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CommieGIR posted:I am out in Cheyenne, WY and we have a Union Pacific Big Boy out here in the park, as well as having the Union Pacific do a yearly run out here. I am also from Cheyenne. I am a locomotive engineer here for the UPRR. AI inspired picture of my winter daily driver at Laramie next to the local switch power. Note, never park your car this close to any track unless you are a locomotive engineer or it will be towed or wrecked.  DEAR RICHARD posted:This rules They still live! I would like to point out that the above mentioned UP steam program here at Cheyenne that has those two big locomotives also has a working rotary snow plow. It is the UP 900082. It is loaned to other railroads from time to time. Here it is working in Sharon Springs Kansas in 2006: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frBh5vO_2g0 Here is some more information about the UP Steam Program http://www.up.com/aboutup/special_trains/steam/index.shtml I included this helpful picture to show what the analog cab locomotive controls look like. Pretty much every locomotive contains the controls and information found on this desk, it is just controls laid out slightly different or information delivered slightly different (ie digital/analog).  My longest train I have run so far in length was a 16,000+ foot doublestack/intermodal (containers) with an entrained DP power set. My heaviest was a coal train just under 19,000 tons with 3 locomotives on the head end and 2 SP locomotives on the rear. My most difficult train was a 12,000 foot mixed manifest freight train with two locomotives on the head end, two DP loco motives in the middle and one DP locomotive on the rear. The reason this matter most? I haul trains over the highest point on the transcontinental railroad.  Located west of Cheyenne in a narrow of the rocky mountains.
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May 17, 2011 23:37
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I have heard about those from my manager "Merlin" who was here for a short time that is from Iowa. Do they have something called knuckle trees there? I have heard some places like that do. We are lucky to only have a place or two like that and not NEARLY to the extent you have there. Up on the big money coal line in northern Wyoming they are spoiled. They have "utility men" 24 hours a day who scream up in pickups and throw on knuckles for crews in about a minute. Help put the train back together, then run the conductor back up to the head-end.
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May 18, 2011 06:12
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I though I would share this with you. Once in a great while I get to see something a little rare. La locomotora guerrero azteca  look at these road warrior windscreens   these side screens slide/retract so that you can throw things back I guess  Our chair backs recline, but there was a second control that allowed these seats to recline the chair seat  that cage effects visibility in a way I would not like. in bad weather and rain sometimes we can barely see at all as it is.     espaņol etiquetas de control   
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May 25, 2011 22:58
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Sponge! posted:Is it me or is there no alerter in that cab? Alerters are an American corporate temper tantrum which is not that widely practiced elsewhere. It is my hope that the man who invented the alerter has to press one every few seconds for the remainder of eternity in hell. The executives who mandated them should have them mounted on their desk and be required to press them constantly as the decisions they make there have far more dangerous repercussions than anything I can do on a train.
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May 25, 2011 23:12
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Alereon posted:I certainly understand that they're horribly annoying, but is there an alternative solution to address the safety issue without sticking a second engineer in the cab? There are already two guys in the cab. Also research has shown that the alerter does not make the guy any more alert because if he is tired he just continues to push it in his sleep. Things like cab signal protection which prevent the train from going by a specific point without acknowledging or the train will stop is a much more effective method. These are used on my district, and around the world with great safe effect. But the tortuous alerter remains day and night, through boredom and business. Most of them don't function properly. They are designed so that if you are moving the controls a lot, ie very busy that they are automatically acknowledged by the movement of the controls. Unfortunately many of them malfunction and still demand acknowledgement. Also they are supposed to go off about once every 60-80 seconds, counting down to a penalty. Some go off every 15 seconds. Occasionally I will see one that starts the flashing light and alarm beginning the countdown instantly after you just pressed the button! Let us not forget that they do not send the acknowledgement buttons to the repair shops, only the major repair shops get them, so as the buttons get in disrepair you must pound on them. Or they get gummed up and are difficult to press. Some of them the head of the button is missing leaving a jagged broken pencil shaped part to press every minute for 12 hours. Some of them even that part is missing and you have to push your finger into a recessed hole to acknowledge it! B4Ctom1 fucked around with this message at 00:09 on May 26, 2011 |
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May 26, 2011 00:06
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Yes we are CCS, I can blow by them as long as I acknowledge them.Sponge! posted:Can't you press them early, or do you HAVE to wait for the beep? Here is a neat video I have lots of stuff here http://www.outlawperformance.com/images/trains Feel free to post a link and ask a question about any of it. You are bound to be VERY curious about some of it. Some of it I took as an engineer, some as a conductor over years and years. There won't be much new video as the new FRA rules are pretty strict about the use of electronic devices while running. Sometimes someone will break the rules with a camera and I can get a copy.
