I feel I will get bored during the holidays so I decide to buy a few train related DVD’s to kill time if I have to.
First one was this one titled ‘American Train Collection’. It turns out to be intro videos and bits and pieces that the railroad companies they put out themselves. It also says 2 volume in one and I thought it’s 2 DVD’s but nevermind, what’s in it is a very intersting thing called automated classification yard which was used by companies like Burlington North and MP. All the rolling stock are in a yard and then get pushed ovr this ‘hump’ where there is a incline and computer controlled the incline and brakes etc so the rolling stock would have the right speed and then coupled altogether to be towed away by the loco.
Now wouldn’t it a challenge to try modeling something like that? LOL
Also I learned about ‘unit-train’, how many of you actually model that concept? Because it seems around the 60’s and 70’s, everyone is doing that.
At least, the late Ed Ravenscroft did. Not exactly computer controlled, but fully automatic. He could set up a cut of 10 or 12 cars to be classified into four tracks, speed controlled by working air retarders, then go hands-off to hostle road engines at the roundhouse or whatever. I had the opportunity to see it in operation in 1979, some years after it was described in Model Railroader.
Ed was a past president of the NMRA and had a lot of influence on both the X2F coupler and the NMRA recommendations for car weight. I suspect that both were influenced by his interest in hump yard operation.
His air retarders didn’t squeeze the wheel flanges as the prototype’s do. They were jets of low-pressure air blowing ‘uphill’ to slow fast-rolling cars. The timing was such that really fast rollers would get two good shots of air (two sets of retarders) while slower cars would get only a fraction. Really slow rollers that could reach the bottom would get none. Absolute dogs that couldn’t roll were labeled, “Do not hump,” and flat-switched.
I once considered trying to duplicate his system, but found that my choice of prototype didn’t allow it. Whether or not others have, deponent knoweth not.
Ice,That’s not exactly a breaking CNN news story since automated hump yards been around for years-add PRR,NYC,C&O and other railroads since all of them had hump yards…One HO club I am a member of has a working hump yard…There is another club that has one as well.
The NY Society of Model Engineers in Carlstadt NJ (I believe the oldest club in the country) has a great working hump yard. An amusing anecdote - one of the first times it was used during a show, (20+ years ago) an old balsa and cardstock car got humped that was not weighted - the air had not been turned down enough and the car went back up the hump - AIRBORN![angel] but the owner of the car was no[angel] about it, he was more of the[}:)] about it![:D]