist-revision.html?channel
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Jul 17, 2014 17:01
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B4Ctom1 posted:Welp, here is the future What did you expect? Its going to slow down work at yards/terminals if the inbound crew can't do any work on account of only having an engineer.
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Jul 17, 2014 17:39
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It's going to get interesting in the next 5 years or so. I know I'm already looking at back up plans if/when this all happens in my territory. Either way, I think the company is going to think twice once trains sit dead with issues in remote areas and no one to fix the problem.
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Jul 17, 2014 18:45
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BrokenKnucklez posted:It's going to get interesting in the next 5 years or so. Dudes were probably saying that when EOTs invented.
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Jul 18, 2014 15:27
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MassivelyBuckNegro posted:Dudes were probably saying that when EOTs invented. Well when there's a broken knuckle and no "master conductor" around to fix it that's when people start caring. But I don't know, this is what the companies want. PTC works great in single main areas but two or 3 mains it fails pretty horribly. The GPS has trouble determining what track your on at times. Again, back up plans are getting in place for myself. I hope every one else is doing the same. BrokenKnucklez fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Jul 18, 2014 |
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Jul 18, 2014 15:46
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B4Ctom1 posted:A guy I work with worked for the Rock Island when it went bankrupt in 1980. He said you couldn't cash the checks, but you just had to keep working. Then one day the word came through that they had put some money in their bank account from selling off rolling stock and trackage and everyone ran down and cashed their checks and went away to work for other railroads. Lots of Rock Island people went to go work for Metra in Chicago, which was starting up right as the Rock was shutting down. A few years back, one of the TV stations here did a little retrospective of the Rock Island and its demise in the early 80s, and they actually interviewed the engineer who usually drove the morning train I took to work.
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Jul 19, 2014 02:12
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Well, at least they ain't changin' the way track is constructed!
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Jul 19, 2014 02:56
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Are there any good train podcasts out there? Only one I've found that updates regularly is Let's Talk Trains, which is alright but the audio quality is very 80s AM radio, sometimes there's patches of dead air (first episode I listened to had about 2-3 minutes' worth after the intro) and there's a dude who calls in with his "rail mileage" all the time. Pretty informative but some parts of it are a bit...eh. Also they keep running an ad for The Depot Inn in Missouri and it's catchy as all hell.
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Jul 19, 2014 22:35
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MassivelyBuckNegro posted:Dudes were probably saying that when EOTs invented. And they were right. It wasn't very many years later that 3/5ths of the crew was gone. I am reserving judgement on this, I'll wait and see what filters down to CSX. They have been doing a good job of reinvigorating the unions here with their latest push to put everyone out of service. Plus, we will have some time to see what happens at BNSF and to prepare. But I think the writing is on the wall, and I need to have a fall back plan put together soon. Definitely not taking on any new debt or planning a vacation for next year. I applied for a couple temporary transfers to start piling up some cash hopefully.
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Jul 20, 2014 02:15
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B4Ctom1 posted:Welp, here is the future That's some shady stuff. The BNSF guys are in our yard regularly so I asked one of the crews about it tonight. They (and their union) are livid, as apparently the majority of the members got no say or even warning about it, and it went from concept to "voted in" in about 8 hours. I don't know if it would catch on up here, as a) we don't have PTC, and b) one of the only railroads using a 1 man operation ended up blowing up a small town, so the government has made it very clear that no one can go with less than 2 man crews.
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Jul 20, 2014 07:49
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Skeeber posted:... one of the only railroads using a 1 man operation ended up blowing up a small town ... Mostly unrelated, but now the locomotive indirectly responsible (broke a piston in the engine) for that incident in Quebec is for sale, along with a lot of other MMA units. See: http://www.adamsauctions.com/servlet/Search.do?auctionId=302 and scroll down to item #116 (engine # 5017).
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Jul 20, 2014 17:54
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I want to be a super conductor, master of all things needing conducting. Maybe we can all just become mto/myos. You can never have enough managers.
