I was one of thousands of train excursionists that found out all too late last week that the Algoma Central Railroad had to suspend its Agawa Canyon Tour leaving from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.
They cancelled the excursions because after an inspection by the government “Geometry Car” they had to lower speed limits to a crawl, unrealistically lengthening the round trip tour.
MY QUESTION IS - what, specifically, does a geometry care measure when inspecting the track?
It would measure the gauge (distance between rails), vertical alignment (whether one rail is higher than the other at a given point… acceptable on superelevated curves but not elsewhere, and changes in those two measurements from point to point.
(If I remember correctly, CP got into trouble for using Canadian standards to maintain its U.S. track. If the AC line is bad by those standards, it must be really something to look at!)
Carl:
Thanks - that’s much appreciated. The AC goes over some rough terrain and tall trestles, so perhaps they are extra cautious under those circumstances?
Thanks,
Jer
Geomerty Car is a fancy way of saying “rail inspection” car.
It measures the guage of the rail, radius of curves, and uses ultrasonic technology to inspect the interior condition of the rail. It will also check super elevation, or lack of such.
They look for wide guage track, gapped switch points at turnouts, rotted ties, insufficent ballast and loose or missing joint bars and sun kinks. It also checks the crown of the railhead, and looks for shelling inside the rail itself. Rail can look a-ok from the outside, but have a major defect inside. One of the major things they check is the elevation, or condition of the tracks. On tangent track, is the track level? Is there is a lot of dip or sag at joints, or curves whos radius exceeds certain specs without super-elevation,(outside rail higher than the inside)?
Is the roadbed capable of holding the track structure in place at speed?
If not, then the speed limit is lowered untill the problem is repaired.
Thats just some of the things they check. I am sure I missed some, but rest assured someone will fill in the blanks.
Stay Frosty,
Ed
should you ever get out to Ca. the Ca. State RR museum in Old Sacramento, has an old sperry rail analysis car that used to belong to the UP. its not on display yet but it’s stored in the old SP locomotive works
marty,Ca
ed is right and it mostly checks the rail if there is a defect in the rail. alignment and anything else that would couse a derailment. if the track has alignment problem it will couse the track to be reduced to a 25mph speed limit. if there is a bad section of rail it will be dropped to 25mph if it is real bad it is dropped to 10 mph.
If I’m not mistaken, our geo test cars have hot box simulators to check the TWD accuracy.
Ken
Ed:
Oh Ye great Uni-Head and operating wizard…
With the exception of the ultrasonic rail detection part, you are on the money. Rail flaw detection (electromagnetic or ultrasonic) is the forte of the detector car (D-Car).
The FRA and Class 1’s all have track geometry cars. A very few others have them account of their costs to operate and maintain. There are also ride quality cars out there with accelerometers (sp?)that measure vertical and lateral forces on the railcars (we likened it to the “empty soda pop can on the dashboard” ride quality test). Each of the major railroads have their own cars and they all differ slightly. (most were recyled passenger or business cars plus Plasser makes a self-propelled unit. FRA/Amtrak’s T-1000 is a Budd SPV-2000 (nice car with rather questionable/dubious equipment in the precision department)…Most cars squirt out a stream of colored grease or talcum powder AT TRACK SPEED when a defect is found… The cars used to have feelers to measure gauge, they now use focused light beams or other remote sensing technology (mind candy for us mudchickens)… Many of the railroad owned cars check against pre loaded railroad maps for locations of switches, crossings, bridges, curves, etc. in terms of location and if they are still in place as well as the geometry spec.s in 49CFR213. Many cars have video cameras and lite-slice (rail profile and corrugation [FOR calling out the rail grinder]) equipment on board. These cars are equipped with multiple high end computers,lasers, gyrocscopes and accelerometers to check the ride safety and ride quality of the main tracks and sidings (rarely, if ever, used in yards and backtracks)…railroads were using this stuff long before the highway people caught-on.
