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Sash! posted:Cool post. You really had an amazing trip. Truly a great way to celebrate your degree. So I've been reading through the back issues of the Schweizer Eisenbahn Revue that are stored in the engineer's breakroom. Plenty of interesting articles, but of particular note to your trip is the exact reason why the GPX trains were banned from running on standard gauge track. The gist of it is, that the exact geometry of standard gauge and metric wheels is different. Therefore, despite the wheels being gauged apart properly, the flanges found themselves in the wrong place and would hit and heavily damage the track switch frog. As of may, Alstom was still working on finding a compromise wheel geometry that would work on both track gauges. Sash! posted:
Allow me to be pedantic : it's an ETR 610. For the Milan-Geneva Eurocity, SBB runs part of these trains (designated RABe 503 Astoro), and Trenitalia the others. Sash! posted:
The Vectron is definitely a cool looking loco. We'll be getting our first batch next year. It'll be quite a leap in technology from the Re 420 and Re 620 that we currently use. Amusingly, the Vectron is so heavy and so prone to rail wear that SBB Cargo International has downgraded it's maximum speed to 100km/h for operations in Switzerland. Rumors abound that it might even be downclassed from Re 475 to Ae 475. The first A class locomotive since the days of the good old Ae 6/6. The chevrons are the train end signals in Switzerland. And the shunting staff in Geneva and Basel hate the big and heavy french lanterns with a passion. On to other things : according to the newspapers, last thursday, a wheel exploded on a freight car going through the Gotthard Base Tunnel (the Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board told the press today that they found wheel fragments several kilometres from where the train came to a stop). The end result is that 23 cars derailed at 100km/h as the train was going through the Faido multi-function station, which allows trains to switch from one tube to the next. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the damage is spectacular, and the Gotthard tunnel will be shut for at least another week. Passenger trains and light domestic freight trains can go over the summit line, but all the heavy international freight is backed up from Genoa to Hamburg and back.   Apparently, several kilometres look like this.   And this last picture shows why both tubes are shut down : the derailed wagon plowed through the pressure doors that separate the tubes.
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Aug 14, 2023 19:54
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JingleBells posted:The National Railway Museum have just posted a video of their most prized possession, the Pacer Thanks, I hate it
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Aug 14, 2023 20:02
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JingleBells posted:The National Railway Museum have just posted a video of their most prized possession, the Pacer Just imagine being a thing called a Pacer and somehow both the AMC product and Ron Artest are less-hated Pacers than you are
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Aug 14, 2023 20:44
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Noosphere posted:Allow me to be pedantic : it's an ETR 610. For the Milan-Geneva Eurocity, SBB runs part of these trains (designated RABe 503 Astoro), and Trenitalia the others. A) I’ve been on that route a few times. First, is it just me or are the seats worse than any other SBB train? Also, can the Italian café car staff teach the Swiss how to pull an espresso, please? B) Now that we’re a little while out, just how utterly hosed is the Gottardo? Apparently they have one tunnel open for freight, but they’re saying it’ll be months until they can run passengers through.
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Aug 20, 2023 12:47
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Jean-Paul Shartre posted:A) I’ve been on that route a few times. First, is it just me or are the seats worse than any other SBB train? Also, can the Italian café car staff teach the Swiss how to pull an espresso, please? A) I can't really comment on that, because the one time I got onboard the Milan-Geneva Eurocity, it was a Trenitalia unit. Also, please respect Swiss-style coffee  B) The Gotthard Base Tunnel has one tube that is in really bad condition. Removing the damaged and derailed cars will be a slow process, as they have to be removed through the north side of the tunnel, around 40km from the accident site (also quick correction : 16 cars derailed, not 23). Then the track will have to be rebuilt. Fortunately, the undamaged tube will be usable again starting on 23.08, at which point 90 freight trains per day will be able to use the base tunnel. All other freight trains will either use the summit line or the Simplon line. The planners over in Olten had to do a lot of overtime to completely overhaul the freight schedule. Passenger trains will continue being routed over the summit line for the forseeable future. The SBB media center released more pictures. Noosphere fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Sep 3, 2023 |
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Aug 21, 2023 06:34
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meltie posted:Thanks, I hate it I'm a filthy casual railfan but feel kind of blessed to have spent a hot June day riding a Pacer from Wales to London. It's like I get to be included on a (kind of lovely) inside joke.
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Aug 25, 2023 16:54
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Boys who love boys
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Noosphere posted:A) I can't really comment on that, because the one time I got onboard the Milan-Geneva Eurocity, it was a Trenitalia unit. Also, please respect Swiss-style coffee Never!
