2 questions about the ETD

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

  1. How do people put/take off the ETD, espacially if it is a huge train?

  2. How do you turn it on?

2

etd’s are battery powered, and someone can manually put them into the knuckle of the last car. nowadays they have the ability to send information the engineer, and gives him/her the ability to make an emergency brake application from the front AND rear of the train.

d

3

Cool, so when you say they put them into the “Knuckle of the last car,” does that mean that they have to move the train, stop, wait a minute, then start it moving again?

4

no train can move until the air has been tested by the crew, whether or not the etd. is connected, and it also transmits the brake pipe pressure at the end of the train to the engineer.

d

5

What exactly does that ETD transmit to in the locomotive?

6

brake pipe pressure, train movement, and some other misc. stuff that i can’t remember right now. sorry!!

and i misunderstood the question, sorry! it TRANSMITS to a receiver in the loco thru an FM signal, but i could be mistaken…better make a phone call to clear that up.

d

7

No, no. What does the ETD transmit to (ie: a screen or something )the cab of the locomotive.

8

Id like to add another Question to your already Two Questions.
Why do BNSF crews add an EOTD to a DPU?

9

The display in the cab is usually a numeric LED or LCD display for the brakepipe pressure and an LED display indicating movement.

Dave H.

10

all depends on what type of unit your on as to where and how the information from the EOT is displayed in the cab… anything with a computer screeen…it will show up in boxes on the screen with a lable telling what the number is refuring to… now on non computer screen locomoitives…thier is a box that is mounted to the controll stands…usley above the radio unit…and it displays the same information that the comptuer screens show… just in a more central location…
the info that the HTD shows that the EOT gives it is…
brake pipe PSI at the rear of the train… if the rear is moving… if the marker light is flashing… and if the emergancy featur is inabled… the EOT will also send to the head end info regarding the condition of the EOT batterys…if they get low…it will tell you by saying low battery… it also will tell you if the dump valve in the EOT for an emgerancy aplication is working propoer… if it should fail…it will tell you valve fail message to the HTD…
csx engineer

11

check out this sight…it has some pics that will help you understand what im trying to tell you…
http://krugtales.50megs.com/rrpictale/cabtour/cabtoura.htm
csx engineer

12

I see that not everyone likes todays newer Locomotives.
They still like the old SD40-2’s.

13

I always see the local crews mess with the ETD’s, and right before they finish and are ready to go, it builds a whistling noise. That’s the air pumping up right?

14

Some ETDs have a small generator that keeps the battery charged.It is probably connected to the axle but I’m not sure.Some ETDs transmit train length so the engineer knows when a crossing is clear in case he has to stop near a crossing.

15

I’ve seen where the brake air line pressure is actually spining a small impeller that’s inside of the ETD to generate the electrical power to run the electronics, and, place a small trickle charge onto the ETD’s internal battery. I’m guessing when the brake line doesn’t have air pressure, the internal battery takes over to keep the ETD operative, until the brake air pressure is up again to get the impeller spinning to run the generator again. I believe I had seen this is an advertisement once for an ETD.

I mail ordered an ETD COD by UPS and tried to pay with an IOU and got in trouble with the FBI. [:D] Is an ETD the same as an EOT??

16

and ETD and EOT are the same thing… ETD is End Train Device…EOT is End Of Train… same thing…differnt spelling…
csx engineer