Roadmasters and Engineering folks ride the cars determining what get fixed first and by who… Also causes great headaches in the maintenance budget and operating departments in terms getting the money to pay for fixing stuff and releasing slo
Interesting reading is the pocket size 20 page “FRA Track Safety Standards” published by the Federal Railroad Administration. It lays out all the specs for rail which are measured by a geometry car. It is easy to see why a lot of track is Class 1. (Some I think should be Class 0, however, the classifications do not go that low).
FRA 213.9(a) its called “excepted track” (as in 49CFR213)
If its only 20 pages, it’s out of date, pre 6/9/2001. Also, railroads tend to do other measurements that are not in the book that tell managers different things. G-Cars also tend only to do main tracks and passing sidings, yards and backtracks are measured monthly on foot with hand tools.
Have measured many tracks that look like hell, but still meet Class 1 or Class 2 criteria. The big issue is how the track behaves UNDER LOAD.
(Transport Canada has its own similar version for north of the border)
I am surprised Class 1’s have there own Geometry cars. I would think they would want to subcontract that out. It would remove alot of the liablity off the railroad.
TIM A
I’m not an expert on this by any means, but I had always been under the impression that Canadian track standards were higher than US ones. The reason for this is because a couple of years ago CP was replacing the old ties on the line that runs through my town. When the workers stopped in the coffee shop some people asked them if it would be possible to buy the ties for their own uses. The response was that since US track standards are lower that CP sells their old ties to Amtrak. Anyone else hear of this? Like I say, I’m no expert on track regulations, but that’s what was said. Perhaps the guy was even lying to get the people off his back or maybe regulations have changed since then?
Tim:
If you just want to comply with the letter of the law, the contractor idea might work. The railroads have a vested interest in assessing the quality of the plant they own and they tend to test at a more resstrictive level than the FRA and they tend to test things outside the parameters of the 49CFR213 FRA standard. The other irony isd that the FRA’s car is operated with a contractor (ENSCO) and past history (I can’t speak for 1999 forward) is that the FRA car put out some rather questionable results (read the contractor’s fault, not the FRA), especially when they still had “feelers” to measure gage. I personally witnessed an incident where the FRA T-2 car measured almost 200 miles of cross level defects that were not there including a claimed 5" cross level in a switch in tangent track that was in reality flat level. Remember also that the car is used as a maintenance planning tool and carries proprietary data that is unique to that railroad (i.e. - no two of these cars are even slightly similar and are in effect “custom built”)
[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by Sask_Tinplater
Tin Plate: Somebody’s blowin smoke…sometimes ties will get pulled from a main track in good shape, turned over and inserted in a backtrack, but that’s about as far as it goes. Rule of thumb is if it isn’t broken, excessively worn, holds a spike firmly, isn’t plate cut and you can’t see ballast working up through the tie, it’s a servicable tie. Canada or US…
I myself was pretty sceptical about this when I first heard it. I wonder where this guy thought it up? I suppose he does have a good imagination. Or else maybe he really did think it was the truth. I can see someone like Missouri thinking up a tale like this about the railroads. It just goes to show that you can’t always trust what other people tell you.
Probably another anti-USA joke. He thought it up while ice-fishing…
Gentlemen, There might be some truth there. Lonestar Cement owns 10 miles of it’s own track in Oglesby Ill. Two years ago it replaced most of the bad ties it had, with used ties bought from a Canadian supplier. In fact it keeps a big stack of used ties as spares. All bought in Canada. Mind you this is low volume Industrial track.
TIM ARGUBRIGHT
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so hasty in dismissing this story. Perhaps the ties were getting sent to that Canadian supplier. I still think that the part about Amtrak getting used ties from Canada might be stetching the truth just a bit though.
Is the Algoma Central now a part of CN through the CN merger with Wisconsin Central? Is it possible that parts of Algoma Central need to be rebuilt to get it back to safe standards? Let’s hope that the Agawa Canyon Tours can be resumed soon. I would like to see Trains report on this operation & report on any progress in restoring service.