I was expecting some nice american Trai action but turn out to be a collection of safety and public education or recruiting films by the railroad companies themselves or by Railroad Association of America…
I mean yeah sure, I learned a few things like how to properly throw a switch and use the handbrake on rolling stock but the finniest is the last bit which is a safety film try to warn kids away from the tracks.
They try to gt kids not to throw rocks at the trains by showing cops catching kids doing that and send them to jail and also saying that engineer could loose an eye and eyes never grow back and it could be their father in the train if it’s a freighter and they could hurt their mother or other’s mother if it’s a passenger train. Then they show not to place foreign objects on the tracks by showing what would happen with a model train so they put a piece of balsa on the track and then trains would go flying and also tell kids not to monkey with the switches and again showed a model train flying around when the switch is not properly thrown.
Railroads recon it’s costing them million each year because of the kids doing the wrong thing and may be that’s why they actually spend all that money making this film.
I remember that film! I saw it at least once in grammar school, and I think it was shown by a cop who taught us a number of times about railroad safety. I remember the HO train derailed by the balsa wood. We all took it seriously back then, of course. I wouldn’t mind seeing it again for nostalgia’s sake. Is it on DVD?
If you want the modern “hard hitting” version of rail/track safety try to get the British DVD “Hit or Miss” used by Network Rail for staff training. It silences old hands and some new recruits leave. You won’t wander casually around track after you’ve seen that.
Throwing rocks at trains? Attempted murder in my book.
On a more cheerful note…
The other morning I had the opportunity to take a load of pics of track and switch detail. (All I have to do is process them and learn how to post here). The location is unusual with out-of-use loops outside the two - directional - main tracks. This meant that I had a situation in which I could do a lot of work pretty safely BUT it remained essential that I paid attention both listening and watching for train movements. I also made myself stop and check around between each part of what I was doing or even part way through each bit.
With all that I was very aware that for taking pics near to live tracks I would have been much better off working with an experienced lookout who would both keep an eye out for trains approaching (at 100mph) and an eye on me to make sure that while focussing on a detail I didn’t wander into a dangerous position.
For those of you that don’t know alread, I’ve been on or around the track for 28 years. I would like you all to think about this before and while you go railfanning anywhere near any tracks. That way I should still be able to share this great hobby with you next Christmas.
[#ditto] I’m sure the dvd is humorus, but the topic of safety around the rails is not. Rocks thrown at trains? My engineer was a victim (coveded in glass) of this type of assult even with safety glass in the windshield. Not funny. Rocks thrown at the side of trains terrorizes passengers, especially in this day and age (sounds like machine gun fire on the inside). Balsa wood on tracks? How about railroad ties? This joke caused my passenger train to lift into the air for one horrible second or what seemed like forever, until luckily it did come down on the rails. Gee, there was already a crowd assembled to catch the action! Then we hit several more, but no damage done. Contractors and railway road workers must be accompanied by flagmen for protection. You get involved in what you are doing, lose track of all else and can easily become a casualty. So take a buddy along, play it safe and bring back some swell pictures to share on the forum.[2c] and more
Abslutely guys, no doubt safety is of upmost imortance and yes, throwing rocks at trains is absolutely dangerous, I am not trying to joke at safety, just funny watching old films…where I am here downunder, once there was a kid throw rocks off freeway overpass and killed a truck driver! The rock went through the windscreen, hit him right on the head. But he didn’t die rom the injury, he died from a heart attack after he was hit.
On a more cheerful note, I now know the safe coupling speed is 4 MPH or less! An they were showing the effect of coupleing over 4 MPH and forces multiply by like 5fold NOT 2 fold for every 1 MPH over the 4MPH. They were trying to educate railway personnel to take it easy because they got claim millions every year as well for damaged freight. One of the test, thee was these what looks like steam boiler on a flat car and then it got slammed into this box car and the boilers just fly forward and almost penetrated the box car.