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May 26, 2011 04:08
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Also here is a sound file of all of the cab sounds at once. http://www.outlawperformance.com/images/trains/All%20cab%20sounds.qcp The first sound is the CCS cab signal alarm, I acknowledge/stop it first as you only have 8 seconds to do so. Then the dispatcher begins his monotonic blaring over the radio. The last sound which I let run for a few seconds is one of the more gentle but different crew alerter alarms locomotives are equipped with. The other not heard here is extremely "sudden". Not cool when you are trying to drive something so massive. Maybe someone could recode it in MP3 so those with limited audio players could hear.
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May 26, 2011 04:19
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Guy Axlerod posted:If you are driving a train in the middle of nowhere, is they anything you really have to do other than reset the alerter? Is it just full throttle all the way? It is on really high mountain districts that 2 to 4 hours straight during part of the trip are spent at maximum throttle creeping along at 14-21 mph. Then you do the same for 30 minutes at a time on all the smaller mountains.
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May 28, 2011 09:06
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Reminds me of some euro high speed train disaster I remember seeing pictures of. Thing was going so fast when it derailed some of the cars or engine came to rest nowhere near the tracks in a neighborhood.
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May 31, 2011 02:26
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FatCow posted:Was anyone else surprised at how little information there was on the health of the diesel? Does a second engineer watch a separate panel with information on the generator/diesel while the other drives? On this locomotive there is a panel behind you. If all is running well no problem, if anything goes wrong the panel indicates some codes basic description. little basic multiline display panel in center of picture here:  You do not control RPM directly, you only have 8 throttle positions. If there are any problems the until alarm bell will sound. Oil pressure gets low it does an auto shutdown. Engine coolant temp gets too high the locomotive will stop or reduce loading, high idle cool down, or just shut down protectively if it runs out of water. This also goes for lube oil temps on some locomotives. If crankcase pressure goes above a certain threshold then the locomotive shuts down immediately. When one of the 6 traction motors fail, the ground relay will trip and a code might show which axle it is, if not you reset the ground relay and cut out axles one at a time. You can narrow it down faster on some locomotives by cutting the whole truck of 3 down then the other. Some newer locomotives will do it on their own. If the generator field gets a feedback or grounded it trips the same ground relay or generator field breaker. Some locomotives have all the gauges on an couple of integrated flat panel displays. You can use these displays to get even more information. Unless you are familiar with the kinds of failures and the solutions, you usually call the mechanical desk via the radio. main screen  one of the screens you can toggle through 
B4Ctom1 fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Jun 1, 2011 |
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Jun 1, 2011 00:52
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Last trip it was raining really hard and the water was getting somewhere it shouldn't. The result? Both lead locomotives were shutting down and saying the multiple locomotive shutdown button was being pressed on the other locomotive. They tried replacing the cable that went between the locomotives but this did not fix it. There are quite a few places on every district, and several situations on any trip where this could result in a broken in two (or three) train. I lucked out but the guys that had it before me were not so lucky.
