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I've been waiting for a railfan topic to show up on SA for a while now. I should have realized there would be plenty of goon railfans. I've been a railfan pretty much my entire life, though unfortunately I've never had the opportunity to volunteer at a railroad museum since I've never lived less than an hour and a half drive from one. I am however a member of a large model railroad club and I get out and film trains whenever I get the chance. Here's a few of my videos, be sure to watch them in 1080p: One of the first HD videos I shot, and still a favorite, great late afternoon light: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORrDQVG5r2k Probably the best video from my trip to the Horseshoe Curve area last October, a three train meet at the summit tunnels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUhAuCXI4Dw Horseshoe Curve itself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL1FXCj8_DI One of my 5 videos of a Steamtown excursion train pulled by Canadian National 2-8-2 #3254: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56cLykRDgXQ My attempt at a pacing shot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1PDygwEEAc Some more New England action, this time a two railroad meet, a very rare thing in Massachusetts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbsWVKmtRw8 If you're still not bored here's my youtube channel. I have dozens more rail videos, mostly HD: http://www.youtube.com/user/NorfKhazad As for my favorite locomotives, I'm a huge fan of the Virginian railway. It was mergered out of existence in 1960, was one of the smallest class 1 railroads, and pretty much only hauled coal, but it had some of the largest most ridiculous locomotives in history. The AE class 2-10-10-2, highest tractive effort (brute pulling force) of any successful steam locomotive in history:  It also had the largest cylinders (48" interior diameter), largest diameter boiler (118"), and was so wide that the front cylinders and cab had to be removed for transport to the Virginian railway because most railroads didn't have enough clearance for it. Here's a shot with some men for comparison:  The Virginian also had the XA class 2-8-8-8-4, an experiment, and an utter failure, but also the only steam locomotive ever to beat their 2-10-10-2s for pure pulling force:  In addition they were the only railroad other than the C&O to order the 2-6-6-6 from Lima, the highest horsepower articulated locomotive ever built (7600hp) and possibly the heaviest steam locomotive (it's much debated):  Well that's enough for one post, I'll have more for you later. I leave you with a photo of my own: 
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Mar 31, 2011 05:20
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Well the way the runaway train happened in the movie Unstoppable is based on a real incident. Here's the summary of the incident in simple form: http://kohlin.com/CSX8888/z-final-report.htm And also in much more detail with independent accounts from various people involved as it happened: http://kohlin.com/CSX8888/x-play-by-play.htm The movie itself is so full of inaccuracies it would take longer than its' runtime to explain them all. There were two really big problems early on in the movie, but beyond maybe two thirds of the way in everything is so impossible and/or idiotic it's not even worth trying to explain it anymore. The first is the way the locomotive threw itself from idle into run. This doesn't happen. The second is the way the pair of locomotives they sent to slow the train down from the front followed the switch that was thrown in front of them and then flipped over on the curve, while the train went straight through the switch (which, if you watch closely was thrown back for the mainline when we see the train go through it). Also, the whole movie could have been ended when they put those locomotives in front of the train if someone had just jumped from the back of them onto the runaway and shut it down. Instead they bash into the runaway with them repeatedly rather than just applying their brakes and easing the speed down (it's more exciting that way!!!) and try to drop a marine from a helicopter. There I go getting carried away with explaining just how wrong the movie was. Oh, and don't even get me started on "Grab it by the back end and gun it in the other direction!" or "Alternate full power in reverse with dynamic braking". Or the way they didn't want to use their independent brakes. Sure, independent brakes would eventually burn out, but running the engine in the other direction (if that's even possible?) would just burn out the traction motors or cause massive wheelslip until the wheels got so hot they melted and the locomotive derailed. You'd apply the dynamic brakes, then the independent when things slowed down a bit. The only clever thing they do is setting the hand brakes on the cars, though you'd probably get yourself killed very quickly trying to do that on a train doing 50+mph on cars that don't have roofwalks.
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Apr 1, 2011 04:22
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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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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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Slung Blade posted:That video is sexy as hell. I would imagine that the steam locomotives put out a lot more Bad Stuff than the diesels however what you saw in that video was engineers showing off for railfans. Any real steam railroad that let their engineers throw unburnt fuel out the stacks like that wouldn't have stayed in business very long. It still happened when locomotives were working hard up-grade and it was difficult to keep the correct amount of coal evenly distributed on the grates but a steam engine running properly doesn't put out huge black clouds like that.
