Ok I am taking several threads and a old trucking joke and making it a train handle test. So Engineers get ready Foamers put your hats on lets go Rail Roading
You have a train of 100 cars for MOW of Ballast, now every ballast train i had was over loaded 8100 tons at 1/2 mile long trains of 50 cars so your times two or 16200 tons a mile long and you have 2 dash 8s and a 12% grade.
Now heres the fun part you have started down hill and you have a air hose seperation, You send the brake man back to make repairs because the conductor is asleep, ( make it ED He needs the brake from switching) the brakeman gets it back together and hes walking up so you latch the brakes and start airing up the system at 40 psi the train starts rolling so you go to full dynamic but its not holding so you grab air to try and stop you draw them down to 20 psi and it stops so you start trying to air it up again and it starts rolling again but at only at 30 psi and it really takes off the brake man is trying to catch you but he gives up your now running 45 mph and no air your on train to stop you come around a curve and a very narrow bridge and a siding past that and another train not in the clear yet .
WHAT DO YOU DO NOW???
Dont wake up Ed he really dont want to see this wreck we fixen to have
Well, you’re probably right about one thing–you don’t wake up Ed.
'Cause if he had a chance he’d probably ream the pair of you for not setting a sufficient number of hand brakes to hold the train until it was fully charged, as required by the rules.
I’m a long way from the seat, but I’m going with Carl’s answer. At minimum, with a 100 car train, that would be 10 handbrakes. Given the grade and the overloading, I’d certainly think more would be appropriate.
And if I read that grade right (I’ll go back and check), I’m surprised the train isn’t sliding downhill even with the emergency application…
Edit - yep, I read the grade right.
As for what I’d do, probably put my head between my legs and kiss my … goodbye.
Well, since we’ve already violated a couple of rules, may as well violate another.
Get out and turn on your cell phone. Call your wife/significant other. Tell them, “Honey, get down to the siding past the narrow bridge at the bottom of the hill because your going to see the darndest train wreck you’ve ever seen.”
Carl there really isnt a punch line I wanted everyone to have fun with it. Just to get everyone in a funny and not so tense for christmas, I love christmas in the joy it should have, not the commercial status of the season, and I have found to just be a kid at heart is the best way to beat the system. So I made a Problem and a joke out if it with extreams, Use a few forum members and let it ride. Heck make me out as the hogger i dont care ,
If it was me I would have jumped the 2nd time it started rolling the brake man would have come running past me trying to get to the head end I would have stopped him and told him not to hurry it stop soon enough. and yes I would have woke up Ed but it be as I hit his feet on the way out the door
As for yours, I guess it would depend on which side the siding was on, but I wouldn’t want to go out Ed’s door.
We used to have a switchman, Tony B___, who woke up to find “his” waycar traveling at about 60 on the hind end of a freight out of town. Crazy guy bailed at that speed, and was known thereafter as “Air B___”. He may have gotten back to work after his injuries or not, but he eventually died from something else.
jeff’s answer is the classic one - been around for a long, long time. Johnny Degges has the book with one of the original versions in it - A Treasury of Railroad Folklore.
I was going to say - Well, since it’s a ballast train, anad all that stone belongs in the track anyway - just activate the automatic/ remote control dumping mechanism that those ballast cars are equipped with anyway - hey, this is modern train, right ? If all that stone suddenly pouring on the track and over the rails and around the wheels doesn’t stop you - well, then the cars will be light enough that the little bit of air pressure that’s left would hopefully be enough.
Either that, or wake up from the dream, and go back to putting the “kid’s” trainset together under the Christmas tree.
I know the feeling. Here’s the answer: watch A Charlie Brown Christmas, the cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Christmas Story*, and A Christmas Carol- the one with George C. Scott. That always fixes a lot of what gets me down at Christmas. [^]
When I got to the 12% grade, I was really snickering.
Actually did get a story one time about a “no brakes” on a train going down a hill. Don’t remember the details, but it stopped when the momentum finally caught up to it and it was going up another hill. Just remember the “thrill” in between was not appreciated!
Another give away - Ed doesn’t sleep. Overnite is the only time he has access to his all-ladies bathroom!
Like the handbrake idea, retainers, wake up ed as jumping out the window,So many things to do! If I couldnt make it out the window I guess talk Ed into singing the chorus to Wolf Creek Pass.
Throw up my hands and yell Whheeeeee!! Call the TM and tell him that I am taking Christmas and New Years and quite possibly St Patricks day off.
OK. Sorry to be late to the party. The handbrakes are definitely a good idea. Given the generally underpowered nature of this dog of a ballast train, and given that you have a 3-man crew. Why was there no stop prior to the hill to turn up the retainers. This was always standard practice with rock trains and even coal on my hilly district of CR and later NS.