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Jun 2, 2011 07:07
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porkfriedrice posted:From what I've read on a rail forum (railroad.net), those trains have recording devices that are similar to the "black boxes" on aircraft. In some of the comments left for articles about this incident on the web, people are bitching about this potential bill. They're saying that they should complete their investigation first before declaring the woman liable for the damages to the locomotive. It must not have been too hard for the investigators to look at this equipment and know for sure that yep, this woman ignored the train horn. They should make this public so people will know that it was her fault and not big bad Metro North. It is terrible for someone to get into a collision like this, but some people can be kind of dumb sometimes. Look both ways before crossing. here is darwin at work. Note how long this light commuter amtrak takes to get stopped with full emergency air and full dynamic engine braking (the siren like sound you hear). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOPtw5ZLX_c fire truck http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ji0bTmrspo cows http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fVNI4-30I deer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnbT5YCQZ-o people http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7m1KYcbA9c then there is poo poo like this that happens almost as often http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTvLos68M6E B4Ctom1 fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Jun 2, 2011 |
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Jun 2, 2011 19:35
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Here is a scary cam view http://www.outlawperformance.com/movies/cactus-texas-dark_territory-wreck.htm
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Jun 2, 2011 21:42
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bisticles posted:But there is a new number 1. A cause so insidious as to have the public opinion so on edge, so upset, something that actually HAS been the cause of transportation accidents. Buses, trucks, cars and trains have all wrecked and people have died because of it. This cause is the dreaded cellphone. The result has been the FRA Emergency Order #26. Emergency Order To Restrict On-Duty Railroad Operating Employees' Use of Cellular Telephones and Other electronic devices. On March 28th this ban became law with stiff fines (tens of thousands of dollars) and even bigger fines for willful violation. If you violate and there is a resulting crash you would probably go to jail. You are not even allowed to have it turned on. It must be turned off and put into a bag. Another is a result there is a rush for new technology, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is piloting some equipment that will be installed in the cab of a locomotive that will stop the train if a cellphone is detected. So as to not be tripped by nearby cellphones or plain cellular tower signals, this equipment can detect the special signal changes that a cellphone goes through when a call is made or received, data is used, which includes send or receive messaging. It is said to even be able to detect a phone as it does the "handoff" from one tower to another. This equipment is antenna-ed in a way so as to be able only to detect within the confines of the cab to prevent false triggers. Basically if your train is moving, and the device detects a cellphone within the cab in a state other than off, an alarm will sound, train brakes will apply, and the operator will have to answer for why this happened to at least his employer. The procedure now in the event of an accident, the FRA will subpoena your cellular records to check to see if your phone was on or off. It will be the new "drug test". Some train ran into the back of you? Well records show YOUR cellphone was on, case solved. As a result, I turn mine off. There are a few hold outs, mostly conductors, but I figure eventually the FRA will start handing out warnings that will curb most of this. The fact of the matter is this, cellphones are a distraction. Any guy who violates this law can't expect any sympathy from the public or the FRA. If he has an accident even more so. There have been fatal accidents since the law went into effect March 28th. It is rumored that these guys had phones on or in use. They made allowances for small amounts of cell phone use while still on duty in the law and the railroads followed suit. If your train is stopped, and nobody is performing any duty other than holding down a chair, nobody is working on or around your train, no other train is near you or approaching, you can make a phone call. No texting at all ever while on duty. It is also rumored that in the future we will no longer be allowed to even possess personal electronics of any kind on the train. This means you will have to get a second phone and put it into your locker at the away from home terminal to stay in touch with your family. Those of us who have gotten really familiar with the rules because of their ease of access through our laptops, phones, or PDA's will have to give them up as an official legal source. Every man will have to go back to carrying the huge clunky General Code of Operating Rules which becomes outdated every 5 days or so. This means all the separate printed changes in the form of booklets, amendments, orders, special instructions, timetables, subdivision orders, superintendent notices, and MTO circulars we runn off of the printers will also have to be carried again. Basically enough books and stuff to fill a box used for printer paper. Gone will be the days of just looking in the computer for an update before going to work and downloading it to your laptop or PDA and just having it all right there. Need to know a rule right now? No more Ctrl + F, no more little magnifying glass to help you instantly find it. Back to the days of sorting through a ream of paper to find out what you are supposed to do when you encounter a situation that doesn't happen that often. This is what I will miss the most.
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Jun 3, 2011 16:53
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InterceptorV8 posted:You should see the line of engines in L.A. out by Redlands. I swear there is 5 miles of Locomotives just sitting there. I've come across what looks to be grain bellydumps in the middle of LA almost to AR that had to be 8 miles on tracks that looked like hell. I kinda wonder what kind of crazy poo poo they have parked in the middle of Nevada. If they are new locomotives, then this is exactly what I was told about. The Chinese are buying durable goods like crazy with their "extremely stable no reason to worry" US dollars. I hauled a train of like 320 top of the line john deers tractors a while back. Just one of many trains like it. All bound for china. They have had the money for years but never bought on this scale before. B4Ctom1 fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Jun 5, 2011 |
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Jun 5, 2011 03:58
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Toucan Sam posted:If you get hit by a train it is your fault. I don't care if there are crossing gates working or not. The train isn't going to swerve to hit you, they run on tracks. I cross a railroad crossing by my home multiple times per day. I always stop to look regardless of gate position and regularly get honked at for slowing down and stopping. If other people want to trust the gates that's fine but i will check for myself. Word, they are a simple safety device. We don't go around pointing guns at each other and pulling the trigger in hopes that the safety will do its job. Depending on this kind of device to supply you with everything you need to avoid death is stupid.
