Would someone be so kind as to review for me just exactly what information you can get from the FRED?
I am fairly certain they can’t tell you things that you still need human eyes to see, but in the future - would they be able to indicate whether you have cleared a crossing? Or if you have enough of a crossing blocked to stop traffic? Or if you are within inches of clearing a crossing to allow traffic to pass through?
Thanx
Mookie
From Al Krugs website. This shoul answer your question.
Starting at the top left is the distance counter. It is used to tell the engineer when the rear end of his train is in the clear in a siding or yard track or any other time he needs to measure distance. To start the distance counter you pu***he single purple button below it. To stop the counter press the same button again. To reset the counter to zero to ready it for the next count just press the button a third time. SIMPLE. Compare this ease of operation with the multiple key presses you have to make on computerized units to do the same thing. The red digits are reading 5039 feet. When you are not using the footage counter this display acts as an accelerometer. It shows the gain or loss in mph you will get if you keep accelerating/decellerating at your current rate for the next minute.
The 2 small green squares in the center panel are lights showing the status of various items on Fred. These two lights are labled “STP” for stopped, fred is not moving, and “HVM OFF” for High Visibilty Marker Off, in other words Fred’s red strobe is off. The larger red square light says “Emergency Disabled” meaning this Mary has not yet been armed to this Fred and you cannot initiate an emergency application of the airbrakes from Fred at the rear of the train. All of these lights have counterparts just above them that would read “Moving”, HVM On", and “Emergency Enabled” if those were the cases.
The dark display panel below those just discussed is labeled “Message Display”. Here you get messages from Fred such as “Low Air Pressure” or “Arm Now”.
The digits reading “83” is the air pressure on Fred at the rear of the train.
Just to the right of the “83” are the 5 thumbwheel switches where you dial in the I.D. number of the Fred that is on the rearend of your train. In this picture it is reading 26182.
The red cover at the far right of Mary covers the emer
Thanks for the 411 on locomotive radios. Now I know why certain units never seem to lead their consists! CSX has a wild mix of radios (some of them are sort of old, as in original equipment for an SD40-2!) including your “favorite” Colt unit. There are conductors that would just as soon use a handheld as that piece of [censored]!!
Great information. This is one of those questions most people wonder about but never ask. [(-D]
I see where they got the name "colt " for those things. I think most engineers would be tempted to use another type of “colt”( AKA 45),on those pieces of garbage[:(!]!
seems like 7 out of 10 length counters on the UPRR never work, just beep when you pu***he button. So I have become real good at paying attention to my mile posts. and it helps to know where your train fits.
Thank you for the information. Reinforces the old saying “By the seat of your pants”…
Mook