Anyway, I suppos what I was trying to say is that when I bought this DVD, I wasn’t expecting these but rather scenaries and/or trains going around various parts of America! LOL
What alot of people especially kids don’t realize is if you’re too close to a fast moving train you don’t get a air blowing effect — there is a suction effect caused ! A person can actually be sucked into the wheels . And I might say that will only happen once to you. I hate some of these movies showing a guy laying under a fast moving train and it passes over him and he’s alright . It would suck you literally off the ground and ---- [#oops]
I don’t know about that. I’ve never seen any trains vacuuming up track litter as they passed. However, that’s not to say that it’s safe to lay between the rails: The bottom of the train only has to be 2-1/2 inches above the rail head, which gives you about 10 inches clearance above the ties - if you’re lucky.
Really? So all those times at work when I’ve stood right next to the track and handed up the staff to a train travelling at speed, I should have been “sucked into the wheels”?
What nonsense. Even more nonsensical is your claim that a person lying in the four-foot would be “sucked off the ground”. About six months ago I ran over a bloke’s body - already dead, apparently - in the four-foot, while travelling at 125kph. He didn’t get sucked up…
Seriously, though, I think it was this film that shows kids throwing rocks at a locomotive, then having to visit the injured engineer in the hospital afterwards. I know that made an impression on us.
Yeah, to visit the guy who lost an eye and bandaged up heavily?
I remembe when I wa a kid, where my nanny lived have a railroad crossing an a mainlne out of the town so we spend a lot of time palying around the railroad there. We didn’t throw any rocks or anything like that but I did remember trying to get the train to crush my quarters and amongst other things. But I remember everytime once the loco got my qurter, it always just went flying and I keeps on loosing the coins. So me and my bro just gave up after a while.
Come to think of it, I think it was during that time trains start to have a special place in my heart…the rusty rails and brown ballasts…and the long stretch of railroad…
We knew that we shouldn’t throw anything at moving trains but for some other kids, they do it…and come to think of it, those brown ballast is kind of big and could do a lot of damage.
Hey, Send that DVD to the kids in Hammond Indiana. We are told to close our windows before we hit Hammond. We have kids who come trackside and wave, but with one hand behind their back holding a rock. They wave then they chuck the rock and go running! I had one engineer who drew a pistol and shot it up in the air on them. It came to find out it was just a starters pistol that just fired blanks.
We also have a conductor that shoots paintballs back at them! Kevin
having worked in the new york city subway for 31 years i have experienced that effect but only when working in the tunnels, not outdoors or on the elevated structure. the train is pushing air ahead of it at the same speed as it is traveling(50mph or more) then when the front of the train passes it begins to suck the air around it. it has caused me to lose my balance several times and pulled blueprints i was reading out of my hands( i found one 2500ft away). i always tried to hold on to something so as not to be thrown off balance. it’s even more dangerous when you are standing between two moving trains. you must try it sometime.
Guys,When I hired on the PRR and laterthe C&O has a brakeman I had to go through safety classes and the safety instructor taught us if you find yourself between a stop and moving train lay flat on the ground if not you could become disoriented and fall into the moving train this would also apply to standing to close to a moving train.Also there is suction behind a moving train just like any moving vehicle.As far as lying between the rails-good luck!
The motion of the train causes a dynamic pressure high ahead of the train and a dynamic pressure low (wake low) behind the train. This is fluid mechanics. The “suction” caused by the wake low, however, wouldn’t necessarily suck you under the wheels since it occurs directly behind the train. However, as the turbulent boundary layer along the sides of the train expands as the train passes at speed, you can be buffeted by some pretty turbulent wind which can knock you off balance.
Evidence of the wake low is shown when litter that was lying relatively still in the immediate vicinity of the tracks is lofted as the last car passes. The strength of the wake low is determined by the speed of the train and can be prognisticated using a simplified set of the so-called “primitive equations” governing motions in the atmsophere, including the irrotational Navier-Stokes equation.