Canna Happy fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Jul 21, 2014 |
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Jul 21, 2014 03:38
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P/ATC is gonna put a few dudes out of jobs, yeah, and it sucks. But it's inevitable. GE has been hammering north american RRs with promises of P/ATC-derived fuel and wear savings that are literally beyond belief for years. The board(s) will abide.
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Jul 22, 2014 00:02
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The leader system is hilariously always telling you to speed up and slow down at the wrong moments and never really knows what track we are on in double track areas. I'm not worried. I've been looking for an out and this may be the kick in the rear end I need to do something else. After doing the management thing and other jobs, this place just lost its appeal. And once it goes to one man crews our retirement system is completely destroyed.
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Jul 22, 2014 01:11
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BrokenKnucklez posted:once it goes to one man crews our retirement system is completely destroyed. Why? Not enough people paying in?
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Jul 22, 2014 02:48
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MassivelyBuckNegro posted:Why? Not enough people paying in? Well, figuring the average conductor paying in around 10k a year (tier 2) and the drastic reduction in through freight conductors... Lay off 100 guys and that's a 1 million dollars a year that will vanish into thin air. There is a clause to take tier 2 all the way to some massive number like 25% to help fund. This whole no conductor thing could really ripple the whole retirement system for every one else employed by RRs too. Note: not quality math, just throwing numbers out there.
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Jul 22, 2014 03:31
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Wait, so the retirement fund is seriously a literal ponzi, and the regulators are cool with that?
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Jul 22, 2014 12:03
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No. Its not a ponzi scheme and its no more or less a pyramid scheme than Social Security. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Retirement_Board
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Jul 22, 2014 16:38
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Well with less people paying in and the same amount drawing on it... It doesn't take much math to figure out that it doesn't work. Its a self funded retirement system. Right now its flush with cash because most of the time, old farts keel over 3-5 years after retirement. Your body really doesn't like the life style but adapts. Do this poo poo for 35 years then all of a sudden stop doing it? Not looking good.
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Jul 22, 2014 17:16
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So an electrician managed to take out 40 KM of automated metro yesterday...quote:"Human error led to yesterday’s Millennium and Expo Line disruptions. http://www.news1130.com/2014/07/22/human-error-led-to-yesterdays-skytrain-shutdown/ Nice to know that our metro system will do great in the event of a natural disaster.
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Jul 22, 2014 20:32
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Were the hell was their power redundancy? The main traction is out, but they at least should have UPS or generator supply on the comms systems. Also you should have more than one feeder point for your traction power.
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Jul 23, 2014 00:40
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Graceful degradation wasn't in the design brief, or got dropped under budgetary/delivery pressure? Nobody act surprised!
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Jul 23, 2014 03:23
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BrokenKnucklez posted:PTC works great in single main areas but two or 3 mains it fails pretty horribly. The GPS has trouble determining what track your on at times. Not anymore, the GPS is barely an issue anymore. Now the system requires that you tell it what track you are on. After that it just uses flow control from the trackside signals to tell it what track you're on. When you come to a major interchange set of crossovers, the system sometimes asks you which route you're going to be using and gives you a set of choices to select quickly on the screen. I only know this because, we are using the "Locomotive Engineer Assist Display and Event Recorder" or "LEADER" program which is sort of operationally like PTC lite. It uses all the navigation and operation profiles of PTC, but with none of the authority controls of it. We actually use the PTC screens and equipment for LEADER.
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Jul 23, 2014 18:22
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Strange, we are always battling it on our side of the world. Its getting better slowly, but for some reason it constantly thinks we are on one track and not the other. I would imagine over time we are going to go from 2 guys, 1 guy, no men in the cab. Behind diesel, labor is the biggest expense on the RR>
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Jul 23, 2014 18:53
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Some guy from Virginia took this pic. You need to like and follow Hogg Law on Facebook.  Phone posting so I timg'ed it since I cannot guard against table breakage. B4Ctom1 fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Jul 24, 2014 |
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Jul 24, 2014 02:21
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