CP Push-Pull through Water in Wisconsin

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Greetings,

Today I believe was the first day of Canadian Pacific’s Push-Pull freight trains through the Reeseville marsh. I believe today 3 trains were handled this way. The trains are pushed to the edge of the marsh by a set of locomotives then at speeds of 1-2mph the train is pushed through the marsh with some water still over the railhead.

Then on the other side another pair of locomotives is waiting to couple to the train to pull it through as the other locomotives uncouple before entering the marsh. Below are some photos from today push-pull of train #198 at the marsh. There isn’t a real good vantage point but the idea is there.

Here looking east the train is being pushed into the marsh from the west side. Notice the MofW trucks on the parrallel track watching

Done pushing if you look closely the other set of locomotives on the east side of the marsh can be seen backing to couple up and pull the train out of the marsh

Now looking west the locomotives are pulling #198 out of the marsh at 1-2 mph.

Slow but steady progress. Once the train clears the water and everything is OK it will proceed to Watertown for a crew change.

Keith Schmidt

2

The October 1957 issue of Trains reported a similar flood on the Red River in Louisiana. The water was 38" above the rail, enough to close the Texas and Pacific Eastern Division. Their solution: borrow a steam engine. A Ft. Worth and Denver 2-8-2 was pressed into service to keep the line open. At some points the water was so deep it killed the engine’s oil fire, but it kept going on stored steam until it could be re-fired. The engine moved four passenger trains, two time freights and a local every day for five weeks before the water receded enough to allow diesels to go back to work.

3

Interesting. CP must have a lot of confidence in the strength of the road bed!

4

You know, I’m impressed with that.

That took some thinking and some guts. A lot of people these days would avoid the responsibility of authorizing (or even thinking of) such an operation.

Somebody had the knowledge and guts to say “That railbed will hold.” And somebody else had the guts to say “Go Ahead”.

Such bold people are rare in today’s culture.

5

Yes-my first thought was, “That’s clever!” and then I thought, “How did they know the track or the subgrade would hold?” Well, I guess the worst that would happen is there would be delayed freight and a closed line. Not a whole lot different than what was already the case. Someone had to step forward to say, “I have an idea” (and someone else gets credit for listening). I don’t think anyone would have been blamed for saying “We’re ready to go but we have to wait for the water to go down yet.”

6

Without a doubt, a “Can Do” attitude on the part of CP and thier operations people…my hat’s off to them.

7

I believe that the Milwaukee Road may have done the same thing when those were there tracks. I believe since it is a marsh that there is little real “flow” in the water and it just slowly recedes. Of course there must still be some undermining to the roadbed. Still it was a BIG decision to do this. Imagine riding the rear car of the train as it was backed into the water Whoa !! I was hoping they might put a caboose on the rear for a platform.

The trains crawled through at 2 mph with MofW watching and Mechanical people on site to inspect the cars as they came out of water.

Keith Schmidt

8

I know I should be overwhelmed with similar accolades expressed by Greyhounds, et al . . . and I am very impressed.

However, sadly, the thing that keeps dominating my mind with this is, if the train were to hit a passing motorboat, would the law governing the corresponding litigation be governed by state tort law, federal rail crossing preemption, or admiralty law . . .

Gabe

9

Im wandering, is this the entire train or do they have to do this several times to get it all acroos the marsh?

I would imagine that the mow people are there “just in case” the track did give way…

Still all in all the freight must go thru !

Thanks for sharing…

10

the cars going through wouldnt be scary but if the wheelset bearings went under that could be bad. i just cant believe that they would let them do that

11

i just thought of this can a locomotive and its cars hydroplane??

12

I wonder if the CP will consider raising the track level after all of this.

Just a guess, but I would doubt there was anyone crazy brave enough to ride the point of that move. Nor do I think the railroad would ORDER anyone to ride the point across the marsh.

13

That would be an interesting court case. I can just hear the judge, "Now tell me again, exactly, where were you and how much had you been drinking before this TRAIN hit your BOAT?

Maybe all he’d get would be a Darwin Award.

14

Hopefully the train would be abiding by the “No Wake” rules most likely in effect. [oX)] I guess that would be the reason for the 1-2 mph. A boat would be the best vantage point for pictures. We did ask a lady whose house is in the mainline if we could go onto her property to try and get some better shots. She said it would have been OK, if everything behind her house was not flooded with sewage contaminated water. [sigh]

I wonder if Wisconsin’s great DNR is aware of this going on. One only knows what ideas they might have.

15

Somehow, I doubt it. It’s such a large amount of weight on such a small area, it would slice down into the water like a knife.

Maybe if you removed the trucks, steps, and other undercarriage odds and ends and put some streamlining on the fuel tank…maybe some rocket engines…

16

Hydroplaning. When I was in Navy flight school, a couple of eons ago, they told us of a study done by NASA. It was an exhaustive study done to determine the causes and effects of hydroplaning. They concluded that the only variables that really mattered were speed and tire pressure. Tread design or tire composition didn’t have much effect. It boiled down to a formula: Hydroplaning begins to occur at 10 x the square root of the tire pressure in miles per hour. Thus your thirty pound pressure car tire can begin to hydroplane at 54.77 mph. Which begs the question, what is the “pressure” of a steel wheel?

17

The rail-wheel contact area is variously estimated as being from about 1/2 inch to 1 inch in diameter. I recall the late great John Armstrong saying it was about the size of a quarter (U.S. 25-cent piece), but egg-shaped.

Using the 1/2 inch diam., then R = 1/4 inch = 0.25".

A = pi x R**2 = 3.14 x 0.25" x 0.25" = 0.196, say 0.200 sq. in.

Use a 72,000 lb. axle load (288,000 lb. = 144 ton car or 4-axle loco, 432,000 lb. = 216 ton 6-axle loco, which is a little too heavy . . . ).

So, wheel-rail nominal contact pressure = 36,000 lbs./ 0.20 sq. in ==> 180,000 lbs/. sq. in, which is too high for most steels. I’d feel more comfortable using a figure of around 50,000 lbs./ sq. in, which would imply a contact area of 1.44 sq. in., which would result if the contact area radius is about 0.68 in = 11/16 in, for a diam. of 1-3/8 in.

Anyway, using the formula above, the square root of 50,000 psi is about 224, so hydroplaning would occur at 10 x that - or about 2,240 MPH (about Mach 3, I think).

Not something we’re going to have to worry about anytime soon !

Running the same math for an empty car with, say, 15,000 psi contact pressure = 123 x 10 = 1,230 MPH - again, about 4 times the highest speed yet achieved for a conventional rail vehicle.

Feel free to check my math, or to use your own values for these parameters, instead.

Hope this is helpful and informative.

  • Paul North.
18

Hmm!

19

Paul

Your math may be right on the mark, but I’ll bet you couldn’t convince a locomotive engineer who’s had a positive stop thrown in his face on a rainy day.[:D]

20

Thanks SPOKYONE!!! that looks so realistic[tup]