Washington Union Station has so much sand around the tracks at the platforms it looks like a permanent snowstorm. Do they ever need to clean this stuff up? Do they know they need to clean it up?
It is not in anyone’s job description, so nothing will happen. On the other hand, if someone points out that it is a “danger to health and / or the environment,” it will disappear quickly but at great cost.
John Timm
At that extent - yes, it should be cleaned up. Even if noplace else, it should be removed and kept out of the switchpoints and associated signal mechanisms, to prevent jamming and abrasion, etc., as well as pehaps shunting any track signal circuits that may be in use there. I recall various manufacturers offering a track cart or hy-rail version of a giant vacuum cleaner for use by transit agencies and subways. Don’t know if they work well or are still in use or not.
If nothing is done, the moisture retained by the sand will accelerate the tie deterioration, and aggravate any rail corrosion caused by the electrical return/ ground path. Then it will get cleaned up - when the MOW people have to dismantle and excavate the track area, to be able to get to the ties to replace them and the rails.
- Paul North.
…either a Kershaw Yard Cleaner or a vac truck needed (and some absent minded hoggers need to remember where the O-F-F switch is located on the control stand)
Outside the station environment (and within, for that matter), sand is a contaminant in the ballast. Such “fines” (as in fine particles) can affect how the ballast interlocks with itself, thus threaten the very structure of the roadbed.
Not to mention the issues PDN spoke of.
There are ballast cleaners that will dig the existing ballast out, clean it, and replace it under the tracks, after which tampers, etc, will re-level the track.
[:-,] Aww, they’ll just shut it off when the sand runs out - or reaches the bottom step, whichever comes first . . . . [:-^]
(1) using a switch undercutter to clear out the ballast section through platforms, NOT FUN. (and you will be lucky to get 500 feet in 24 hours)
- If you can, dig deep and lay crumble rubber ashalt in the trench with filter fabric sides before coming back with ballast & track. (Keep the mudmonster out of the equation)
(2) panel party in the plaforms…NOT FUN (but more effective)
(3) Vac truck in the platforms…not effective below the ties and labor intensive…Hulcher & Corman have Hi-Rail sucktrucks running around for this.
(4) Kershaw Yard Cleaner…not effective below the ties, flying dirt & debris everywhere on the platforms… (hard on the edges of the platforms)
None of these are cheap.(I’ve done them all) Make mechanical and operating pay the cleaning bill and take the budget hit! [The attitude just might change?]
If Washington is anything like Ogilvie (and I’m not sure about either one), the track structure might be a little more rigidly connected to the building structure. Not much to worry about beneath the ties, and drainage is apparently handled in other ways. So the suck truck might be sufficient to get the loose stuff (with a little assist to loosen up oil-fouled or other such accumulated crud).
We’ve had a couple of “panel parties” locally to replace ties on the platform tracks. I assume that all of the ballast is also removed and relaid.
The platform tracks at WUT, with the exception of the tracks leading South out of the station are all stub end tracks and as such are not ‘high speed’ and don’t require the level maintenance necessary for higher speed tracks.
Gawd I love that cat sledding picture…
Anyway it looks like it’s easily vacuumed up. I’m sure they clean it regularly when someone notices, but it sure looked awfully caked and high. I have to remember how busy WAS is, and what I saw might be regular detritus between cleaning intervals.
Thanks for the data. The sand sure is very finely-grained, like the old shufflepuck arcade machines were.
there is no off switch on the control stand the sanders are spring loaded switches and the way we keep this things on so we can sand is real high tech a rubber band.
To be fair, there at the platforms is exactly where an engineer would have the most need for sand. Almost any modern non-steam locomotive has its peak Tractive Effort output and is most prone to slipping when starting departing trains - that’s at the high left side of the TE vs. speed curve. Think of the AEM-7 types, with 7,000 HP and only 101 tons on B-B trucks = 50,500 lbs. per axle to hold it down and apply all that power to urge that trailing train into motion and get it moving fast quickly. Even more important is when arriving and braking the last few MPH - below where the dynamic brakes quit being effective - when coming to a stop at the stub-end platforms. Wouldn’t do to have a wheel slide develop right there, such as on a frosty morning like this one
- Paul North.
lucy you got splaining to do
Are you telling me that Washington Union Terminal (sic) has ballasted roadbed on wooden ties? I never looked. Didn’t they ever learn anything from the builders of GCT? Our NYC and NH MUs didn’t have sanders and never crashed thru the bumper posts and ended up in the lower level. No “T”, “R”, “S”, “P”, EP-2, EP-4, EP-5, or FL-9s either. Time to call in a “Hulcher Hoover”! More “Red Team” incompetence! …Well, maybe just “arrogance”.
Hays
WUS is in a real outdoors railroad environment, with rain, frost, snow, etc. as per the season.
[:-,] GCT is just a indoors electric train set in a very large basement - basically dry as it’s under roof to isolate it from precipitation, essentially 50 to 55 degree underground temperature year-round like any other cave.
- Paul North.
Any Engineer that starts his passenger train so quickly at the initial terminal that the wheels slip is going to have a lot of explaining to do when all those commuters complain about their spilled coffee and beer. When a train leaves any big initial terminal station like Union Station, it has to negotiate many switches and signals before getting out on the “high iron”, so massive amounts of tractive effort are NOT needed (other than for doing the initial terminal departure air test).
Now here I absolutely agree with you.
Mudchicken: I’m not sure if this scenario applies to other operations, but with Metra in Chicago, we frequently would change power on the trains that make trips during the off-peak hours. If our power was to be cut from the train we just brought in, when we stopped at the bumping post we would dump the air so the carknockers could get to work on the connections between the power and the coaches. On our locomotives, when the air
(aegrotatio, Thanks, for reading my mind![:D]
The kitten seems to have situation under control. No dirty sand for him.
Over on the ''Derailment of Russian HSR Train’’ thread, Hays / BNSFwatcher wrote -
‘‘BTW, love the surfing cat!’’
I do too. Whatever else, BaltACD has some of the coolest of [whatever you call those images].
- Paul North.
yes on GE engines the sand is cut off at 12 mph on EMD its 18 MPH the only thing you get is lead axel sand and its a spring loaded toggel switch which we use the rubber band to hold it on.