I’m developing a simple app that will add some variety to operating sessions. Specifically, it will randomly generate some unexpected problems such as hot boxes (or one of the flay rods going out of skew on treadle or the Spanish Inquisition).
Looking for suggestions of types of real world problems not actually found on model railroads (unlike derailments) but that are common enough that they might occur on any given day.
This app will be free for all to use when finished.
How about a stalled semi trailer on a level crossing ( my little boys favorite). Fortunately the police are always able to notify the authorities and the trains get stopped in time. Or a split rail could be shown by placing a little red plastic flag on the track. One other real life story was when a herd of cows broke through the fence and were all over the double track C.P. mainline Just outside of Vancouver. A single moose has been known to cause problems (airlines ect.) after being hit in the rockies. Snowslides, mudslides, rockfalls,trees. Raillines, again in the rockies, have been used by small aircraft as a place to make a forced landing. That could hold things up. A logging truck loses its load of logs bouncing over the crossing. A bridge with a jumper on it can stop the trains. Or a swing bridge that can’t be closed do to mechanical breakdown.
You could also do hijacking, terrorists with bomb on board, lady tied up on the tracks, crowd of illegal immigrants crossing the tracks, circus crossing the tracks, tornado coming at you or a house moving truck stuck on the tracks.[2c]
The usual defect detector things; hot box, dragging equipement, high or wide car. There’s also switch failures, track circuits down, undesired emergency brake applications, etc.
Don’t forget weather warnings, downed trees, vehicles stuck on the tracks, police or fire department activity, etc.
Here are a few more: Slow order for MOW or poor track condition, shifted load, locomotive failure, signal failure, crew out of time (Hog Law), crew stops for beans, MOW inspection, construction on adjacent property (road or bridge), and I am sure a host of others situations.
You could have a locomotive blow a head (diesel) or a main steam line.
You could have a brake line failure after a stop on a siding.
The always possible broken coupler or knuckle.
Load shift on a car (not that frequent).
Radio communications failure.
Any track repair running longer than expected.
Any braking failure on a mountain run, dynamic, train or engine braking. Braking failures are quite common.
Switch failure.
Speed restriction in an area due to brake/other failure.
Of course there is also the nuclear/bio/chemical hazzard spill.
In my railfanning experience, it seems the trains are always stopped for something, particularily in key traffic areas like the Tehachapi Loop.
Crew changes in the middle of nowhere are fairly common here in the desert southwest because of the distances and traffic delays. One day I heard a crew trying to troubleshoot a problem with continuous random brake applications that turned out to be the use of a FRED from another railroad that was incompatible with their on-board computer link.
Fire department hoses across tracks has always been a big one. I was listening to CSX the other day and the train stopped because the crew smelled something “funny”. They found the tank car where the “funny” smell was coming from and the dispatcher spent about five minutes reading all the placard hazmat information to the crew on the radio. What it came down to was “You should call the fire department and evacuate the areas and let them figure it out”. I never did hear the outcome. The only thing I know about hazmats is what we were taught in our yearly cop refresher - if you can smell it, you’re too close. Get to where you can’t smell it and then get a mile further back and start stringing yellow tape. [:)]
Locomotive overheating or unit failing (they do the unit failure on the V&O dvd!).
Something leaking from something (didn’t they have kittens a few years ago because a white powder was leaking out of a railcar in a train? Turned out to be flour. They also had the car leaking acid all along the tracks a while back).
Crew time up.
Report of a broken rail (slow order over a section of track) - This one is also on one of the dvds. I was amazed the first time I watched that all they did was have the train go slow and listen for a problem).
You can alway close a passing siding with MOW or even a stalled train.
Body or debris on the tracks!
Have a signal out (failure).
Unauthorized passengers on a car or locomotive (meet with local law enforcement).
Well ones I have had on the train. Hot box ( unfounded) my new favorite BNSF load of crud is the warm bearing detector desk. They never call until your past ever easy spot to set out a car.
Auto racks like to come apart. Over on the Chilli side I had a cut of MTY auto racks and one had a heavier than usual cut lever and it got to bouncing so hard it actually uncoupled itself just on the detector after the Illinois River bridge.That was interesting.
Also when one train goes into emergency for whatever reason, it slows everyone near by as they have to slow down looking out for any hazard( a train in emergency does weird things)so that causes delay’s to others ( should have heard them Z trains screaming when my auto rack decided to not go any further east )
You could have disgruntled employees not wanting to make it there on the law so they drag their feet the whole trip.
So have fun with it, I dont stop for hobo calls cause i am not walking the train by myself.Ill wait till I get to a terminal or intermediate town with a police force. We have a lot of illegals riding and I am not about to go back and take on a whole group.
To the OP, although not an app, there was an idea about a year back in MR, in which each train arriving at the yard took a card out a holder. there were 10 cards, and 7 reported no defects. However, 3 declared that the car, say perhaps, 5 cars back was bad-order and had to be set out.
Hey, How about having the union go on strike! [:O] Call that one before you go on vacation and let them have it settled when you get back, so you can continue to run your trains![^]
Simple one. Behind service train. If you can run one, or even simulate, cause train 2 would be doing all sorts of stoppings and slowings. Esp. if the behind service happedns to be an Amtrak etc. making stops here and here and here and here and here, that makes a late one or three.
This has been bounced around for years on the Operations SIG Yahoo Group with mixed feelings on whether its a good idea or not.
Personally I find that modelers understate the duration of the problem and don’t address it in a prototypical manner. If they did they would probably not entertain the idea.
Most of the issues require no intervention by the train crew, other than stopping for a while. A minor incident can last 2-4 hours. The result is that things stop. If a train stops on the main with an issue, then the other trains around it stop and on a territory as small as a typical model railroad it ends up bringing the whole layout to a grinding halt. If you have a operating session that represents 12 hours in the life of the railroad, that can mean everybody stands around and picks their nose for 1/6th to 1/3th the operating session. Some fun eh?
The key is to pick those things that don’t cause a train to stop on the main track
OR
Don’t model the incident on your territory, move the disaster to a parallel railroad or line so your layout gets rerouted traffic. Another tact is to model the recovery AFTER the disaster, not the actual disaster itself. But in my experience modeling the problems in anything approaching a prototypical manner does not enhance the operating session experience.
Protestors, angry mobs, broken crossing gate, vandalism (train stopped with rock through windsheild), drug addicts stopping trains for drug money, small derailment, large derailment, hobo being busted for hitching free ride and the list goes on…
Except these will bring any train to a stand anywhere if enough of them get squished. [xx(]
A hit in the Rockies from an airline will slow most train crews’ service. Usually one because of the hit… everyone else because they’re falling about laughing. [:-,]
[Technically you have to do the job wrong to get hit… usually achieved by not paying attention. Many, if not all, of us have been there… once! Hence the lack of simpathy for the latest victim].
No-one seems to have mentioned bridge strikes yet. (Most times a tall truck ignores the height limit warnings until it peels a chunk off the top of the body and puts a dent in the bridge). Most of the time services will be worked at lass than walking pace over the bridge until it is inspected unless there is clear heavy damage or a dangerous load in the truck.
The thing with nearly all of these operating events that we seem to have missed so far is that a stoppage does just that and trains stand around for some time. A Slow Order incident slows everything down…
Obvious huh?
What we seem to be missing is that as soon as things start to back-up people like Nick start figuring where to park the trains that can be held back and how to juggle things to get the priority trains through ASAP. Now THIS is where ops get interesting. (I used to love chaos shifts).
In a previous thread (don’t recall which one) I got Nick to get out the garlic, cross and wooden
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