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Jun 5, 2011 06:10
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Cat Terrist posted:So did he stop and look? Obviously not else he would be alive today.  http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=af5b0240f8
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Jun 6, 2011 16:35
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I know the conversation has degraded to crossing talk, but I want each of you to read this: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/sep/17/local/me-engineer17
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Jun 8, 2011 04:15
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and this http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/20/local/la-me-metrolink-ntsb20-2010jan20
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Jun 8, 2011 04:18
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BrokenKnucklez posted:
 CharlesM posted:The NTSB report was posted in another thread a while back. The guy was sending text messages to high school kids (kinda creepy) up to a few seconds before they crashed. They also detail how it's extremely unlikely the light could have been green due to the way the electric system is designed. If you read the first LA Times link you can see he was likely suicidal. He was on a collision course too, one with a return to prison. I think he offed himself and took 25 people whom he considered a daily pain in his rear end with him. The text messages are just him wanting a little human contact before he did it. As an engineer with 13 years of RR experience, every red signal run through I have ever seen or read of results in the engineer stopping within a few hundred feet. When an engineer runs through a red signal he usually realizes what he had just done and emergency stops his train, or just stops, puts the call out that he just screwed up. Then the managers come with another engineer and you get 1 or 2 months off depending on the situation. This guy ran through not one, but two signals, never touched his brakes, even though he could see the freight train coming for about a minute and a half. That was how long the UPRR crew was in emergency when they saw him coming at them. He rode headlong into that train looking at it and never touching the brake. sigtrap posted:He sounds like a lonely guy who'd been kicked in the teeth a bit, and he was happy to give some rail fans more access to the behind-the-scenes stuff than he was allowed to / should have. But whatever happened, the evidence is that he was texting while bearing a heavy responsibility and as nice as the guy may have been, that's lovely. Yes, this guy was texting with some foamer teen because he was reaching out for a little contact before he offed himself plain and simple. The feds, the media, everyone else HAS to go after the cellphone issue because it is a hot-button issue right now. That and they can assign a cause they have been looking to enforce for a while. They needed a watershed event and they got it in spades. Since this wreck there have been a few cell phone related accidents of buses and trains. They were right to make the law, they just shouldn't have waited until a reason had occurred. Ironically they picked an wreck to highlight that had only a passing connection to cellphones use, but they got their end result, a good result. B4Ctom1 fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Jun 9, 2011 |
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Jun 9, 2011 04:13
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flooding and washouts in Montana http://misostudios.com/temp/MONTANAFloodsMay21_25.pdf
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Jun 15, 2011 03:31
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porkfriedrice posted:It's gotten a little better since Jeff Smith took over as admin. Otto Vondrak seemed like a whiny bitch in some of his posts, and loved to close threads while making huffy little comments. I like hearing the stories some of the old timers tell of their days on the job, usually pretty interesting stuff. You're right though, there's a lot of people on there who think they know everything. I told them just because some foamer takes one of MY pictures and they label it on their site doesn't change ownership from me to them. loving tools.
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Jun 17, 2011 13:38
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AI pic. One of my two rides gets good mileage and does well off roadNerobro posted:I'd like to hear how crazy train nuts get. Conversation: I get off the locomotive last at the crew change point. We roll up and the conductor walks in to job brief the oncoming crew. I cant leave the train unattended, so I step to the bottom step with my backpack on and wait for them to walk over from the office. This crew change location is only 5 feet from public property so occasionally there are foamers around taking pictures and asking questions.  - "Hey does that locomotive have a 26L brake stand?" - "I'm sorry I don't even know what that is." - "Who is the engineer, is he around?" - "I am the engineer." - "How can you be the engineer if you don't even know anything about your train?" - "I also don't know what kind of yellow paint they use, what kind of steel the wheels are made out of, the specific gravity of the fuel, or who makes the stairs I am standing on." - "hmpf" (walks off)
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Jun 17, 2011 21:48
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That is correct. I am more interested in what kind of seat my rear end is going to be in for 8-12 hours. I felt like saying, "hey do I come to your work and ask if you use a sink or toilet plunger?"
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Jun 18, 2011 01:08
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Fixed Gear Guy posted:Every time I hear stories of people like that, my mind just goes There is a strict no smoking policy. But as you could imagine that doesn't mean they wont. The newish wide cab locomotives have two doors in the nose. They stand in that little room with the front door cracked and smoke like a train. So when you get on in the winter especially, that area is unbearable. The other thing is climbing on and having the cab reek like orange air freshener or Ozium. What really grosses me out is finding a bottle full of chew spit laying around. Or sunflower seed husks all over. The first thing most of us do is take handy wipes and wipe everything we will come in contact with down.