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Aug 12, 2012 00:36
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bisticles posted:People often don't grasp just how big... the Big Boy is. Great photo. Steam locomotives really look their size more than diesels. My first trip to Steamtown I couldn't believe how enormous the Big Boy was in person. Now if only I could see some of the big steam from roads I actually like. Pity no modern road will ever allow something like a Big Boy, Allegheny or Y6B to run on their track.
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Sep 1, 2012 04:49
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Expense, reliability, and resistance to change would be the main issues. One of the railroad employees here could explain it better than me but standardization is one of the most important things in the railroad industry, and standardizing across ~1.5 million freight cars is neither cheap nor easy. Any wireless (or wired) system which could stand up to the kind of abuse freight cars are subjected to without maintenance for long periods of time in all weather as well as being fairly tamper-proof would probably cost several thousand dollars. Add to that the work to install all of these systems, and the amount of time it would take before they'd even be useful (a large percentage install base) and you're talking tens of billions of dollars with no short term advantage to the companies footing the bill. None of these are insurmountable obstacles and automated remote braking systems are probably going to be mandated for installation on locomotives sometime in the next 10 years but I very much doubt a change this major would happen without a government mandate and government funding assistance.
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Sep 8, 2012 00:28
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B4Ctom1 posted:watching this makes me queezy This is without question the dumbest thing I have ever seen someone do in YouTube video. I'm betting he crawled under when the train was moving more slowly but lost his nerve when he went to crawl out. By the time this guy started telling him he could make it he was probably so high on adrenalin he wasn't thinking straight. Saying he should have waited seems obvious but if there was a pusher (unlikely on an intermodal but possible) or a piece of low hanging air line or something he would have almost certainly been killed.
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Oct 2, 2012 18:27
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When I was a kid and rode MBTA commuter rail more often I used to love to go down and stand by the locomotives at North Station. Something about a locomotive just sitting there "idling" at run 8 was fascinating. At least until my eardrums started to hurt.
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Oct 12, 2012 02:15
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The Norfolk and Westerns J class 4-8-4s were said to be so perfectly balanced and finely built with roller bearings everywhere in the driveline (unusual in any steamer) that they could be pushed by two men. That's a locomotive weighing nearly 400 tons. Incidentally the Virginia museum of transportation held a tug of war competition where two teams pulled on opposite ends of the J class 611. They evidently were able to move it despite having another team working against them.
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Oct 19, 2012 19:44
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During the transition from steam to diesel a lot of engineers didn't like diesels because they were used to having a whole boiler between them and anything they might hit. This was the reason a lot of railroads (N&W especially) had the long hood designated as the front of a locomotive despite the visibility problems that entailed.
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Nov 2, 2012 05:10
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I had no idea anyone was still making diesel mechanical locomotives. That seems more than a little insane to me. I wonder why they did it? Incidentally I have to wonder why no one has tried the locomotive model in a car. Diesels work best when used on a high torque load with little variation in RPM so hook up a small efficient turbo-diesel to a generator with some moderate capacity batteries (hybrid style) and drive the car purely on electric motors with the batteries to provide a boost when accelerating and getting charged when standing still. You'd be able to run the diesel at whatever its most efficient speed is all the time, and shut it off when the batteries are at full charge. Sure, weight would be an issue, but that's an issue with any electric car. Am I nuts? This seems obvious to me.
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Nov 6, 2012 02:25
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Bow TIE Fighter posted:You basically described a Prius, the electric motor does most of the propulsion, while the gas engine is a generator and can assist when accelerating. There's s few types of hybrids, most locomotives are "series" where only the electric motor propels the vehicle and the gas engine is just a generator, while the Prius is "parallel" where both motors are used as needed. I'm sure by now someone has made a diesel hybrid car, I know European car makers have very efficient diesel motors in their small cars, so the technology is out there. I was specifically referring to the use of a diesel engine in a hybrid rather than a gasoline engine, as a diesel is more efficient and given the way a the engine in a hybrid is generally used (running at it's most efficient RPMs to charge the battery) a diesel would be far better than a gasoline engine. That said I've done my research now and it seems this has been done in the case of several car models in Europe but none of them have been brought to the US yet due to expense. Diesels engines, due to the need to build them tougher, are more expensive than gas, so when added to the additional expense of a hybrid powertrain the European manufacturers just don't seem to think such a car would sell in the US. They may be right, but it still seems like a better idea to me than a gas hybrid. Disgruntled Bovine fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Nov 6, 2012 |
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Nov 6, 2012 04:42
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That locomotive weighed in at 145 tons. Assuming only half of that weight impacted from a height of about 12 feet that's something like 60,000 tons of impact force (based on some very quick and dirty googled up force calculator math). Obviously that's spread over a large area but I don't think much of it is going to be salvageable, and that's before the other end hit too.
