Subj : Re: Trains
To   : Mike Powell
From : Ky Moffet
Date : Tue Feb 21 2023 19:31:00

MIKE POWELL wrote:
>> I live about 150 feet off the tracks here. It's a low speed zone due to
>> coming into town and the refinery siding just across the river; even so
>> sometimes I hear a stuck brake screaming, or see a "thumper" that
>> visibly hops up and down -- imagine that at 70mph instead of 20mph.
>> (Supposed to be 20mph. Leaving town often run faster.)
> 
> I can see the old L&N mainline from my front windows, at least at this time
> of year.  :)  A smaller RR runs trains on it now, and they are mostly
> alluminum ignots.  When I first moved to town, it was nothing to see
> 100-car coal trains on the line.

I've counted a few along here; they're almost always three engines (and 
almost never a pusher, despite being the down end of a long slow climb) 
and 110 cars, no matter what they're hauling. This is a railroad town 
(two yards!) at the intersection of BNSF's N-S and E-W for this part of 
the country, but I'm on the N-S and it gets less traffic, only about six 
or so per day.

A few times a year I see a single engine and one to three passenger 
cars, privately-owned (this used to be a cheap way to live) or charters. 
Saw a private one go by just last week, and a charter the week before. 
Traffic jam! :)

>> Anyway, I have BNSF Emergency on speed dial, and I report the bad ones.
>> (Especially the one I could still hear screaming when it reached the
>> third crossing in town, two miles away. Can track 'em by the horn.)
> 
> That is a good idea.

They never sound thrilled to get my calls. :)

>> Seems to me you need that second person just for the redundancy, if one
>> drops dead or has to use the john at the wrong moment. Admittedly with a
>> train's momentum, quick reactions don't often mean much.
> 
> I agree.  I don't know why they think they can run safe trains with only
> one.  A lot has been computerized, but you cannot replace the value of a
> couple of good people being the eyes and ears.

Yeah. Computerized and track sensors are all well and good, but stuff 
still goes unpredictably wrong now and then.


>> Couple other factors at work...
> 
>> 1) Track maintenance. Out west our tracks are in excellent shape. BNSF
>> crews are out there working on 'em all the time. Eastern tracks don't
>> seem to get so much attention; instead they lower the speed limit (some
>> are as low as 5mph, and in such awful shape you wonder how the train
>> finds the tracks, never mind stays on 'em).
> 
> That is good to hear.  Maybe it is the culture of CSX and NS that causes
> that, I am not sure.  I know back in the 1980's, when Seaboard/Family Lines
> started absorbing the L&N, they had a lot of derailments, and that is half
> of the group that became CSX.

Look on Youtube for something like "Worst train tracks" and the one 
that's outright wavy will come up. It's a short line hauling from one 
side of town to the other (in Ohio, no less) and it has to just creep 
along, you could out-walk it. The line was recently sold, to CSX?? don't 
remember, and supposedly they're going to do some long-delayed 
maintenance ... ha ha ha. Probably the first ever. But from what I heard 
the line's profit margin was so low that it was either make do or shut 
down. The right-of-way was probably worth more.

I used to live out at Clarkston MT, with the rail line along the river 
about two blocks away... Clarkston is mostly a dry clay lakebed, and 
everything SINKS, forever, and especially where old river channels used 
to be. Every couple months I'd hear the train noise suddenly go thumpy 
over a particular spot, and next day BNSF's crew would be out there 
adding yet another load of gravel and fastening track back together. And 
for a while the trains were quiet again.

It's really amazing how quiet well-maintained cars are on a 
well-maintained track.

>> 2) Antifa types, who don't always claim their work. Concrete on the
>> tracks out near Seattle... caught before it caused a wreck, but it's
>> happened twice that I know of.
> 
> I wondered about sabatoge, and that is something the new mentioned as a

And there are always idiot copycats.

> possibility, but the footage of what looks like a hot truck might tell a
> different tale.

Yeah, and there are a lot of derails (about 1700 per year... but in 
terms of miles per load, that's not bad at all!), but because of the 
debacle in Ohio now we're going to hear about each and every one like 
it's somehow a brand new unheard-of disaster. Today there's HEADLINE 
NEWS TOXIC CHEMICALS DERAIL in Nebraska... come to find out it was coal 
cars. Um... messy, and you probably shouldn't breathe the dust, but 
hardly what the public thinks when they hear TOXIC!!!11!1!!!

Back about 15 years (before I moved here) there was a derail right down 
at my road crossing (about a block away) and because there are houses 
all along here... well, that may explain why BNSF has repacked the base 
along here twice in ten years, and replaced most of the ties too. Track 
is perfectly straight, not a dent to be seen.

And when they were rebuilding the crossing after the derail, they found 
the bones from a suicide-by-train from some years previous (train knew 
they hit someone, but didn't find the body... apparently got knocked 
into the swampy area and sank).
 þ RNET 2.10U: ILink: Techware BBS þ Hollywood, Ca þ www.techware2k.com

--- QScan/PCB v1.20a / 01-0462
 * Origin: ILink: CFBBS | cfbbs.no-ip.com | 856-933-7096 (454:1/1)

.