The other evening the family were at the gas station and that just happens to be beside the csx main thru huntington. Got gas and noticed a pair of newly painted geeps hooking up a drag from KRT coal facility just down the road. Paid for gas got on car and parked so we could rf a second. As the train made its last move to hook up the rest of the train…it happend… I have never witnessed before what we had just saw. WOW! exclaimed the wife Did you see that ?? What happened? Never before have I seen my wife so excited about a “choo choo” as she refers to them. So what did we see… The pair of geeps 38’s were consisted end to end and as it throttled up to move both pair rear trucks gave off this ungodly shower of sparks and the train did not move. It tried to move 2 more times and did not. Then it throttled down… amd turned off its front light. …So what happened? says my wife … I dunno says me. So here I am …what happened?
They forgot to isolate the chassis when installing the decoder and and got direct short to a freight car with metal wheel sets carrying current from the opposite polarity rail?[:o)]
That was the railroading equivilant of of a Top Fuel burnout to warm the tires so they can get a good launch off of the starting line. Unfortunately, it seems that the geep threw a blower belt or something and couldn’t make the pass after all. It probably had to go back to the pits and be loaded up for next weekends eliminations. [:D]
Actually, they probably just forgot the air lines hookups for the brakes like cacole said.
Looks like a model railroader was at the throttle. I guess you get used to just backing up your locos, hooking up, and pulling away. In real life, they need to do the brake testing and what-not.