Foreign Engines on BNSF

Can’t be any worse than the pict-o-gram knobs and buttons on the newest Aces and Gevos. Takes a couple seconds to figure out which jellyfish attacking the engine switches I need to turn on to get the correct headlights/ditchlights.

And while figuring that out, the engine starts screaming at you because you dare had the reverser thrown without throttling up after 0.000000003 seconds! An eternity by biblical proportions!

Try getting on Susquehanna 142 - Chinese…

Just as a matter of curiosity. [:-^]

Here in Soth Central Ks. we will see occasionally, Canadian Pacific units on some BNSF trains. Those generally run at least, second out, on head ends.

My question is: knowing the legislated need for the Canadians to “have to” use both French and English on their freight cars, does that practice also find itslf used on the Cab Controls of their locomotives?

I have not seen any Canadian National locomotives out here, as yet. Union Pacific power is usually running after the BNSF head end power. There is a ‘wind turbine blade’ train that seems to cycle through this area that operates with a

Sam: CP & CN both have been thru here. CN - I have 40 numbers and CP about 1/2 of that. So they are at least in the area.

It was certainly true of the safety control systems in the F40s – I was looking at a picture of the Faiveley bearing-overheat panel and it’s fully bilingual. With, I thought, a reasonable attempt to put ‘French first’ as indicated by Bill 101.

I’d expect non-pictogram controls to be bilingually labeled.

Not quite germane, but: when my wife and I were traveling across Canada on VIA, we noticed that in Quebec, the announcements were first in French and then in English; in the other provinces, they were first in English and then in French.

Norm, There is still a bridge in Grand Rapids, MI with Chessie on it. Patterson south of 36th St. / just north of the airport. Bob

I hear uou.

Then there’s the ones that start ringing the alarm bell because the reverser isn’t centered, but won’t give you, or recognize if it does, the alarm silence button on the computer screen.

The worst was a CP engine that would immediately shut down after centering the reverser. If you didn’t, the alerter would need acknowledging every 15 seconds. Even when the independent was applied, which usually suspends the alerter feature. Did I mention it was during the winter with temps around 0 and with the shut down of the engine, the heat also shuts off? It was a long 3 hours stopped at a broken rail.

Speaking of Canadian engines, I think all the CN engines I’ve been on are marked in French and English. I’m not so sure of CP engines, but I may be seeing some only used in the US. Those that see service in Canada are easy to tell. They have either a hot plate and tea kettle or a microwave oven, I’ve seen a few with both. They also have a stretche

[(-D] That’s pretty funny ! Would like to see what that looks like sometime.

  • Paul North.

Zug makes it sound like a Pac-Man game, almost. It does sound like some recent automobiles and their control labeling, designed to inspire a “what the heck is that supposed to mean?” response, I guess. Makes driving some rental cars a real adventure.

I suppose that’s better than an old locomotive, after several cab repaints, in which a switch might be labelled simply “D” (for ditch lights)…

Most of our coaches are from Canadian sources and include plenty of bi-lingual labels. There’s some French evident in our RS18u’s, but it’s not universal.

Presumably the ‘fairly standard’ depiction of a lit headlight, which is kinda sorta the shape of a parabolic sealed-beam lamp with little dashes for the rays coming out of it. Presumably this has a little picture with the appropriate end of the engine next to it, probably with an arrow (or in some of the newer ‘semantic’ representations, a little pointing-finger hand) to a little dot that shows where the physical light is supposed to be installed.

I don’t know what GE’s ‘multicultural’ representation of the control that gets lights to blink is going to be. I’d expect two little circles on a picture of the front of the engine, where the ditch lights are, one dark and the other showing those little dashes. And that opens up the question whether you ‘ought’ to have one control that puts the ditch lights on and another that modifies the blinking once they are on, or whether you have one control that puts the ditch lights on steady and another that puts them on blinking, each independent of the other. And figuring this out from pictograms of the usual Euro type, without recourse to a manual that often seems to have been written by an ambitious ESL student, is not likely to be as simple as the bright folks who designed the semantics probably think it is.

I have maintained for many years that it does little harm to put actual English labels under the pictograms to explain what they mean. Or at least provide some sort of explanation that an operator understands and can access, like the little pull-out reference slip on Olivetti ET typewriters. OCD graphic designers don’t much care for this, apparently thinking that if only you adopt their way of looking at the world you won’t have any trouble comprehending their visual syntax. IBM design engineers had much the same attitude designi

During one of my trips up to the Horseshoe Curve I saw and photographed a UP engine on an eastbound train. I also see a lot of foreign power on the csx running on trains through town. Foreign power is a common practice these days.

[quote user=“Overmod”]

Paul_D_North_Jr
That’s pretty funny ! Would like to see what that looks like sometime.

Presumably the ‘fairly standard’ depiction of a lit headlight, which is kinda sorta the shape of a parabolic sealed-beam lamp with little dashes for the rays coming out of it. Presumably this has a little picture with the appropriate end of the engine next to it, probably with an arrow (or in some of the newer ‘semantic’ representations, a little pointing-finger hand) to a little dot that shows where the physical light is supposed to be installed.

I don’t know what GE’s ‘multicultural’ representation of the control that gets lights to blink is going to be. I’d expect two little circles on a picture of the front of the engine, where the ditch lights are, one dark and the other showing those little dashes. And that opens up the question whether you ‘ought’ to have one control that puts the ditch lights on and another that modifies the blinking once they are on, or whether you have one control that puts the ditch lights on steady and another that puts them on blinking, each independent of the other. And figuring this out from pictograms of the usual Euro type, without recourse to a manual that often seems to have been written by an ambitious ESL student, is not likely to be as simple as the bright folks who designed the semantics probably think it is.

I have maintained for many years that it does little harm to put actual English labels under the pictograms to explain what they mean. Or at least provide some sort of explanation that an operator understands and can access, like the little pull-out reference slip on Olivetti ET typewriters. OCD graphic designers don’t much care for this,

The “Save” icon on many menu bars is a 3.5" floppy disc. When was the last time you used a 3.5" floppy disc?

I’ve seen that button and its label in modern locomotives, but I’ve never understood what its function was.

It’s the jellyfish symbol. You probably have at least one in your car. My truck warns of single blue jellyfish and double green ones.

Jellyfish attacking the front of the engine from a direct, head on course for forward headlights, attacking rear for rear ones. Then another knob has jellyfish launching an assault on the engine from the ground for ditchlights (and again a rear assault for those lights).

I believe it is: ((O)) for flashing and for steady if I remember right.

Most of our engines, you have a switch to turn the ditchlights off, steady on (if the headlight is on bright) or flashing (headlight doesn’t matter), and another switch to determine long hood or short hood end. Also a button to activate the flashing for 30 seconds. Of course the horn also acti

I’ve tried using that on our Polar Express trips. Have yet to have anyone show up with hot chocolate and a cookie…

Having to try to deal with computers and modern cars, I have come to the conclusion that I’m just iconically illiterate.

I still laugh when I think about the first time about 50 years ago that I saw the symbol for handicapped accessible (the stick figure in a wheelchair). I thought it meant restroom.

You didn’t call the right number! [:X] Altho, by the time I got to your area, the hot chocolate would be choc milk and the cookie would be really stale.