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Jun 18, 2011 08:25
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and wonders what type of person actually gives a poo poo about those minute details.
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Das Volk posted:The Onion is hit or miss these days, but this is so spot-on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tInDH2FeXaM Holy gently caress I am showing that to my fellow railroaders.
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Jun 21, 2011 06:59
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bus versus train http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=29e_1309541162
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Jul 1, 2011 20:26
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Any of you guys live in or around Sacramento, CA? Get there and tour this place: http://www.csrmf.org/ My wife and her friend wanted to go when we cvisited Cali this winter. Totally worth it. See the movie upstairs too.
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Jul 12, 2011 04:39
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Geoj posted:So do railroads share engines as well as rolling stock? Here in Ohio I've been seeing BNSF units pulling trains on CSX/NS lines, and according to the system map on BNSF's website they don't go any further east than Chicago. Some times "foreign trains" that have a lot of cars are going to the same general destination will be handed off in what they call "interchange". In some of these cases some or all of the locomotives will stay on. These trains will stay nearly in whole for convenience and efficiency until they get the main destination region. Often times cars going back to the foreign railroad will be collected, put back behind that power, turned around, and sent back to them at the same interchange point. Additionally, with all of the weather related track closures recently, there are "reroutes". With reroutes, there are often foreign trackages that can help you get around your own flooded/washed-out/wrecked tracks. These can also be used in the event of a derailment too. Entire trains will be run on foreign line and then returned to their own line past the area of damage.
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Jul 13, 2011 20:30
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CharlesM posted:Those look like the BART subway trains in San Francisco, California. I seem to remember a big hubbub about the newer cars/trains for BART being made in France years ago when I lived there. found this: http://homepage.mac.com/lpetrich/www/transit/BA_Transit.html quote:In the late 1980's, BART bought from Alsthom of France (of TGV fame) 150 flat-cab cars
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Aug 1, 2011 20:00
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Not to derail but, this is train related. If you lived here imagine the aluminum you could collect. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3yiRStQaHU&feature=related This too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh1nFd4oqcc&feature=related I love the crash beam to protect the bridge from these idiots causing a derailment. B4Ctom1 fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Aug 6, 2011 |
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Aug 6, 2011 00:08
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Holy gently caress! New traincam video of freight train hitting a piece of track hanging over a washout. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a22_1312744691 like this: 
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Aug 8, 2011 07:31
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some texas redneck posted:
Derailed badly, pure luck it kept moving forward shiny side up and windshield forward.
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Aug 8, 2011 09:05
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I saw a thing and brought it to you. Discuss.
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Sep 4, 2011 18:09
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A thing happened. http://www.outlawperformance.com/uploads/51612904.3gp Everything I know about it is that this is a Union Pacific Maintenance of Ways hopper car accidentally rolling freely at high speed. The guys you see in the foreground are maintenance of ways employees. The truck shadowing it on the highway is maintenance of ways employees. The items up for being BS scuttlebutt are: That this was recently It was recorded by an employee's cellphone It happened here in Wyoming That the car was being clocked at 74 mph That the car derailed on a 60 mph curve
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Sep 27, 2011 17:54
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Cygni posted:If you like perty old rail cars in regular service, San Francisco's F line is pretty awesome.
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Nov 22, 2011 13:56
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spipedong posted:Someone just referred me to this thread so I gave it a read through. I've been with the 'orange' company for a while now. As Commies (Telecom Techs) we work regular 8 hour days with rotating call days on weekends.
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Jan 20, 2012 19:57
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That is some scary poo poo right there. We have an AEI in one spot here, on some tracks that are really close together, where the antennas on the inboard (between the tracks) side are half buried in the ballast pointing up from the ballast at an angle.
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Jan 21, 2012 04:00
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I have seen this before where 3 locomotives were doing it at the same time. Still happens from time to time on a single locomotive but you won't see it as often http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3e4_1327483866
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Jan 27, 2012 04:24
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successful snowplowing http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=505_1328394542 less than successful snowplowing http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=42f_1184266844 solution to large drifts/heavy snow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frBh5vO_2g0 anything that can throw a hundred tons of snow 500 feet is no joke
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Feb 5, 2012 21:07
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