Don't mean to be dumb

Has this got to with weight?Syrup and such like would be heavy i would presume.Do the tanks end up pushing the autoracks?And also how many cars fit in an autorack?weight of loaded rack?Thanks for the info you guys,ill still have some more "dumb"questions,just got to work out how to word them easily.stu.:mcool:

 

No problem Stu! Again, the dumb question is the one unasked! Any liquid will "slosh" in the tank car and they will visibly move back & forth. If you have a short train, with loaded racks and tanks you can feel it in the engine. There is a switch job on the BNSF in Chicago that works a Dial soap plant. It is still called the "Armour Job" since the soap used to be a part of the meatpacker Armour. We would deliver and spot loads and pick up empty tanks of tallow(animal fat),glycerine, and caustic soda. You could get seasick rocking back & forth with the short train, usually 10 -25 cars of soap makings,lumber(for a building supplies firm)and interchange cars for the "Sheep Yard". As for the auto racks, the capacity would vary by make & model of car,truck or SUV and whether they were bi-leve or tri-level. 6 - 12 vehicles is a ballpark figure. Weight varied,again by make & model. Cant even give you a guess.


Charlie

 

I thought you could get 15 vehicles in a tri-level?

 

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As I mentioned, my guess was a "ballpark figure" and dependent on make,model and year. I really dont care to know exactly. As a railroader my concern was with weight,placement,hazmat or not,and compliance with rules. I didn't load or unload them.
The contents,other than hazmat were of little or no concern to me unless it was a unit train, then the dynamics of train operation might change depending on content.I'll accept your quantity as a good choice.
Charlie

 

Thanks charlie.Now are tank cars the only ones that you can feel from the engine?or are they just the worst?And i suppose there are some that just follow along with you not knowing they are still there or not.Now this brings me to another question!!Example:100 car train.wheels,axle,whatever has a problem of somesort on say car 90,is there any way the engineer knows before all hell breaks lose?Wont ask anymore till we kill these couple,Thanks,stu.:mcool:

 

no problem!

With the sawtooth profile of the C & I Division of the BNSF(former C.B.&Q), train handling,for some, is a huge challenge,others look at it as test of their train handling skills.
The carrier would like draft & buff forces to be nil, but the reality is that that will never happen. One can have the power at the top of a hill with a portion of the train trailing downslope(draft)and another portion shoving downhill(buff) and the tail end on level ground(more or less). Mostly you try to keep the train stretched but there are times when you will experience some "run-in" and that can be felt on the locomotive. It feels like a "kick in the pants". Whatever the situation,you try to keep the draft and buff forces minimalized.
Around Shabbona there is a little "dip" in the track and with a manifest freight with loads and empties scattered throughout the train,the best way to keep the train stretched is to
go to throttle 4 and take a minimum reduction on the air and just drag the train thru the "dip". A lot of hoggers like to power brake,but the company prefers use of the dynamic brakes unless the dynamics have failed or are otherwise ineffective. On one of my certifying runs. I was ordered for a stack train. My R.F.E. observed my techniques from
the get-go, the check in, loco inspection,paperwork,moving the power from the roundhouse and tying on to the train and then when authorized,taking the train from Cicero Yard onto the main line and to Eola, where I was then relieved and two of my colleagues
boarded to take the train further west during which time they would be observed and "certified" if they passed. My R.F.E. asked me to use the dynamics ONLY to stop the train by the yard office at Eola, which I did and I spotted it right at the footpath,with the final motion being the setting of the independent to hold the train. Probably the best stop I ever made, but she wanted to see how well I could handle the dynamics.

Charlie

 

I neglected one point of your questions.
Problems are normally caught by the dragging equipment detectors and also by roll-by inspections enroute,with the latter being required by rule. The detectors are spaced
close enough to catch a major problem before it becomes a major problem(usually).
I've had to set out cars after a detector has been triggered by a hot box or dragging
equipment, its no big deal, but one is lucky if the problem has been recognized before there is serious damage done or a point reached where there is no place to set out a defective car. If you feel an extremely strong buff force in the cab, then it is time to worry. I have a story in "Storytime with Charlie" about a derailment on the Rockford Branch. We didn't know we had a car or cars on the ground until the train parted and went into emergency.