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Aug 25, 2023 21:03
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 I spy some red taffy to share with a friend, A tie and a spike and two B.H.O.N.'s I spy a rolled blunt and a round, shiny Lincoln, A quarter-worn rail and a shooter for drinkin'. I spy a comp. joint for 100#RE, And a hundred dropped needles (thankfully from a tree) Three little red trucks with a fire to fight, A Coke and a coffee since it's been a long night. I spy a small bolt and some ballast (or rocks) A tall glass of water, a fried chicken box. A pair of steel anchors knocked loose from the rail. But where is our Hobo? Hopefully not in jail.
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Aug 31, 2023 02:16
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JingleBells posted:The National Railway Museum have just posted a video of their most prized possession, the Pacer Of loving course the destination is Manchester Victoria.
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Sep 1, 2023 20:43
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JingleBells posted:The National Railway Museum have just posted a video of their most prized possession, the Pacer For as much as they were legendarily poo poo by reputation...it might just be rose-tinted glasses from, now, 15 years and half a world away, but having spent hundreds of hours on the drat things, they could honestly be kinda good - a nice illustration of how small things can change your experience travelling. The problem with them was that they were built to stuff people in like sardines from new, then all the private companies that ran them decided to refurbish them with modern conveniences like individual seats and they mostly ended up using these hard-backed shell things that invariably gave you six inches of knee room less than you needed, so every journey was a torture.  A vision of hell Somewhere in the mix, though, one of them decided to make just a handful of them actually comfortable. If you got one of these::  You got an armrest, fairly serious legroom, a bizarrely well-cushioned seat that almost felt like it was on air springs, and a basically built-in 30 degree recline (I think about twice what was intended because they weren't all that strong and you could sort of...bend them back). With as much as you'd get tossed around in them that combo was far away the best #1 A+ train sleeping experience I've ever had for £3.70 a ride, just snoozing away on a big pillow while you slowly bounce down to Sheffield or wherever
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Sep 2, 2023 04:55
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I mean, they were bad trains: point a microphone at any random normie non-trainsexual passenger and they'd undoubtedly be described as the cheap, nasty, rattly, bouncy, leaky, screamy heaps of poo poo that they were and the trains weren't much better!! (audience laughter). Good riddance to bad rubbish imo
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Sep 2, 2023 08:39
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so I could say that I finally figured out what this god damned cube is doing. Get well Lowtax.
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I also have a strange fondness for the Pacer. But that's because my experience of them was semi-regularly riding one on the Severn Beach Line while at uni in Bristol, and so it's mostly nostalgia for student/young adult freedom and the Pacer nearly always meant going to or coming back from doing something fun with friends. I never really.had to ride a Pacer - never had to use one twice a day, five days a week to get to and from work. Never faced waiting on a platform on a cold, wet winter evening just wanting to get home and getting a late-running, overcrowded 1970s bus body on a freight wagon chassis. Plus the Severn Beach route was pretty much exactly what the Pacer was meant for - a lightly-used single-track branch line that was short hops between basic urban/inner suburban stations on half its length and longer jaunts between barely used rural platforms on the other half. Most of it didn't need the Pacer to go at more than 30mph and it barely had a chance to get up to 60mph, let alone cruise there. And the whole route takes under an hour. That's what the Pacer was meant for - shambling along basic urban/suburban branch lines that didn't have enough traffic to cover their costs. The problem was that they were introduced right at the end of BR's 'managed decline' era and had to face surging passenger numbers in the 1990s. And because they were new and cheap they got redeployed to services they were never really intended for - faster, longer, higher-frequency ones with longer runs between stations and higher ridership. They are not good units. They are a cheap, desperate design with all the flaws you'd expect of combining elements never intended to be a passenger train to make a passenger train. They're noisy, coarse and drafty. The Severn Beach ones went through Montpellier and Redland in a demonic howl of flange squeal and laboured up the hill in the Clifton Downs tunnel in a tortuous roar of straining diesel clatter. And they always managed to blow scorching hot air on your shins and cold air at your face for some reason. In an ideal world BR would have been able to afford more Sprinters in the 1980s. But that was never a realistic option, so the choice was between Pacers and no trains at all. They allowed a lot of urban/inter-urban lines - now heavily used - to stay open when they would otherwise have been closed for the cost of needing new rolling stock. For that, and for being pushed into uses they were never designed or intended for, I have a sort of grudging respect for the Pacers. I certainly welcome that the NRM has one. They're utterly representative of an era of UK railway history.
