TV alert: 01-30-08 "Smash Lab"

Train Crash

The team tries putting giant air bags on the fronts of trains to prevent railroad-crossing accidents.

Discovery Channel, 8pm CDT

also showing on 01-31 at 12am and 6am, and on 02-01 at 9pm.

Zardoz, thanks for the heads up! Sounds very interesting.

If anyone has DirecTV, and is on EST, the program will be on tonight at 10 p.m., and Thursday at 2 a.m. and 8 p.m.

Sounds like a brilliant idea. instead of squashing someone like a bug now we can take bets on how far he would be punted before being squashed like a bug.

Ah, Glad I bought the TiVo… Thanks for letting us know Z!!!

LMAO!!!

I have to give it to you, that is pretty funny.

What next… a giant catcher’s mit to catch that spy satellite that’s currently on its way to earth?

Bergie

satilite better burn up before anyone gets it.

like china, russia, iran…

but being hit by something soft going at 70-55 would be like jumping off an airplane into a lake. can’t survive.(even though a WWII piolt did survive a 12000 ft fall.

I’ll record it because i’m going to see Van Halen. Bring ear plugs.

That will be worth watching.

That’s just like the GM Crash Test Dummies of the 1960’s testing airbags and seatbelts… where the results said the vehicle occupants were only “slightly killed” in the collision.[:D][:D][swg]

Interesting concept. But impractical, I’d say.

How would they be triggered? Contact? Too late. Distance/radar sensor? Not good, because it would need a manual turn-off switch to set out cars, etc., making it non-failsafe. Also, because a distance/radar sensor would need to deploy for a vehicle approaching the crossing on either side, how far of a side range would it need? 600 to 1000 feet to either side? How would you prevent false alarms/deployments? If it was for a vehicle parked/stuck on a crossing, you’d figure the driver and passengers would be smart enough to have vacated the vehicle. In that case, the contact would be like a pillow fight between locomotive and parked vehicle. If there is an airbag deployment, does that train stop so its engine can be taken out of service until the bags are recharged? Would the train sit until a replacement engine is dispatched?

Ah, so many questions. I guess tonite we’ll get the answers.

NOTE: zardoz, I see you copied exactly the description of the show from the TV guide. I’d like to know how exactly would fore-mounted airbags on a locomotive PREVENT railroad crossing accidents, as the description says?

Maybe the airbags should be mounted on the grade crossings to gently prevent cars from running the gates.

heck, i’m lookin at this at a different angle.

the roads won’t take it because the airbag has eliminated the front coupler. dad’s already suggested the “FRED” style add on coupler, but then we defeat the purpoise of the airbag, and it’s another weak point, and on a mountain railroad like UP, something we don’t need. Yes no?

After watching the program -

Still seems like the best crash prevention method is to not be in front of the train.

That being said, I watched a couple of episodes of smash lab now, and they are trying wayyyyy too hard to be like Mythbusters. Not only that, they outsource their fabrication, something I’ve always appreciated with Mythbusters. (It also seems they outsource their engineering - funny that ‘scientists’ would do that).

I thought it was kind of hilarious when they started doing tests with the couch and a glorified matchbox car. I think Mythbusters would have actually scaled their test according to the weight of the loco and the car, and then reduced these weights proportionately to match the scale of the test. I doubt the couch and the box on wheels came close to these ‘scaled’ weights.

If, and that is a big ‘if’, they could make an airbag work then I think people would be even more tempted to try and beat the train. Then when people die because the airbags failed to save the lives the inventors envisioned than our lawyer friends will have a whole new cause to champion in their quest to save us from ourselves.

I think the best lesson to learn was the first image I saw from the inital test - a big knuckle coupler inches from the driver seat. No way, no how I would be so stupid as to try that kind of a stunt just to save a few minutes.

I watched about a half hour and gave up…

One thing that bugged me was the “scientist” failed to even research the design of the locomotive pilot and over rider shelf.

In the initial test, the one used to determine the G forces present, the coupler and over rider did exactly what they were designed to do…spear the object in the trains path, then jam it up between the coupler and the over rider/ anti climber, lift it up some, and carry it down the tracks ahead of the locomotive.

The whole concept here is to prevent anything the train hits from rolling up under the pilot plate and causing a possible derailment, or climbing up and over the front walkway and coming into the cab…both GE and EMD have large crash post in the nose of their locomotive just in case something does manage to get past the couple and the over rider shelf.

If you watched the show, you saw the system work, the car was picked up and carried down the tracks with the train…it wasn’t spun off to the side, nor was it completely destroyed.

A little more research, like a phone call to the FRA or the local Operation Lifesaver, would have also uncovered that the majority of fatal collisions between trains and automobiles are not of the T bone variety, but strikes on either the front or rear quarter of the auto, spinning the car violently and increasing the G forces, often ejecting the occupants, who are either killed by the impact with the ground, crushed by the automobile carcass rolling over them.

If the occupants remain in the car, they are often crushed to death by the repeated impacts of the rollover, or killed when the auto body fails and the car crumples up around them.

It seemed that there was no real “science” involved in the show…this is the third episode I have watched, and as Solz pointed out, they are trying way too hard to sound like MythBusters…who at least employ a small amount of methodology and science to their show.

Don’t get me

Did they describe how they would trigger the airbag? Conceptually, the idea would work, but I think it would have to be outlandish in execution. An airbag device could be developed that would allow a 60 mph train to strike a car dead center, and not only prevent injury, but even prevent damage to the car. But it might require an whole separate railcar to carry the system and be pushed ahead of the locomotive.

Where you been Ed?

Yes the car got punted about ten feet. When it got hit the seond time it got rolled on its roof and squashed like a bug. Only difference between just getting squashed on the first hit is a driver would have had time to say, “Oh s***!”

What happens if you can get the car to go to the side of the tracks. Ever seen a railroad crossing. Sign posts, poles, trees, other cars, buildings, pushing the car off to the side would present so many more dangers to everyone else around the accident.

A better premise would have been how do you keep the car from getting on the tracks when the train is coming? I think a large spear shooting up from the ground through the car would stop the car pretty quick. All joking aside, a better test would have been, if the car isnt stopping, what can be done to keep the car off the tracks and keep the accident from not happening.

My Cub Scouts have better ideas and solutions that the people on Smash Lab.

I think it is one of the dumbest programs on Discovery channel.

computer/server issues…plus work has been really heavy.