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Nov 7, 2012 05:12
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Part of the reason no one heard the train coming might have been because that crossing was in one of these stupid "quiet zones". Because not hearing those annoying horns is more important than safety. That said, the engineer was probably blowing the horn anyway because the track through Midland Texas is straight and unobstructed. He could have easily seen the truck stuck on the tracks from far off.
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Nov 17, 2012 06:22
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http://www.stbfinancedocket35087.com/html/quietzoneinfo.htmlquote:A quiet zone is one or more public grade crossings where the railroad is excused from sounding the familiar "long-long-short-long" horn sequence upon a train's approach to a grade crossing. It is important to note that this does not mean that a train will never sound its horn within an established quiet zone. Federal regulations and railroad operating rules require that the engineer sound the train's horn in several instances, such as when approaching people or equipment working on the right-of-way. Moreover, engineers are permitted to sound the horn in a quiet zone if they believe that a situation exists that warrants operation of the horn, such as the presence of pedestrians or animals crossing over the tracks. A quiet zone is unrelated to other sounds associated with railroads, such as engine noise or the sounds of cars moving on the rails. A quiet zone was established in my town a few years ago. In order to avoid the expense of installing a median down the center of the road to prevent people crossing into the other lane two streets which are used frequently by residents to avoid going through the center of town were turned into one ways. They did opposite of what would actually make sense, forcing the traffic to cross itself going both ways:  That's how I have to go to and from work. gently caress quiet zones. Disgruntled Bovine fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Nov 17, 2012 |
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Nov 17, 2012 18:34
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Technically a Mallet is a compound articulated locomotive where high pressure steam goes to the cylinders powering the rear set of drivers first, which then exhaust into the larger low pressure cylinders powering the front set of drivers. It's the name of a french fellow who invented the design. The Allegheny is a simple articulated, IE: all of its cylinders are high pressure. That's part of why it's able to generate such phenomenal horsepower (highest of any articulated locomotive). The most amazing thing about the Allegheny was the size of it's firebox, which required 3 trailing axles to carry it, and allowed the generation of the enormous amounts of steam necessary to produce 7500 drawbar horsepower. The unfortunate thing is it only generated that level of horsepower at above 45 mph and the two railroads who owned them, the C&O and Virginian, used these locomotives like slow compound Mallets, usually below 25 mph. Both of these roads were primary coal haulers (almost exclusively so in the case of the Virginian) so in a way that's not surprising, I just wonder how Lima sold them on the idea given how wasted these locomotives were in the use they were put to. It's a great marvel that two of them survive today especially when there is only one surviving example of the most common articulated wheel arrangement, the 2-8-8-2.
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Nov 20, 2012 06:27
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http://trn.trains.com/en/Railroad%2...%20service.aspx So according to trains magazine the Union Pacific is considering assisting a third party restoration group in acquiring, restoring, and running a Big Boy. It's hard to say from the article exactly how much UP would be involved in this process and, if it even happens, whether they have committed to allow this behemoth onto their rails again. I think the whole thing sounds a bit crazy as I was under the impression that truly giant steam locomotives like this beat the poo poo out of track work and while the UP might run the 3985 for publicity's sake they would never let something as huge, heavy, and track destroying as a Big Boy back on their system. If this is true however it's marvelous. I never expected to see one of the true giants under steam, and I would travel across the country in an instant to do so if I had the opportunity.
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Dec 8, 2012 01:13
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From what I've read UP won't let it run unless it is converted into an oil burner, but apparently that was considered back in the 60s and nobody thought it would work due to the type of coal the Big Boy's firebox was designed for. I don't know what has changed in that regard aside from maybe improved oil burners.
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Dec 12, 2012 15:01
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CommieGIR posted:I thought they DID make one? Actually you may be right about that, if so it must have had problems. I know I read an article about the problems with such a plan at some point. I don't recall details though.
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Dec 13, 2012 02:45
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That's only slightly pricey for a limited run high detail complete passenger train in plastic. You should see what you'd pay for something like that in brass. Model railroading is not a cheap hobby. Check out some overland or sunset models sometime if you want to see expensive.