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Sep 2, 2023 09:25
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I utterly hated them. They were the only train we got; I spent a decade rattling around on them in Greater Manchester and the Peak District. My most treasured memory of them was a winter journey on one with failed window seals. The glass was rattling in the pane and leaking water onto the window ledge. The combination of the rattling and the leak meant that the window was blowing bubbles to itself. BalloonFish posted:For that, and for being pushed into uses they were never designed or intended for, I have a sort of grudging respect for the Pacers. I certainly welcome that the NRM has one. They're utterly representative of an era of UK railway history. Yes. meltie fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Sep 3, 2023 |
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Sep 3, 2023 23:32
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Since it's been a while:Axeman Jim posted:Crap British Trains of the 1980’s
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Sep 4, 2023 02:24
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NoWake posted:
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Sep 4, 2023 03:22
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Noosphere posted:On to other things : according to the newspapers, last thursday, a wheel exploded on a freight car going through the Gotthard Base Tunnel (the Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board told the press today that they found wheel fragments several kilometres from where the train came to a stop). The end result is that 23 cars derailed at 100km/h as the train was going through the Faido multi-function station, which allows trains to switch from one tube to the next. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the damage is spectacular, and the Gotthard tunnel will be shut for at least another week. Passenger trains and light domestic freight trains can go over the summit line, but all the heavy international freight is backed up from Genoa to Hamburg and back. What would it have required to prevent or reduce the destruction? From the information I've read the train passed inspection point right before the tunnel so the wheel broke inside. Would microphones or other vibration sensors attached to the rails at regular intervals worked? Or other microphones in the tunnel. Seems that most other detection equipment could only do spot checks and might leave too big gaps.
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Sep 4, 2023 18:46
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ChickenOfTomorrow posted:Since it's been a while: (Axeman Jim's Pacer Rant) Christ, I can't believe that was more than a decade ago. "The Canadians replied that they would rather ride a moose" still bounces around in my head every time I hear about the Pacers in a conversation.
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Sep 4, 2023 19:25
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Saukkis posted:What would it have required to prevent or reduce the destruction? From the information I've read the train passed inspection point right before the tunnel so the wheel broke inside. Would microphones or other vibration sensors attached to the rails at regular intervals worked? Or other microphones in the tunnel. Seems that most other detection equipment could only do spot checks and might leave too big gaps. Good questions. Unfortunately, I know nothing that hasn't been published in the press, and we received strict warnings not to speculate publically. Until the Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board (https://www.sust.admin.ch/en/stsb-homepage) publishes its findings, no other information will be forthcoming. In other news, the SBB turned a profit for the first time since 2019  . Passenger numbers have now surpassed the pre-covid peak. Freight, however, is not recovering : the european economy took a lot of damage from the war in Ukraine and the sanctions. We'll see where the future brings us.
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Sep 4, 2023 19:34
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Saukkis posted:What would it have required to prevent or reduce the destruction? From the information I've read the train passed inspection point right before the tunnel so the wheel broke inside. Would microphones or other vibration sensors attached to the rails at regular intervals worked? Or other microphones in the tunnel. Seems that most other detection equipment could only do spot checks and might leave too big gaps. If the wheel was cracked, perhaps a wheel tapper (the guy who hits every wheel of the train with a long hammer) could've found it. Wheel tappers are rare in western europe, but you still find them on certain east european stations.
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Sep 4, 2023 20:48
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Why does the one picture just show a ton of trash in the tunnel?
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Sep 4, 2023 22:26
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Noosphere posted:Good questions. Unfortunately, I know nothing that hasn't been published in the press, and we received strict warnings not to speculate publically. Until the Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board (https://www.sust.admin.ch/en/stsb-homepage) publishes its findings, no other information will be forthcoming. LimaBiker posted:If the wheel was cracked, perhaps a wheel tapper (the guy who hits every wheel of the train with a long hammer) could've found it. Wheel tappers are rare in western europe, but you still find them on certain east european stations. I'm not concerned with speculation, we can just take the current information as valid and assume the wheel failed suddenly. Even if it turns out to be incorrect and it could have been detected prefailure can we trust that a wheel or some other component can't failure until the train is well past the tunnel if has passed an inspection. The question is more how to quickly detect a catastrophic failure. A microphone seems like a simple and cheap method with enough detection range. Something like infrared cameras are probably too expensive to install enough frequent intervals. At minimum it could record louder than usual noises and play them to human monitors. Assuming that derailment causes significantly louder or at least noticeably different noises than normal passage.
