Too bad railroads don’t take simulators as seriously as air lines - that being said - in the air, pilots rely on instrument cue’s not visual ones.
With the Geometry Trains all the Class 1 carriers operate - many with dedicated locomotives - each should be taking high quality video of the lines being operated over for use to bring the visual part of locomotive simulators alive - the numerous train consists - car for car documentation with UMLER registration of cushion underframe and all the other appurtenances that affect the characteristics of cars in the trains - the only thing, to my mind, not able to be simulated are the multitude of car braking issues that affect how a train handles for the professional engineer. Data from the Computer Aided Dispatching Systems could also be integrated to present realistic signal operation, and potentially Dispatcher communications as well as MofW communications for authority through work zones.
Great to hear that EOT repeater capability does indeed exist, but even if CN is using those modules I have never seen one. They will probably show up out here eventually.
In cases of “enroute failure” of an EOT we are required to slow to 25 mph until the next crew change point or location where repairs can be made, unless of course the equipment resumes normal operation. If it appears the train is losing air or something is serious wrong we can still move at 15 mph to clear the main track, as long as there is sufficient braking effort to control the train.
RE: Simulators, Auran’s Trainz 2006 was far more realistic than whatever program CN uses now. I haven’t played that game in years, maybe I should donate my copy to the Winnipeg Training Centre…
Notice that train is all rotary dump cars - painted ends on the head end of the first segment with painted ends toward the locomotives, there second segment has the painted ends away from the lead locomotives. Cars behind the mid-train DPU’s have all painted ends toward the lead locomotives.
For those who miss the point of this: it puts a rotary coupler adjacent to the power at every coupled end of every locomotive. Since the locomotives of course don’t go through the rotary dumper, if the train were arranged any other way there would be cars that couldn’t be dumped that way.
Cars with the bottom dump and shoe actuation don’t have this limitation. On the other hand, last week I actually spent the time looking down into a train of empties and was struck by the amount of coal that remained ‘undumped’ in them; I suspect nothing remains in a rotary-dumped gon.
Saw a train with a DPU come thru here this morning, 135 cars of general freight with 7 autoracks on the rear. The DPU was after car #102. I assume most of the cars were loaded, since the train was coming into FL.
That is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve heard about in a long time! No wonder these “Trainmasters of the month” cannot understand how difficult it is to run certain trains in certain areas: “Gee, that worked ok in the simulator”. Duh!
Absolutely! The “seat-of-the-pants” sensation is what makes the proper running of trains possible. So much information is transmitted in that way–information which is of vital importance to the Engineer.
I looked at the video of the monster going through Zion. It had two cars wth double-rotary couplers, so all locomotives, including the mid-train DPUs, had a rotary-coupler end adjacent to them.