[(-D]
Why ask why?
Have only enough to do the job at hand…
Because skis won’t stay on the rails? [:D]
Distribute the weight and stability.
I have seen short flat cars with articulated trucks. Just thinking about. I seen hot steel hawlers the drum was longer than a high cube. It had articulated trucks. The cars were septerated by several empty flats or gons.
Because those cars don’t seem to drag across the ground too easily…
[(-D]I like that one.[(-D]
…In general, railroad cars do not have any more wheels than the typical semi truck trailer has.
Actually about half, since 16 wheels on an 18-wheeler are holding the trailer up, and a typical freight car has “only” eight. Then consider how much more volume and tonnage those eight wheels handle.
I wonder if Mr. Ulrich saw the same cars I did last week: in two days we humped three QTTX flat cars with 18 axles, 36 wheels–three six-wheel trucks on each end (and not much distance separating them in the middle). Now that’s a piece of wheel estate!
And even less wheels on an articulated car. In the case of a “5 pack” it only averages 4.8 wheels per car… (Although the railroad considers the whole “5 pack” as one car…
Ulrich,
You should have posted this question on the “PEOPLE WITH SKILLS” thread. LOL
Mark
I assume that these cars were traveling without a load? Surely they can’t be humped loaded? I was under the impression that they only move on special trains…
It started with steam engines. It gave railfans something to count.
[bow][(-D]
Or consider ore “jennies” as on the DM&IR - which can look like centipedes:
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=124477&nseq=31
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=223142&nseq=2
Or have the wheels of adjacent cars closer together than the axle spacing within the cars’ own trucks:
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=160617&nseq=14
Which raises all kinds of issues about the loads being imposed on the ties and any structures (bridges), and the overlapping of the “surcharge” load “envelopes” on the ballast and subgrade - but that’s a topic for another thread sometime.
- Paul North.
I just can’t make this one work for railroads (especially due to the aforementioned articulated cars), but:
A Texas rancher heard about a fellow who could count just about anything in large numbers. Since the rancher had just done an actual count of his herd of steers, he figured to put this fellow to the test. The fellow agreed and a modest bet ensued.
The fellow went up in an airplane and flew over the herd. The airplane landed, the fellow got out and pronounced to the rancher that there were 3,247 cattle. Astounded, the rancher asked how this fellow had done it.
“Counted all the horns and divided by two…”
Now back to your regularly scheduled discussion…
Your logic is circular . . .
Gabe
Yes, they were empty. All went to the same classification track, so I assume that somebody’s got a bunch of loads coming for them (maybe Houston Ed will see them!). Were they loaded, they may have gone over our hump as far as one of the lower retarders, but from there they would have been shoved to a joint.
“Centipede” would have been an apt description of these cars, too. Speaking of ore cars, you’ve not heard anything until you’ve heard a string of those DM&IR ore jennies (or “jimmies”, as we called 'em) going over the three tracks of CNW’s Northwest Line at Deval at about 35 m.p.h.!
The engineer knew the speed of his train because “he counted the telephone poles, divided by 2 and then Pi R Squared the results” [:-,][(-D]
Do Not Try This At Home!
Mook
Which I would love to see the “math” written out…thats was a very funny story!
Carl, we just got a few of the heavy duty QTTX cars in…got some numbers? and I will see if they match.