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Sep 4, 2023 23:31
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Saukkis posted:The question is more how to quickly detect a catastrophic failure. A microphone seems like a simple and cheap method with enough detection range. Something like infrared cameras are probably too expensive to install enough frequent intervals. At minimum it could record louder than usual noises and play them to human monitors. Assuming that derailment causes significantly louder or at least noticeably different noises than normal passage. Someone more knowledgeable might correct me on the details, but I believe the US already mandates infrared detectors every so often on train routes. They're typically to catch stuck/overheating bearings, though, not wheel failures (though of course if a wheel failed in such a way as to cause heat they would catch that too.) You can hear one go off when trains pass the Horseshoe Curve camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4hvVp2-iq8 Wheel failures are probably trickier if it's a growing fracture. Wouldn't know where to start there, though I think there are some people doing visual detection of various computer vision types on other fracture problems. Probably someone has tried to apply that to train wheels and I just haven't seen it because it's not my field.
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Sep 5, 2023 01:17
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If the failure dynamics are anything like fan disk failures in aircraft engines, there's probably not much you can do trackside. The cracks are microscopic and/or internal, so you're stuck having to examine them directly removed from the wheelset and truck.
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Sep 5, 2023 01:21
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Sash! posted:If the failure dynamics are anything like fan disk failures in aircraft engines, there's probably not much you can do trackside. The cracks are microscopic and/or internal, so you're stuck having to examine them directly removed from the wheelset and truck. Yeah, I thought about going into more detail on fracture detection but stopped because I don't actually know anything about how it's applied in the field, to trains or planes, just what I see in academia. They might be able to get away with ultrasonic detection of cracks without removing the wheels, but I don't know if they actually bother and that would still take an inspection anyway, it's not something that could be done track side.
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Sep 5, 2023 02:09
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Log082 posted:Someone more knowledgeable might correct me on the details, but I believe the US already mandates infrared detectors every so often on train routes. They're typically to catch stuck/overheating bearings, though, not wheel failures (though of course if a wheel failed in such a way as to cause heat they would catch that too.) Not US but we have to have a wayside inspection minimum every 20 miles, if it doesn’t work for some reason we have to reduce speed. If the second one isn’t working we stop and inspect the whole train manually. They’re sensitive enough that those monitoring it can see a specific axle is slightly warmer, even when not in “warning” temps. Usually it’s “clean up the brakes when able, axle 146 looked a bit warm”. We also have WILD detectors (wheel impact load detectors), which look for flat spots and thumping; I’ve had them say “you’re now limited to 43mph from 50”, as apparently that 7mph makes the difference between breaking rail and not.
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Sep 5, 2023 03:53
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There are frequent wayside inspections for hot axles, flat spots, unbalanced loads, etc. And all freight trains are checked by a tecnical controller before their first departure of the day, as well as any time they go through a classification yard.smackfu posted:Why does the one picture just show a ton of trash in the tunnel? The pallets of what appear to be soft drinks spilled everywhere once the wagons tipped over. Log082 posted:Yeah, I thought about going into more detail on fracture detection but stopped because I don't actually know anything about how it's applied in the field, to trains or planes, just what I see in academia. They might be able to get away with ultrasonic detection of cracks without removing the wheels, but I don't know if they actually bother and that would still take an inspection anyway, it's not something that could be done track side. Ultrasonic crack detection is done when a rail vehicle is sent for periodic maintenance at the workshop.
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Sep 5, 2023 07:27
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Saukkis posted:I'm not concerned with speculation, we can just take the current information as valid and assume the wheel failed suddenly. Even if it turns out to be incorrect and it could have been detected prefailure can we trust that a wheel or some other component can't failure until the train is well past the tunnel if has passed an inspection. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycPEBwDm0GI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RijZjxEf6PQ It looks a bit silly but the ring of an intact VS a cracked wheel is apparently different enough to make a totally different sound. You could also install a massively expensive radiography machine on the track feeding the tunnel and have it X-ray all the wheels, but that's not practical, in the way that proper shielding is hard with the intense radiation needed to look through thick train wheels, and when it needs to be 'open' enough to let a whole train run through it. Detecting an already broken wheel or derailed wagon is a wholly different story. Wheel load sensors on each rail could detect wheel that should be there but isn't (in other words a missing wheel or disintegrated rim on duoblock wheels), or a heavily asymmetric load of the axle. Vibration sensors could definitely pick up on heavy wagons dragging over the ground. They could then alert a supervisor who can verify by camera if there really is something bad going on.
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Sep 5, 2023 08:35
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LimaBiker posted:Vibration sensors could definitely pick up on heavy wagons dragging over the ground. They could then alert a supervisor who can verify by camera if there really is something bad going on. https://www.knorr-bremsecvs.com/en/_hidden/railvehicles/products/trainsafety/edt101.jsp The device justs dumps the brake pipe once it detects irregular forces acting on the car, hopefully stopping the train before other cars derail or at least letting them derail at lower speeds. From my personal experience I have only seen them fitted to hazmat tank cars though.