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Jan 8, 2013 04:03
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They most certainly did. One of Hitler's many superweapons that wasted the Nazis' industrial resources and probably helped bring about the downfall of Germany earlier than it otherwise would have happened. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav At 800mm they were the largest guns ever built. They fired ~7 ton shells 24-29 miles at a rate of about 1 per 30-45 minutes. Gotta love Nazi superweapons. Edit: wow, beating by 3 seconds. Good show!
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Jan 24, 2013 04:57
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I really do need to take a trip out west to film me some trains sometime. This is about as close as we get to that kind of scene on the east coast, and this required a long rear end hike to get to. Climbing a 200 foot hill of loose leaves at a 45 degree angle with a tripod and a camera bag isn't fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL1FXCj8_DI
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Jan 25, 2013 05:35
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9axle posted:Off to Engineer School!!! Got the call over the weekend. Awesome. I hope you enjoy it, frankly I'd love to be an engineer but I know I'm too much of a wimp to deal with the hours and the bullshit. I'll keep my desk job.
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Jan 29, 2013 01:26
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Could it have been a power transfer or a pair of helpers which they're using to transport some minor load with "while you're at it"? I know on the CSX Boston line there used to be massive power transfers where you'd get 10-15 locomotives hauling nothing at all. They moved pretty fast too as most of that line is 70 mph I believe.
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Jan 30, 2013 00:04
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9axle posted:The max speed on the B & A is fifty for freights, and the power moves are because there are more trains going east than west, and several times a week they send the excess engines and any with major problems that can't be fixed in Boston back to Selkirk. Really only 50? Well I'll tell you something, when you're standing on a track level platform down in the I90 trench and an intermodal that got diverted onto the inner track is storming past 10 feet away 50 sure looks, sounds, and feels (from all the leaves and poo poo getting blown in your face) more like 70. I know they usually try to keep the through trains on the track farther from the MBTA platforms but they do (or did) occasionally run them on the near track. It's quite an experience when you've got an old shelter above and behind you that's boxing you in with the sound and the fury. When I was high school if I had a period free after or before lunch I'd walk over to the Newtonville station and watch the trains while I ate. http://goo.gl/maps/sgUFW Wow the old shelter is still there, I figured they would have modernized it by now.
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Feb 5, 2013 03:46
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It's pretty drat enormous.
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Jun 18, 2013 05:03
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I've learned from this to never take a flight with 770 in it's number. Hell, flight 1771 crashed at 770 mph  It was also on December 7th, 1987!! 7s don't go well with planes. Disgruntled Bovine fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Jun 22, 2013 |
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Jun 22, 2013 03:26
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On the subject of steam turbines, here's a photo of the only one that was ever really successful: The Norfolk and Western's Jawn Henry. It was a steam turbine electric, generating power from the steam turbine and feeding it to electric traction motors on every axle. While every other steam turbine locomotive used a conventional (for the railroads) fire tube boiler, the Jawn used an automatically controlled water tube boiler of power plant design, which allowed it to reach far higher steam pressures of ~600 psi and ~900°. This made it more efficient and allowed it to generate more power. It put out about 4500 HP and 144,000 lbs of tractive effort. It was the longest single unit locomotive ever built at 112 feet long without its tenders and 161 feet with them. It was not without its problems, coal dust and water would get into the electrical equipment, but it has been theorized that if it came along 10 years earlier, before other railroads had dieselized, and with more time to work out the bugs, this technology might have proven a serious competitor for diesel locomotives. It had lower fuel costs than contemporary diesels and the advantage of burning coal, which many railroads had in abundance. For more photos, including a bunch of the construction process: http://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/selectdocs.php?index=rs&id=270&Type=Picture
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Jun 28, 2013 16:59
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Holy poo poo, the news about the big boy. I can't believe the crazy bastards are actually going to do it. Good on you Uncle Pete. As for that Spanish wreck, this is not shaping up to be a good month for the railroads. I can't remember the last time so many people were killed as a result of train wrecks in one month.
