The other day while listening to the scanner I heard the eastbound Empire Builder get the high-ball to head out of Saint Paul. About 30 min later I heard a defect detector report…‘58 axles, no defects’. That was quickly followed by “Amtrak portable…we are stopping! We have 56 axles not 58.”
Do defect detectors goof up like that very often?
What did the crew have to do once they stopped? Did they walk the train to manually check for defects?
I couldn’t hear the crew with their hand held radios, but it was less than 5 min when I heard the engineer report to dispatch that they were rolling again.
Defect detectors are machines made by man - Machines made by man fail. The forms the failures can take are many and varied depending upon which part(s) in the device have failed. There are rules in place on each carrier of the actions required when there is a discrepant axle count.
Not unless they had borrowed a six axle unit from a freight railroad, or they had a six axle car on there (some old private cars have two three axle trucks). I believe Amtrak doesn’t have any six axle cars or diesel locomotives.
Our detectors count from the head end of train. They will count multiple defect locations, but after too many they give an integrity failure or a message of multiple defects without the actual locations. For hot boxes or hot wheels it will also say which side of the train.
Any time a defect tone is given but there is no specific axle or defect identified, inspect the entire train.
“Not unless they had borrowed a six axle unit from a freight railroad, or they had a six axle car on there (some old private cars have two three axle trucks). I believe Amtrak doesn’t have any six axle cars or diesel locomotives.”
He could have easily had a private car in there and I believe that Amtrak does have a few 6 axle cars. I did not say it was likely, I merely mentioned the possibility. If you made that mistake, would you tell the whole world on the radio?
It is very possible they had a PV with 6 axles on it.
If you get an axle count with an odd number, that usually is caused by a counting defect. When I have had that happen, the detector added one axle from what we were supposed to have. Not many FL9s or CPA5-24s around anymore.
The crew should know how many axles they have. If the detector comes up with more, there might be an extra car or more, and looking things over is needed.
If less, that could be more dangerous, need to stop and figure out where the missing axles went…