Trains

[tous]

Good to see you here, amigo.

I was just thinking about you a while back when  someone brought me a Stratocaster they weren't sure was a genuine Fender product.

Sadly, it was a Chinocaster, but they're getting better at copying.

Damn them.

Do what Ibanez did.

Go from good copies to excellent products of their own.

[Green Dragoon]

5 minutes ago, tous said:

Good to see you here, amigo.

I was just thinking about you a while back when  someone brought me a Stratocaster they weren't sure was a genuine Fender product.

Sadly, it was a Chinocaster, but they're getting better at copying.

Damn them.

Do what Ibanez did.

Go from good copies to excellent products of their own.

thanks Tous....that's nice of you to welcome me here.  

[railfancwb]

I don’t know if this was a 6000 hp engine or not
 
.

A reasonably modern diesel locomotive in North America will have four or six axles with motors. Yet almost all of the pictures I’ve seen of rails notched by locomotive wheels have only one pair of notches from one axle. Wonder what the other three or five motors were doing while the one was acting out. And what malfunctioned time let the one act out?


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[Dric902]

26 minutes ago, railfancwb said:

A reasonably modern diesel locomotive in North America will have four or six axles with motors. Yet almost all of the pictures I’ve seen of rails notched by locomotive wheels have only one pair of notches from one axle. Wonder what the other three or five motors were doing while the one was acting out. And what malfunctioned time let the one act out?

Ok, tabletop example off the top of my head

constants: engines (big ones) weight 410,000 lbs. that’s ‘Gods G’ and the weight on drivers

a contact patch for a wheel is approx 1/2 inch (dime size)

if I have a train of 10,000 tons going through the Wabash hill territory. Down the hill, over the bridge, and up the other side

with two 6000 hp engines I have 12 axles (eq. of 18) 6000x 2 hp and 12 axles equals 1000 hp per axle. Remembering that the wheels are solid and not independent, technically a wheel doesn’t slip, an axle slips. If one slips it drops the effort on all, only one axle will slip, the others have no amperage.

At some point the tractive effort will overcome the adhesion of the weight on drivers for each axle and we get a ‘wheel slip’ when an axle slips and catches, slips and catches. They do this independently of each other as the traction motors are individual assemblies. When a wheel slips (any of them) the engine drops it load and stops pulling. The engines power is based on the generator, not the traction motors. So the amperage/klbs drops to zero and must build up again. After repeated slipping we will stall on the hill, just slipping and not pulling. I can drop the throttle to lower notches until the wheels don’t slip but we will be topping of the hill at ‘slow speed’ (3mph) where the tractive effort is greatest.

now, same train, same hill with a consist of three 4500 hp engines, 18 axles (eq 27)

The tractive effort per axle is now 750 hp per axle. (13,500 hp x 18 axles) I can pull the hill with more horsepower (13,500) at track speed with no wheel slippage

And pulling Wabash hill at track speed is much more fun than low speed. I have pulled that hill a thousand times, I know how it acts.

 

.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Dric902

[Dric902]

Didn’t even need a slide rule

[Dric902]

Here is tonight’s 

80 loads, 16 empty

10,724 tons, 5825 ft

three engine consist, 4400 hp each

short and heavy like an ex wife

 

.

[railfancwb]

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[pipedreams]

[Dric902]

Passed the Holiday Train last night. Heading east, they were going west

didn't see Santa

[railfancwb]

Needed to be here also.


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[Eric]

[Eric]

[railfancwb]

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[railfancwb]

Believe this is better than the one I posted earlier. Notice them adding water to tenders with shovels.


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[Huaco Kid]

On 11/25/2019 at 6:14 PM, railfancwb said:

Yet almost all of the pictures I’ve seen of rails notched by locomotive wheels have only one pair of notches from one axle.

For several years (on campus),  we had tracks so close to our back door,  that you could hit the train with an empty beer can.

It wasn't uncommon to be sitting out there (or even sitting at a local crossing) and see a red-hot meteorite shoot off and skip across the field fifty times,  setting a fire each time it touched down.

I don't know it they were bearings,  or brake parts, or even chunks of wheels,  but some **** was getting all really hot down there.

[Huaco Kid]

We worked at a foundry-supply warehouse in high school.

The bikers that ran the forklifts once told us to move the train wheel,  that was laying there,  so they could get the forklifts in. 

And then they sat back and laughed as three deathly-skinny (and probably stoned) kids tried to move the wheel.

Then we realized that they had forklifts......

[Huaco Kid]

One of our jobs was to unload the train cars that pulled up next to the door.  The forklifts unloaded most of it,  but we had to get the ends.

We once finished one car and the jagoff forklift guys wouldn't push that car out of the way and push the next car up.

So we decided to do it ourselves.

That's when we learned that three deathly-skinny kids can easily get an empty car moving.

But there's no way in hell you can stop it...

So...  it rolled down a bit,  and bent the first switch it came to.  and stuck.  and jammed up.

Now,  we fucked up the whole valley's track,  going to all the warehouses.  For a couple of days.

We had teamsters,  and bikers,  and roustabouts, and railroaders, and bosses, and mafia,   and all manner of unsavory people that wanted to stomp us.

[janice6]

11 hours ago, Huaco Kid said:

For several years (on campus),  we had tracks so close to our back door,  that you could hit the train with an empty beer can.

It wasn't uncommon to be sitting out there (or even sitting at a local crossing) and see a red-hot meteorite shoot off and skip across the field fifty times,  setting a fire each time it touched down.

I don't know it they were bearings,  or brake parts, or even chunks of wheels,  but some **** was getting all really hot down there.

The tracks that run along the wetlands of the Minnesota river in South Minneapolis have grass fires every year from the trains.

[kerbie18]

We are hoping for a near direct hit at this point 

[Huaco Kid]

High on cocaine.

[railfancwb]

[railfancwb]

Design success and failure.

The prototype of this locomotive was built as the steam era was ending on railroads, and it was the only one of its design. It lasted only a few years.

As a toy/model train this design appearance was successful beyond belief. Has been in the Lionel catalog almost continually since it was introduced in the late 1940s. Correctly sized models have been offered in most if not all the major scales. Even the original reduced size Lionel model has been imitated by others.


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[pipedreams]

[pipedreams]

1939 Belgian 12004 locomotive.

[Ramjet38]

I took this pic in Juneau AK