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Jul 25, 2013 05:38
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ijustam posted:Is the only reason it has 6 axles and only 4 traction motors simply so it can balance the weight shifting on the idler, or are there some 3-axle trucks with less than 3 motors? The main reason is it offers AC traction motors for less cost. AC locomotives are very expensive, about 50% more than an equivalent DC model I belive. However, AC traction motors are extremely advantageous for low speed high tractive effort situations (like taking a coal train up a mountain) because DC traction motors will burn out if run at high loads at low speeds for extended periods of time, while AC traction motors will not. An AC locomotive is perfectly happy to run at 100% power all day at 5 mph. One of the engineers here could give exact numbers, but I believe if you tried that with a DC locomotive you'd fry the traction motors within several minutes. I believe there may be some efficiency advantages as well, but one of the railroad employees here could probably speak to that better than I could. Edit: Here's a very in-depth discussion of the issue if you're interested: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,1381672 And here's a quote from that link that basically answers the AC vs DC question: quote:The basic difference between AC and DC locomotives is that the commutation on the traction motors. As redneckrailfan and others pointed out all of the newer locomotives have alternators and produce an alternating current and then convert it to DC. The AC produced is not really the same as household AC as the frequency is dependent on the speed of the diesel engine. Disgruntled Bovine fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Aug 28, 2013 |
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Aug 28, 2013 03:24
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As far as fast locomotives go I'm most impressed by the N&W's J class. Why? Not because it's terribly fast for a 4-8-4, there were a few faster, but because it's incredibly fast for ANY locomotive with drivers only 70" in diameter. Thanks to those small drivers it had the highest tractive effort of any 4-8-4 at 80,000 lbs, and it set its sustained top speed record of 110 mph pulling a 15 car train that weighed 1050 tons. I'm fairly certain that's the fastest sustained speed any steam locomotive ever attained with a train weighing over 1000 tons. Why were they so good? They were some of the most modern steam locomotives ever built. They had automatic lubricating systems at over 200 points, roller bearings on the axles and rods, high boiler pressure (300 psi) and were a wonderful balance between speed, power, and efficiency. Speaking of balance, I've heard it claimed by former N&W employees that the J was so well balanced that despite weighing 436 tons two men could push it on level track. Whether that is true or not no one may ever know, but what is definitely true is that a professional tug of war team pulled N&W J #611 in 2007, a 57 year old locomotive that hadn't run in 13 years. To top it all off, she was a beautiful brute:  I only hope that some day Norfolk Southern will find it in their hearts (and their wallets) to restore her to operating condition again. Maybe if UP's restoration of the Big Boy goes over well enough they'll consider it. Disgruntled Bovine fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Aug 31, 2013 |
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Aug 31, 2013 20:17
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Honestly I think that guy is just trolling, but yes, a foamer is a railfan who likes trains a bit *too* much. I've met a few who, while not quite as bad as that guy, had me wondering if there was a sexual component to their infatuation. I love me some trains, but not like that.
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Sep 3, 2013 17:19
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Brother Jonathan posted:Speaking of which, here is a compilation of crashes from Thomas the Tank Engine: The next time someone asks me why I like trains I'm just going to show them that video. Then they'll think I'm a psychopath rather than a sperglord.
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Sep 3, 2013 23:36
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You think that's cool, check this out: Remote controlled 150 ton bulldozer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxxyII9ko9c Edit: Incidentally, is there a topic for stuff like this? I love me some trains, but I'm kind of a fan of heavy construction/mining machinery as well and I think we need a topic for it. Disgruntled Bovine fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Sep 12, 2013 |
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Sep 12, 2013 23:20
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It's like one of those crazy DCS flight simulator games. I love it. That said, I don't think I'll ever be able to really get behind train simulator games as long as their graphics are as bad as they are currently. If I weren't a gamer as well as a railfan it might not matter so much to me, but once you're used to games that look as good as Sleeping Dogs and Bioshock Infinite it's hard to play a train simulator with graphics that would be considered dated 5 years ago. I'd rather just go to the model railroad club or film real trains at that point.
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Sep 18, 2013 22:09
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IPCRESS posted:Well, one of us is playing train simulator wrong. You know, I bet they didn't model boiler explosions. Nevermind this isn't like DCS at all.
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Sep 19, 2013 15:23
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I really don't understand why they can't update the graphics. There are a lot of railfans out there, surely there's enough of a market that if they made a train simulator that was actually *GOOD* enough people would buy it. It doesn't help that they monetize it as if they're selling physical models instead of DLC. Yeah, model railroading is an expensive hobby, but that doesn't mean people are going to invest similar levels of money into a video game that's not even half as interesting or satisfying.
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Sep 26, 2013 03:34
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I gotta say those Trainz shots look pretty decent. I do remember the last time I tried it getting bored with the basic content, going to download other stuff and running into that First Class Ticket crap. That was the point at which I decided to stop playing it. It didn't look that look when I last saw it.
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Sep 26, 2013 17:07
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On the subject of passenger motive power, the MBTA is getting a bunch of these delivered soon: They put out 4,650 hp, which I believe makes them the most powerful 4 axle diesel electrics in the world? Pity they're so ugly.
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Sep 30, 2013 03:12
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