For those of you in the know, how often do defect detectors such as dragging equipment, hot box flatwheel, etc give false alarms?
Ungern
Its hard to say some times every train sometimes 1 in 3 trains and sometimes 1 in every 1000 trains and sometimes there is defects and it wont go off at all. its just a device to help catch problems not a cure all and deffinatly not gospil.
Manufacturing defects, despite the manufacturers best efforts at quality control, will happen…they always have and they always will…the only thing we can expect is that the frequency will decrease (see Toyota’s current problems).
The rules on my carrier require the offending car to be set off if it activates 2 hot box detectors, even if the car has been inspected both times without exception and even if it does not melt the temp-l-stick, the detectors need not be consecutive nor do they need to be on the same operating division; cars are tagged by the crews whenever they are inspected for a hot box indication and a second required inspection of a previously tagged car requires it to be set out. Further, if a train leaves on 2 track occupancy circuits during it’s trip, it is to be stopped and the crew is to inspect the train specifically looking for a broken wheel.
Can we add LACK of HBD warnings to this thread? I’m asking because two of the three railroads I’m nost familiar with space their detectors thirty miles apart and the third one spaces them ten miles. There have been cases where one detector will not call out a defect, and before the train reaches the next one thirty miles down the road a bearing has frozen and wreaked havoc.
Just makes sense to me that having them closer could save the RR’s a lot of grief.
FRA Regulations require a train to pass over a working detector every 50 miles or the train must be stopped and inspected by the crew. Different carriers have different strategies to comply with this regulation with the placement of their Detectors.
Many placed their detectors approximately 20 mile apart so that one could be taken out of service in case of detector failure and the carrier would still be in compliance with the every 50 mile regulation.