In the 19th Century ‘Engineers’ did not have finite knowledge of the materials they were using to build their creations - the basically adhered to the adage - If a little gets the job done for now, a lot more will keep doing the job for a lot longer. Engineers of that age wanted their creations to last ‘forever’.
Mid 20th Century and later engineers now have strength specifications on virtually every material they use for their creations - they also know, in most cases, they are designing for a 50 year life span - not a ‘forever’ life. As such they design accordingly. These engineers are more cost concious than they are longevity concious.
Sometimes “improved” material did not give better longevity. If I remember Steinman’s biography correctly, he mentioned a great use of hardened steel wire in the wire rope and cabling used in suspension-bridge construction in the post-WWI period. This came to grief in much the same way nickel boiler steels did.
The bridge cables in Quebec are more victims of neglect than “postwar technology” design. Part of the fun is watching the shucking and jiving at upper levels about who reported this issue and when, with a certain ‘wait and see’ attitude entirely objectively unjustified.
It’s almost to the point they can’t pull cables for replacement without risking an accelerated load shedding leading to span collapse.
I have a somewhat different take on this – woman driver jokes aside.
There’s less than 15 seconds from the time the gate finishes dropping to the time the train is on the crossing. That seems short for passenger service where the train is moving as fast as pictured.
She decides to go across, then evidently sees the train coming and stops ASAP; whether she tried to engage reverse ‘in time’ I can’t tell. But this looks suspiciously like a case where someone expected the gates to be down a longer time before the actual train arrived… oops.
She had plenty of warning, and chose to ignore it. That award that shall not be mentioned here comes to mind.
We’re required to start our whistle/horn 20 seconds or a quarter mile from the crossing. Crossing protection is configured to meet that requirement at track speed.
C. April 1967, CP 7116?? and CP 4078?? being handled Dead in Train Six 6 Cars behind Units derailed just East of East Switch Eager on old line Cranbrook Wardner before Libby Dam, and wound up in swamp.
Eager = M. 94.4 OLD Cranbrook Sub to Wardner
Cranbrook = M. 99.2 OLD Cranbrook Sub to Wardner.
CP 4078 needed Nose Repairs and in doing so, CP applied a Spans the World Crest.
CN still does this, the SD40s and other six axle units that have been ‘demoted’ to yard and hump service are not set up to supply power to slugs, but at Mac and Symington they are commonly paired with slugs.
