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Commuter railroads fight the annual autumnal battle against ‘slip-slide’
2- 250 hp pressure washers? Really? Sounds like overkill to me. I can’t believe a couple of Honda 4000 psi and 4 GPM couldn’t do the trick, even at 30 mph. Sounds like a Red Green solution.
More like a Tim the Tool Man Taylor solution. Yours would be the Red Green solution, with a liberal application of duct tape.
I’m willing to bet that they’ve tried the cheaper do-it-yourself solutions such as you guys suggest and they were inadequate. Or perhaps more labor intensive or unreliable.
David, you are right. The presure they are using is from testing results of what worked best. Too bad that the A&M RR does not clear their rails. Another method is leaf blowing and vacumming the leaves off the track. It is these leaves on the track which blow up under the moving train and then are crushed by the wheels to make the slime carbon-black luburcant. The problem on the commuter railroads is that the self powered cars do not contain sander. The is why the gel is useful. They also do not have tread contact brake shoes as they often have dic brakes drums so the wheel tread is not cleaned by the heat of brake shoe contact.
How about the Staten Island Railway, formerly run by B&O, now part of NYC Transit since 1971, also has autumn leaf slip probs, particularly through the South Shore area, with the ROW plagued in places with trees not trimmed much by the subway-oriented MTA.
Sure wish Metra had that machine. Sand is also a band aid. I know Metra makes sure sand boxes on its locomotives are full this time of year. Still, even with just a minimum set I have witnessed the speedometer go from 30 to 0 in an instant and you can’t release the brakes fast enough- especially running from the cab car.