Interesting article on different kinds of railway detectors
Not just a list of the kinds of detectors - it’s far more interesting from the economic, organizational, and ‘cultural’ aspects of developing, purchasing, and then using such detectors to their maximum advantage, which seems to have more potential pitfalls than most of us would imagine. This article will also be of interest to those here who are into the’people’ or ‘soft’ side of the industry (as well as or instead of the hardware) - Crandell/ selector, Schlimm, blownout cylinder, Ed Blysard, etc. come to mind (I certainly do not mean to slight or offend anyone not mentioned, which is just off the top of my head - you know who you are anyway !)
Thanks for sharing !
- Paul North.
Paul, it really is an interesting article and not just for the list of detectors as you say. As the article states, the information from each detector needs to be sent to everyone who needs to react to the data, and information from all related detectors needs to be collated; it is not just enough to know that there is a problem in a certain place. More work for the people who work with devising systems of processing information so that the need will get to the people who should act on it as soon as possible.
Do you remember the broken flange detector that was invented by a couple of men (in Colorado, as I remember) back in the fifties? That seemed to be quite a thing, then. The next detector I remembered coming into use was the hot box detector (which caused some delays on steam-powered excursions when in use).
Conrail had one of the first WILD detectors. We were breaking concrete ties on Amtrak’s NEC, so installed a stretch of concrete ties and a WILD at Mill Creek, PA on the Pittsburgh Line. The idea was that you could shop the defective cars at Enola before they reached Amtrak. It worked, but there were problems.
- No AEI, yet. Instead, there was an axle count and a crude video system. From Phila, we could call the Mill Creek detector and replay the video tape over a phone line, then count axles to find the defective car. Get the car number from the video and relay the info to Enola. Very crude and time consuming.
- Not all defects were visible. Sometimes high impact was caused by out of round wheels with no visible defect.
- Not all defects were billable. You could only bill the car owner for a visible defect over the threshold. If the wheel didn’t meet the AAR book, you had to eat the repair cost. ( a new or reprofiled wheelset)
Interesting history and excellent points, Don - esp. 3., which is a frequent dilemma, as I understand. Thanks for sharing !
- Paul North.
Time to change the book and add additional items ??
That’s what I’m wondering as well. Seems to me that measured impact forces don’t leave much room for interpretation.
The other roads were suspicious that CR was just wanted it as a way to steal money from them! They thought this way because some (?) of them were very used to gaming the AAR rules to their benefit …cough…cough…CNW.
Just because the CNW pulled all eastbound UP run-thru trains received at Fremont, NE over an inspection pit (as the old CNW heads have told me) and set out for repair any defect they could find, is no reason to think they were just doing it for the money.[:-^]
It’s not unusual for the hot bearing desk to have the dispatcher notify a train about a possible hot bearing. A co-worker once observed that if the car in question was one of our system cars, we were instructed to check the bearing in question, setting it out if the bearing was found to be warm. However, if it wasn’t one of our cars, it seemed that we would amost always be instructed to check the car and set it out at the next available spot, even if the bearing was cold to the touch.
The last time the hot bearing desk got my train was about two months back. The conductor found a car with a retainer that had been turned
[quote user=“jeffhergert”]
Just because the CNW pulled all eastbound UP run-thru trains received at Fremont, NE over an inspection pit (as the old CNW heads have told me) and set out for repair any defect they could find, is no reason to think they were just doing it for the money.
It’s not unusual for the hot bearing desk to have the dispatcher notify a train about a possible hot bearing. A co-worker once observed that if the car in question was one of our system cars, we were instructed to check the bearing in question, setting it out if the bearing was found to be warm. However, if it wasn’t one of our cars, it seemed that we would amost always be instructed to check the car and set it out at the next available spot, even if the bearing was cold to the touch.
The last time
[quote user=“jeffhergert”]
Just because the CNW pulled all eastbound UP run-thru trains received at Fremont, NE over an inspection pit (as the old CNW heads have told me) and set out for repair any defect they could find, is no reason to think they were just doing it for the money.
It’s not unusual for the hot bearing desk to have the dispatcher notify a train about a possible hot bearing. A co-worker once observed that if the car in question was one of our system cars, we were instructed to check the bearing in question, setting it out if the bearing was found to be warm. However, if it wasn’t one of our cars, it seemed that we would amost always be instructed to check the car and set it out at the next available spot, even if the bearing was cold to the touch.
The last time the hot bearing desk got my train w