Actually it’s pretty easy to do. Just get a good running start and hit the car with your shoulder…like cow tipping…easy try it.
Unfortunately those cowboys with the sideboom CAT dozers make the final damage tally much worse than it should be (though I admit they have a use.)…prefer the use of rubber tired [^][^][^]CAT 988’s [ hard to find, no longer made] with a beefed-up transmission and extra counterweights…much more productive and less damage in the hands of a good operator![;)]
Lessee, now. Offa toppa my head you got four wheels weighing about 800 pounds apiece (say, on a 70-ton car); two axles each weighing about the same, so you got plus or minus 5000 pounds worth of rotating machinery there including roller bearings; you got a bolster weighing about 1000 pounds or more and two side frames weighing about a thousand apiece including springs, snubbers and roller bearing adapters; you got two brake beams with shoes and levers - oh, say, 400 pounds more. So you got maybe 8 or 9 tons in each truck.
Somebody out there has, I’m sure, the exact weights of all these components for all the various trucks in use today, but these figures aren’t far off.
The car bolster has a “center casting” attached to it, or cast integrally with it, that fits into a matching round female cavity in the truck bolster. In the center of the truck bolster is a smaller cavity into which is placed a “kingpin” which extends upward into a matching cavity in the car bolster.
Car repair shops use air jacks to raise cars so that trucks can be rolled out from under for repairs or component replacement. The truck bolsters and side frames are designed with considerable safety factors and rarely break from normal in-service usage; the same with springs and snubbers. Wheels are another matter. Brake beams rarely need replacement, but shoes can wear out rapidly, especially on the downhill side of a mountain railroad.
Years ago the N&W test -weighed several coal trains leaving Bluefield, W. Va. and weighed them again on arrival at Roanoke after dropping down East River Mountain from Bluefield to Glen Lyn, and again after dropping down Alleghany Mountain from Christiansburg to Elliston. The trains lost more than a hundred pounds on the average, all brake shoe wear.
Old Timer
Oh, and I almost forgot the side bearings. These are usually rollers that ride in pocket castings on the truck bolsters a foot or so inside the side frames, and contact matching pads on the underside of the car body bolster. They should not both make contact at the same time, however, unless there is some sort of special appliance on the car that makes it normal . . .
But they only add about, say, 25 pounds apiece to the truck . . .
Old Timer
Great now we’ll have a bunch of stupid people out in the middle of no where trying “Boxcar tipping” instead of cow tipping and mail box baseball.
Back in the 19th century when eveyone and their grandmother had a different track gauge a common sight at interchange points where two railroads of different gauges met, was the railroad car truck exchanger. There were a number of different styles. The way they worked was beams on external trucks would be inserted under the car body and the whole combination would roll forward to a pit. As the rail underneath the car sloped away from the car, the trucks and the car body would part company. The car, now supported with just the beams would continue to move forward towards the new set of trucks which would be pushed forward until they mated with the car. The car, with its newly installed trucks would continue out onto the track of the connecting railroad. I’ve seen illustrations in 19th century journals showing this apparatus. Those illustrations that I’ve seen also show lots of spare car trucks sitting on sidings next to the exchanger waiting to be used.
So is this how they do it in Australia?
Just doing my part to help cull the herd.
I learn something new every day here, so thanks fellas.
Questions about brakes on freight cars… I get the impression that when the brakes are applied, they are on continuously. Do freight cars have anti-skid brakes? If not, would such an installation lessen damage to the wheels and track? It’s prolly a pair of dumb questions, but if it works for cars and trucks…
Erik
If you try this, please let us know so we can film it. Should be a sidesplitter to watch!
As far as the cow tipping, I’ve known a few bulls who could make any attempt at cow tipping an event worth filming, too. My uncle had a bull that did significant damage to a pickup truck, when the truck dared to come into “his” (the bull’s) pasture. Go ahead, bad boy, try to tip that beast!
Once a railroad car starts flying, whether the trucks are attached isn’t gonna make much difference to what it hits.
Yes, a top-heavy car CAN tip over. Lumber cars like this
http://www.co.westmoreland.pa.us/westmoreland/cwp/view.asp?a=1432&Q=607365&westmorelandNavDLTEST=|34091|
have a pictographic sign warning loaders to load both sides evenly, lest the car fall over on 'em. But they’d be tipsy whether the trucks were attached or not.
My favorite carferry The Lansdowne. In service from the late 1800s to I think the 1970s. In the 1980s it was docked in Downtown Detroit near Cobo Hall and Joe Louis Arena and used as a restaurant and night club. Most recently I heard it is in Erie PA…with plans for it to be a restaurant again.
underworld
[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]
So far no anti lock brakes on freight cars. Passenger cars have them because the have electricity and freight cars don’t. There are load/empty sensors to restrict the brake application for empty cars but they use mechanical or air activated sensors.
Disconnecting the airbrakes on a car is as easy as uncoupling a couple of air lines if the brake cylinders are truck mounted or two cotter pins and two connecting pins if the cylinders are body mounted. It would take about 10 minutes or so.
The real question is why anyone would want to carry around about 30 tons of container while the load is in a different mode.