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Sep 5, 2023 09:51
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Speaking of rail grinding, saw some newly laid tram tracks getting a proper profile last night while out on a walk. The station was rebuilt and reopened last month, so the tram tracks are part of the road deck or bridge over the new rail trench below, replacing an old tram square level crossing which forced every train (including expresses) to slow to 25kph or risk derailment or a pantograph being torn off, which had happened to a few trams over the years, thankfully the tram depot is only a kilometer down the road so they're pretty quick to send another tram or a truck to tow it off the level crossing... which is now no longer required. 
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Sep 5, 2023 11:59
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drunkill posted:Speaking of rail grinding, saw some newly laid tram tracks getting a proper profile last night while out on a walk. Huh, I was wondering what the new station looked like at surface-level, it's actually quite nice. All I've seen of it is going by at track-level on the train to the city  . And yeah, that crossing was a godawful bottleneck that slowed down everything crossing it to a crawl. I'm surprised they didn't take it out sooner, because it was probably the biggest problem on that section of the line.For the non-Victorians, that's the only one with a tram track across the intersection, the other station-adjacent intersections along that stretch of the Frankston line just dealt with road traffic before the stations were all rebuilt underground.
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Sep 5, 2023 13:27
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Huh, I was wondering what the new station looked like at surface-level, it's actually quite nice. All I've seen of it is going by at track-level on the train to the city Kooyong Rd and Riversdale Rd at Kooyong and Riversdale stations respectively still have tram squares, but both the Glen Waverly and Alamein lines are not super busy so they'll be down the order for level crossing removals. Yeah its not bad, nice forecourt, and it now has the only level access tram stop on route 67 (which has no low floor trams, still running B2 and Z3 classes) past St Kilda junction... which is pretty pathetic given the government supposedly has 7 years to make ~1200 tram stops accessible... The worst thing about it is the same as many of the new stations on the Frankston line, three platforms and only three tracks. Get rid of the third platform and make it quadtracked all the way down to Mordialloc for express services. The second worst thing is the platforms are mostly North of Glenhunty road, except the stairs lead to the most Southern end of the platform, instead of being somewhere in the middle. Also because the platforms are a little longer to accommodate future rollingstock, it means the bottom of the steps are actually about 10-15m past the last door of the trains. Third problem is related, there is no Northern entrance on the North side of Glenhuntly road or even towards Neerim Rd. Except the emergency stairs on platform three. Oh well, missed opportunity to tie into buses along Neerim rd. But hey, it is serviceable and better than before. These photos are from the morning it opened, while works above ground were still ongoing  This is right up against the fence at the end of the platform, the stairs should be about 40m back at least, ah well.    
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Sep 5, 2023 15:32
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Figured this could use a share here:
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Sep 7, 2023 22:27
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Locomotive Insanity: Pooping at FL000
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Sep 8, 2023 04:09
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wolrah posted:Figured this could use a share here: British Rail's newest cheap passenger service.
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Sep 8, 2023 04:16
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Neddy Seagoon posted:British Rail's newest cheap passenger service. British Rail Internal Film Unit, Object 417-80b, "Pacer Railbus Project: Proof of Concept Testing" In other news, apparently Mexico is getting the retired HST sets. History repeating: quote:The controversial Tren Maya project, aimed at bolstering tourism in the region, was initially intended to utilise electric traction. The line’s construction has been criticised as politically motivated and environmentally questionable. HSTs stepping in as the Plan B to an electric traction project which became politically controversial before being canned at great expense? Is this 1983 or 2023? BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 12:44 on Sep 8, 2023 |
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Sep 8, 2023 12:41
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Amazing how building the rail line itself is what causes most of the disruption to the various localities, but electrifying it is the part people find controversial. "It's fine if we eminent-domain all this land and cut a path through potential archeological sites and forests, whatever, but we drat well are not going to the run the trains cleanly! What are we, communists?"
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Sep 8, 2023 20:21
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Mexico is even more fossil fuel dependent than the US for power generation, so they're burning dinosaurs either way.
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Sep 9, 2023 01:03
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I know next to nothing about the Tren Maya project, but a quick search suggests that it'll definitely be electrified (at least partially, source) - the HSTs are most likely just a cheap stopgap in the meantime.
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Sep 9, 2023 09:27
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Saw this bit of pedantry on r/nycrail
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Sep 12, 2023 22:49
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PATH being a railroad because of conditions that haven't existed for like 60 years is just as hilarious as saying was "brought down" to being a subway. That happened like 115 years ago.
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Sep 12, 2023 23:07
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