HI everyone I was wonder this now I know that these took over what cabosses did at one point and I’m really mad about that because when you saw a caboose coming then you know that the end of train was coming now you just have to kinda guess when it will come across But anywho. My question is what is the main purpose of these things and how many diffrent names are there for. them one name is FRED which I dont know the actually meaning for that one and another name is EOTD which mean end of train device I do beleave anyway. If anyone has info on this subject pass it on along ok. [:D][:D]
Flashing Rear End Device
Purpose- to monitor trainline air pressure at the rear of the train.
-to dump the air from the rear in a emergency brake application.
-to mark the rear of a train at night
-to make a train officially a train (I think)
They can also relay train speed (at rear) and the counterpart in the cab (Mary) can measure movement, handy for knowing where the rear of the train is like when leaving a speed restriction or sideing so you know when the rear end clears.
Fred is “Flashing” (or F word of your choice) rear end device.
It’s main purpose is to be the marker that defined the end of the train. A train is, by definition, a locomotive and marker. The EOT also performs some legally mandated functions such as transmitting the brake pipe pressure to the locomotive, allowing the engineer to dump the air from the EOT and providing for a high visibility marker light at night.
Here is a picture of a head end counterpart, commonly known as MARY, from Al Krugs website.
and the text that goes with the pic.:
Starting at the top left is the distance counter. It is used to tell the engineer when the rear end of his train is in the clear in a siding or yard track or any other time he needs to measure distance. To start the distance counter you pu***he single purple button below it. To stop the counter press the same button again. To reset the counter to zero to ready it for the next count just press the button a third time. SIMPLE. Compare this ease of operation with the multiple key presses you have to make on computerized units to do the same thing. The red digits are reading 5039 feet. When you are not using the footage counter this display acts as an accelerometer. It shows the gain or loss in mph you will get if you keep accelerating/decellerating at your current rate for the next minute.
The 2 small green squares in the center panel are lights showing the status of various items on Fred. These two lights are labled “STP” for stopped, fred is not moving, and “HVM OFF” for High Visibilty Marker Off, in other words Fred’s red strobe is off. The larger red square light says “Emergency Disabled” meaning this Mary has not yet been armed to this Fred and you cannot initiate an emergency application of the airbrakes from Fred at the rear of the train. All of these lights have counterparts just above them that would read “Moving”, HVM On", and “Emergency Enabled” if those were the cases.
The dark display panel below those just discussed is labeled “Message Display”. Here you get messages from Fred such as “Low Air Pressure” or “Arm Now”.
The digits reading “83” is the air pressure on Fred at the rear of the train.
Just to the right of the “83” are the 5 thumbwheel switches where you dial in the I.D. number of the Fred that is on the rearend of your train. In this picture i
which FREDs can determine rear of train speed?
***, I ACTUALLY learned something on this computer today!!! Thank You Chad!!
Willy
who the heck is mary?? and the only perpose of the eot is to dump the air. Sorry to make it seem so simple but that is all it is. there is a reflector on it so if the battery goes dead you can still see it. marking the end of train. if you have a good train line it wont tell you if you had the angleturned lets say you have 75 cars and 15 back from the head end somebody turned your angleand the train is going down hill you have a runaway it wont stop but if you bust the box from the head end then you will stop . probley in 2-3 sections but you stop.
Agreed Wabash. All I care about is ARMED, FR No Comm, RF No Comm, Rear PSI, and counter. Never heard of one indicating rear end speed like was stated in an earler post.
SAME HERE! Chad great explaination! [:D]
BTW, look at my signature, nothing really to add, but I though someone might comment on it.
Matthew
And who was the “Wisenhimer” that came up with if you loose your link for 16mins and 30 seconds you have to go 30mph ?Has anyone really lost it until you “just got into the yard” ?I’ve heard it called an Idiot light also.And for goodness sakes why can’t people clear the darn things out of their HOTD when they cut away with the motors.Cause somewhere in the yard theres a motor with your EOTD number dialed in ,and you can’t get it to link [|(].I’ve known of a couple EOTD’s falling off a train while going track speed,and once a train ahead of me was on a 10mph slow order and someone tried to take the EOTD off the train and shot the train.This is true cause people who saw it happen reported it to the NS police dept .
They shot the train? That sounds like it wouldn’t do much…What happened to them?
Matthew
To CSXRules4eva…I just read your profile. You said that your dream job would be the RR…DUDE! You are only 19 and interested in some pretty heavy stuff…Bridges…Diesel mechanics! You need to seek an engineering degree bro. You are way too motivated to work out here. At 19 I was only interested in skirts and beer. You stay focused and your paychecks will dwarf ours by the time you are 24. Just my .02
She …which makes it even more interesting…
Dan
SHE!!! oops…sorry. Just read the main part, not the heading of the profile. Sorry CSX. With a change in the direction of gender…Sis, not Dude, I still mean what I said. You seem like a sharp cookie!
Was CSXrules4eva the hot one?[:p][:p][:p] JK
Matthew
I’ve never heard a HOT (Head of Train device) called MARY. That must be a BNSF thing or maybe a BN holdover. Never seen one that monitors rear end speed, either.
A good one will tell you if the rear end of the train is moving, how much air you’ve got on the rear end, and will permit you to dump (shoot is another term, trainboy) or place the rear end in emergency, which might come in handy if you’re involved in a runaway or something unexpected happens and you need to stop real quick.
Sara has been posting on here for a long time, Ironken, where’ve you been?
Yes she is…
And a real nice kid, too.
Good lookin, smart, likes trains and sprint cars…What more could a guy want?
m
Valley, been around for awhile. I went to a rural skool and cant reed very good.
OK guys, the HOTD may not display speed, but to get distance and to display acceleration the EOT knows what the speed is.