Recently, I have been doing a lot of noise and vibration measurements along the BNSF main line through the Fullerton/Anaheim area of southern California. BNSF has done a great job creating an ultra-smooth line due to meticulous roadbed preparation and continuous welded rail. So good that ground born vibration from the locos is far less than I would have expected. However, I have also observed that every third or fourth car has at least one seriously flat spotted wheel causing a pounding that creates significant vibration impacts upon land uses to either side of the right-of-way. Why do so many flat spots occur and how does a railroad detect and repair such wheels? Heck, some of the wheels I observed were so bad you’d swear they were square!
If a freight train brakes hard and the wheel locks up and slides, a flat spot results, and the car can travel many miles over multiple roads before an inspection uncovers it. On the other hand, flat spots on passenger trains are noticed almost immediately, and are noted on the conductor’s defect reports.
Flat spots (and other vwheel irregularities) are corrected by spotting the car on a wheel truing machine. The machine has rollers that lift the wheel off the rail and turns it while cutting tools restore the proper contour of the wheel. The cutter may consist of a stationary blade (like a lathe), or it could be a set of rotating cutters (like a milling machine). Each time this is done, the wheel’s diameter is reduced, so it can only be done so many times before the wheel must be scrapped.
A common cause for mild flats is switching moves. While the crew should release all the handbrakes before moving a cut of cars, if the locomotive has enough power they can also be simply dragged. That saves a whole bunch of time and physical work; often the handbrakes would have to be reapplied after the moves are complete. If the car is empty, the wheels are more likely to slide on the rail instead of slipping against the brake shoe. (The culprits are not necessarily the railroad employees; sometimes the industries themselves are moving the cars.) You may have noticed that certain types of cars/trains are more likely to have flat spots. That is a function of the human factor above.
There is a device called the Wheel Impact Load Detector (WILD) that is becoming more common along the main lines. It can measure the pounding force of a flat wheel, and alerts the railroad when the defect is severe. Action may mean reducing the speed of the train until it reaches the next repair point, or in more severe cases, setting the car off immediately. Mild flat spots are ignored.
John
All of the trains I measured were intermodal container trains. I don’t know how easy or difficult it would be for switching crews/industrial switchers to slide these three and five unit cars even when empty. As for ignoring mild flat spots, the flat spots I observed were creating hard vibration spikes greater than those of the multiple loco units. More significantly, while the loco vibrations were more of a gentle shaking motion, the flat spotted wheels create rapid hammering impacts against the rail heads. If the railroads are using WILD detectors, it would appear that the detection threshold is set a bit too high.
Or your settings are a bit too low. 
Laziness, mostly.
You mention intermodal trains. Let me preface by saying I’m a Conductor for CSX.
So you’re working the ramp… Yardmaster tells you to drag a cut of empties from X track to Y track so the ramp workers can reach them for loading. Well you’re just going to have to apply the brakes again anyway once you get to Y track, so some Conductors won’t bother knocking off the brakes before pulling the cut out of X track. Unloaded intermodal cars are very light, so usually the wheels will just slide. Thus, flat spots.
Oh and another thing to note is that setting/releasing brakes on intermodal cars is more annoying the regular freight cars… say you’re setting out a cut of empties and you have to tie 2 or 3 brakes. Well if you’ve got ahold of a bunch of 3, 4 or 5 packers, you could have to walk 10+ cars just to set 2 or 3 brakes!
In other words, devising some plan to reduce the number of flat spotted wheels would not be a realistic approach to reducing vibration impacts along the line.
Too bad RR’s can’t pay their employees enough to ‘walk the extra mile’ (it’s just walking a long way, not necessarily hard work, like heavy lifting, is it?) and not cause other problems (and money) a flat spotted wheel could cause. Didn’t we use to have pride in doing a job right? Times are-a-changing.lol
Not trying to start a flame war or tick anyone off…just a bit of light-hearted ribbing. I know I asked for it…lemme have it.lol
I don’t know about “times are a changing”.
If anything, old-heads are more likely to keep brakes on while dragging cars all over the place than newer guys. Of course, the old-head Conductors are also more likely to have spent most of their lives working in a railroading world where there were 2+ guys on the ground to spread out instead of the 1 there is now.
Yes they are. I used to go out of my way to save the company some money. After not getting an increase in wages for more than 5 years and paying four times what it was just a few years ago for a crappy health plan and seeing some of my other benefits going down the toilet so the bosses kids can buy those new sports cars, large homes, and not want or work for anything. If they care so little about the employees that make them the money than why should I care? Yes the days are gone where a company cared for their employees. After the old man retired and gave the company to a bunch of kids who don’t care, the bottom line is above all that. Waste and abuse is rampant in private sector and government agencies. I’m sorry but it is not an LOL situation.
Not dragging a couple of wheel sets will not put more money in the pocket.
Pete
You didn’t even mention the part where everything now takes 2x or more as long to do due to rule changes and crew cutbacks!
Still, despite that, THIS GUY remains an idiot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYCgZtura54
The fun begins at about 6:05.
Maybe not “heavy lifting”, but walking on ballast ain’t the same as walking on a sidewalk.
I think the true idiots are the bean counters that won’t invest in switches you can run through. Hard to believe the extra cost and little extra maintenance costs more than cleaning up derailments and the associated delays.
This time never existed.
They acted differently because you were expected to stay in one career at one place for the rest of your life. It was good for morale.
True,but,when we had 3 men on the ground we would release the brakes…With a one man crew I’m not surprise brakes are not being release.
How hard is it to walk several cars with a R/C unit strapped on over ballast? Railroaders?
I don’t think I would care to.
Maybe railroads are spending their savings on crew downsizing on wheel replacement…
Justice? Perhaps.[:-,]
Back to the intermodal trains, it may not always be handbrakes as the culprit, often times intermodal cars don’t get bled all the way before switching. I think it’s part laziness, but it’s also because it’s not easy to see the piston or bladder of a stack car, especially if you are bleeding it from a jeep. Also, it’s usually easiest to find a sticking brake while it is in motion, it’s often pointless to have somebody walk a train to find a sticking brake while it is stationary, because it can be hard to see visually. If the train is moving, you get a better indication (excessive noise, sliding wheels, smell).
Another culprit is rules testing. A couple crews get in trouble for not tying hand brakes and next thing you know Switchmen are tying stuff down everytime you stop. And those handbrakes don’t usually get released as you continue to switch. Partly because it becomes inconvenient and then they tie more handbrakes just as CYA.
I will add that an empty intermodal train with brakes applied can be much harder to pull than a loaded one, because they are so light empty, the wheels simply skip along the track.
The only idiots is the railroads that cut the crew size down in order to save money and keep investors happy…One man with a belly pack R/C unit can’t protect his shove like a brakeman riding on the end car would.
Generally speaking, if you’re in a yard where they have a RCO guy shoving cuts blind into tracks, they’re protected with shove lights.
And that’s fail safe? That doesn’t explain away the numerous sideswipes and run through railroads have every day in the yards
More railroad management lunacy.
Put a man on that end car,a engineer in the cab and switch cars more safely…