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The Dangers of Train Yards, Through the Eyes of Railroad Employees

atlasobscura.com

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Re: The Dangers of Train Yards, Through the Eyes of Railroad Employees

#31

Post by TylerE »

adrianN wrote: post #25
TylerE wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno why they don't just go ahead and bite the bullet and go to 100% in-cab signaling. The technology has worked for decades and has been deployed on many lines, including a few in the UK.

You'd have to upgrade all the rolling stock as well. That's not always possible, for technical or financial reasons.

The locomotives, not all the rolling stock. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard/expensive, but it seems better to spend money on things that will be useful for decades rather than stopgaps that just kick the can a little further up the road.

Re: The Dangers of Train Yards, Through the Eyes of Railroad Employees

#32

Post by eponeponepon »

regularfry wrote: post #17

Just as interesting, linked from that page: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pointing-and-calling-j... Now I'm wondering about the cross-over between that and rubber-duck debugging.

The two are one and the same thing, I'd wager. The act of translating abstract thought processes into physical action (whether that's speaking or just pointing) forces you to examine it in a different way, just in order to make it concrete enough to express.

Re: The Dangers of Train Yards, Through the Eyes of Railroad Employees

#33

Post by adrianN »

TylerE wrote: post #31
adrianN wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to upgrade all the rolling stock as well. That's not always possible, for technical or financial reasons.

The locomotives, not all the rolling stock. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard/expensive, but it seems better to spend money on things that will be useful for decades rather than stopgaps that just kick the can a little further up the road.

You're right of course, just the locomotives.

If budgets always allowed us to do what's best over the next decades the world would probably be a much nicer place.

Re: The Dangers of Train Yards, Through the Eyes of Railroad Employees

#34

Post by eponeponepon »

TylerE wrote: post #31
adrianN wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to upgrade all the rolling stock as well. That's not always possible, for technical or financial reasons.

The locomotives, not all the rolling stock. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard/expensive, but it seems better to spend money on things that will be useful for decades rather than stopgaps that just kick the can a little further up the road.

But when the people who hold the pursestrings are looking no further ahead than their next election, "useful for decades" means nothing at all to them.

Re: The Dangers of Train Yards, Through the Eyes of Railroad Employees

#35

Post by macintux »

regularfry wrote: post #17

Just as interesting, linked from that page: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pointing-and-calling-j... Now I'm wondering about the cross-over between that and rubber-duck debugging.

Much discussion on that article here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14011793

Re: The Dangers of Train Yards, Through the Eyes of Railroad Employees

#36

Post by donarb »

TylerE wrote: post #31
adrianN wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to upgrade all the rolling stock as well. That's not always possible, for technical or financial reasons.

The locomotives, not all the rolling stock. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard/expensive, but it seems better to spend money on things that will be useful for decades rather than stopgaps that just kick the can a little further up the road.

If you remove the block signaling system and use in-cab signaling, you still need to know where the back of the train is. Otherwise a train could run into the back of another in the fog or heavy rainstorm. Currently, railroads use FREDs (flashing rear end device) on the last car of the train. Some FREDs are more intelligent than others but would benefit from being able to send out their location via GPS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-of-train_device

Re: The Dangers of Train Yards, Through the Eyes of Railroad Employees

#37

Post by 21 »

adrianN wrote: post #28
sandworm101 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 5mph would take nearly 1000' to bring to an "emergency" stop. That seems far fetched. 1000' is a long way at 5mph. The number of engines doesn't matter. Each car has its own brakes in an emergency. Cut pressure in the line and every car will brake itself. Perhaps they meant situations involving hills, not uncommon for ore trains heading from mines.

It takes a while until the brakes in the last car start braking because the pressure doesn't drop everywhere simultaneously.

Why not also use an electric cable? Sounds like a problem, since the first car will have to "resist" the rest of the train.

Re: The Dangers of Train Yards, Through the Eyes of Railroad Employees

#38

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

TylerE wrote: post #31
adrianN wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to upgrade all the rolling stock as well. That's not always possible, for technical or financial reasons.

The locomotives, not all the rolling stock. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard/expensive, but it seems better to spend money on things that will be useful for decades rather than stopgaps that just kick the can a little further up the road.

Most British passenger trains are multiple units (and most British trains are passenger trains), so there's effectively little distinction between locomotive and rolling stock.

Re: The Dangers of Train Yards, Through the Eyes of Railroad Employees

#39

Post by Retric »

donarb wrote: post #36
TylerE wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The locomotives, not all the rolling stock. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard/expensive, but it seems better to spend money on things that will be useful for decades rather than stopgaps that just kick the can a little further up the road.

If you remove the block signaling system and use in-cab signaling, you still need to know where the back of the train is. Otherwise a train could run into the back of another in the fog or heavy rainstorm. Currently, railroads use FREDs (flashing rear end device) on the last car of the train. Some FREDs are more intelligent than others but would benefit from being able to send out their location via GPS. https://en.w…

Longest trains are under five miles so you could use that or whatever the limit for that line is as a safe baseline. Unless you're worried about trains separating.

Re: The Dangers of Train Yards, Through the Eyes of Railroad Employees

#40

Post by UnderProtest »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #5
abduhl wrote: post #4

When I worked for BNSF I heard a story about a guy crushed between two cars in the knuckle because he lost line of sight with his engineer and they were using hand signals instead of a radio. They were able to keep him alive long enough to cover him with a tarp and bring his family in to say goodbye. He died immediately upon separation of the knuckle.

This is an old urban legend. Feel free to Google it, and you will see everyone who has worked near trains knows a guy who knows a guy who this exact thing happened to. Edit: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-last-kiss/

It's also absolutely real and has been fairly common.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crush_syndrome

It's hard to understand why Snopes has this marked as a myth. The specific anecdote structure with the wife showing up is clearly a meme but that doesn't make it a mythical type of event.

We're much better at dealing with this situation in developed countries now. It's still a serious hazard. Around the turn of the 20th century it was very difficult to handle.

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