Would this set off the DED?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

I came across this video on youtube. After 3:50 there is something being dragged alongside the work train. Later the videographer mentions that it may have been a plastic pipe.

What ever it was, is it enough to set off the DED and is there a limit to how much a DED can pick up?

2

Don’t know if it will set off the DED or not (it looks like it’s running a little wide of the tracks to do that, though).

Somebody’s gonna have trouble getting water into their camp car though. That looked like a fill (ie garden) hose…

3

I agree with Larry…if it’s a plastic hose (and I have no reason to doubt the videographer), it’s nothing to worry about as far as the dragging-equipment detector is concerned. As a trackside trainwatcher, though, I wouldn’t want to be flogged by that. If it’s dragging wide of the ties, it’s probably wide of a detector as well.

I have seen a chain set one off. They had to stop and stow it on the flat car.

4

Depends on what type of dragger it is. (Paddles, trip wire, light beam, impact sensor, etc.)

5

That hose would not set off a dragger on our property as the use ‘brittle bars’ and the is not sufficient mass in the hose to activate them…it could however, trip a wide car detector as they use lasers to identify their limits and the hose would break the beam as it passed the detector.

6

I always thought the DED had a greater range beyond the tracks. I guess I was wrong.

So large chunk of scrap could be dangling from a scarp train for a while?

7

If is is just ‘dangling’ and not imacting the right of way…it isn’t dragging. If a piece of scrap, or anything else with some degree of mass (a cut lever that has become unsecured…for example) will activate Dragging Equipment detectors when they impact or drag across the detector.

8

For some reason I thought there were additional sensors that went beyond the mechanisms on the actual track structure. Oh well now I know.

9

That is where, I guess, a visual inspection comes into play. Not sure about NS, but here on CN the engineer and conductor of any stopped train are required to get out and inspect both sides of any passing trains, precisely to catch things like that.

There comes a point where good old human intelligence surpasses any technological gadget I suppose.