This is interesting 2 observations.
The car activated the crossing gates
The car had a clear signal on other side of bridge and knocked the signal down
Now why does UP & CN need 28 axels on the Amtrak trains to activate theeir signals ?
Appearantly UP & CN must have Lucas Electric signal systems - the smoke in the systems moves slower than the electrons that NS uses in their signal system.
From the report:
“Norfolk Southern employees were able to slow the car and board it at a slow speed, when they used a hand brake to stop it, she said.”
How were they able to slow it?
Most grades don’t continue down forever - when the grade begins to rise then gravity becomes your friend.
A steam-era incident on the Northern Alberta comes to mind.
A crew was doubling the 2% hill out of the Peace River valley. A switching miscommunication at the top caused a string of cars to violently back into their caboose, sending it back down the hill on its own. Apparently it took only 7 minutes to race down the 7 mile hill, and then started up the other side. Obeying gravity, it stalled and started rolling back.
The Peace River station agent had seen it race by, and was ready when it came back.
Yes, but she said “…employees were able to slow the car…”
Knowing the physical characteristics of a territory is a employee tool in knowing where gravity will work for you. After gravity does most of its function, the car is moving slow enough for empoyees to mount the car and apply hand brakes to bring it to a stop. Employees are not Superman - they are not faster than a speeding bullet, they cannot top tall buildings at a single bound - they are mere mortals just like the rest of us.
Although a ‘dutch drop’ performed by a two-person crew is rather interesting to watch, as is watching someone ‘poling’ (sp?) a car.
Do poling still done? Are their poling pockets on the newer engines?
From what has been said about the practice, I am glad I was never around when such was done.
I have witnessed a dutch drop onto an interchange track which went wrong because the handbrake on the car failed to stop it; as it was, the car rode over the rabbit and yet stayed on the track. The brakeman ran to the MOW foreman’s house (right at the scene) to get the key to unlock the rabbit so the car could be pulled back from fouling the other road’s siding.
I think poling pockets disappeared from new built equipment starting sometime in the 30’s (I could be mistaken).
Another means used to move cars in tight quarters was to chain the cars, mostly to pull them fom industries
Recall a crew being ‘forced’ against their better judgement to make a ‘Dutch Drop’ with the car headed to a customer’s track that had several tank cars on spot with loading/unloading appratus attached by their Trainmaster. Hand, while tested, wil minimally effective and the dropped car impacted and knocked the other cars off spot with the resultant mess of loss of product.
Trainmaster charged the crew for failure to control the car. Trainmaster’s father had him transferred to the hinterlands of the carrier’s system (Trainmaster’s father was the President of the carrier).
I noticed poling pockets on GP’s (I do not know when they were built) in the seventies.
All it takes is one axle shunting to trip the signal. The question is how many do you need to shunt in all conditions for high reliability? In order to get the level of reliability, UP & CN require 28 axles. That would cut through most rust, dust and mud.
Naw - it only supports Lucas Electric’s smoke operated theory of electricity.
My EE prof told me, if you let the smoke out, they were no good anymore. [swg]
Yep! That is the Lucas Electrical theory, and practice!
I don’t recommend it, but maybe they got ahead of it (or called on the radio to someone who was) and placed a tie across the rails. The additional friction, both points of sliding, will slow it down. Even if the tie snaps in two, some energy will have been removed. I don’t know how fast is too fast for a tack skate.
Back when one of my responsibilities was sending defective PC boards out for repair, one sympton noted by maintenance techs was “needs smoke put back in.”
Tried to add a picture of a bottle of liquid smoke for quick electronics repair. [:(]
Joseph Lucas “The Prince of Darkness” 1842-1903
A few Lucas quips:
• The Lucas motto: “Get home before dark.”
• Lucas is the patent holder for the short circuit.
• Lucas - Inventor of the first intermittent wiper.
• Lucas - Inventor of the self-dimming headlamp.
• The three-position Lucas switch–DIM, FLICKER and OFF.
• The Original Anti-Theft Device - Lucas Electrics.
• If Lucas made guns, wars would not start
• Back in the '70s, Lucas decided to diversify its product line and began manufacturing vacuum cleaners. It was the only product they offered which did not suck.
Q: Why do the British drink warm beer? A: Because Lucas makes their refrigerators.
I’m glad to say that we have managed to reverse-engineer the formula used in Lucas p/n 530433 using the recognition that P. azurescens lycopodium admixed with the material sourced from Pacaya-Samiria is as effective as the material provided in (discontinued) Sparkfun kit TOL-10622 when adsinicated with tetragammatron radication per pp. 6076-7117 of that product’s pocket user’s guide.
I will see if I can link a picture once the kits have been contract manufactured.