Charlie

 

Theres a bit more to this train driving gig than a mere mortal like me realizes,eh.Learning ahellof alot.Now everybody will give a sigh with this one!But um er..................can you explain "power braking" and "dynamics".?Oh and charlie where do i find "story time with charlie",ta.stu.:mcool:

 

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Driving a locomotive or train in ANY country is definitely a learned skill, regardless of what one may see in the movies! Power braking is the term normally used for the useage of the
air brake system. It is a reduction in the amount of compressed air in the train line(90lbs/sq.in. normally)which applies the brakes, restoring the air pressure releases the brakes, its all a matter of physics, Boyles law, compressing springs,movement of pistons,rods,levers and their related linkage which operates the air brake system.
Dynamic brakes are a feature of electric motors whereby a driving or traction motor can be converted into a generator and the torque that is generated by that action is what slows down the locomotives and the train it is pulling. Now electricity is actually generated by a dynamic brake system and that electricity needs to go somewhere. On electric locomotives, that is a "no-brainer", It can be transmitted back into the power transmission system(ie,overhead cantenary,third rail), but on a diesel loco,there is nowhere for that electricity to go so it is fed into a series of metallic resistors and the engery is dissapated as heat. A LOT OF HEAT! So much heat in fact that a series of cooling fans are required to
circulate air thru the resistor grids. Those fans provide the loud "whine" you hear when a trains dynamic braking system is operating. Dynamic brakes are quite effective in downhill situation and thats where they seem to be the most effective means of controlling speed in mountainous territory. The major detractor with dynamic brakes is that they begin to fade when train speed decreases and are mostly ineffective below 8mph.

You can read "storytime with Charlie" in the "Railfanning Discussions" board on "Trainboard"
It is a thread on that board.

Charlie

 

Thanks for your great explanations charlie.As i dont know any engineers here,you are filling in alot blanks in my brain cell!very much appreciated.I gathered the air brakes were same as trucks and trailers but dynamics make alot of sense now!Just let me know when you get sick of this eh.But heres another one:Railroad owns the tracks,but another railroad runs some trains on them.Does it happen much that the owning company holds up the other one(delays it,makes it sit and wait)somewhere to give piority to there own trains?I see alot of lease engines in the railfan photos,here you can lease trucks(one of our sons drive aleased one)they are xamount of dollars a month,Do engines work the same or are they "hours" run?Thanks stu.:mcool:

 

There exists what is known as "trackage rights" whereby "B" railroad will operate trains over
"A" railroad.It could be that "B" wants to operate a hotshot train over the more direct routing of "A", or "B" could have a customer who is online on "A" railroad , or there could be a contractual agreement where "A" will operate "B"s trains between certain points. The BNSF had an agreement like that with the CN to operate CN trains from Chicago to points in Minnesota and the border region. It always seemed to me that our dispatchers didn't treat them with any sense of priority,so CN pulled their business and gave it to the WC., then decided they wanted to merge with the BNSF. The U.S.Gov't saw thru that horrible canard and killed that.The CN then merged with the IC and then bought the WC.
AMTRAK basically operates on "trackage rights" over the railroads serving AMTRAK'S routes.
AMTRAK pays performance bonuses to the freight railroads, they also assess penalties for
delays. All operating rule systems give first priority to passenger trains but some carriers
choose to ignore those rules. Strange,but if I showed the same hubris to rule observance
that the carrier's management does, I would have been canned long ago! What is not good for the goose is OK for the Gander!

Railroads do a lot of leasing under normal economic conditions, but right now most railroads
have a good deal of their "owned" power held out of service. The BNSF has 1,100 such locomotives "mothballed". I have also learned that all the leased power in the Chicago terminals have been returned to the lessor. There are any number of locomotive leasing companys, one of the major being the company that built a lot of them, EMD! Their leasing branch is named "Oakway Leasing". The BNSF rented a lot of real "beaters" , nasty things they were, but it was not the crew's choice as to what power would be available to them.
Sometimes a carrier will "lend/lease" a locomotive to another carrier and then after a certain number of hours or miles the lessee will give the lending carrier a locomotive to run up a matching number of hours or miles. A number of years ago, the BNSF was leasing some locomotives by how much electricity they generated. Dunno how that ever came about but
it lasted for a few years!

Charlie

 

I know theres a recession,but i have trouble working out what sort of freight there wouldnt be as much of.I understand as far as companys stockpiling stuff such as coal and the likes,but not doing it now re short of funds.1100 engines sitting idle is mind bogling!What sort of trains would they have been pulling in a normal world?I take it alot of engineers would be out of a job.Plus service people.Has there been alot of layoffs in the railroads?Stu:tb-frown:

 

Hey westcoaster - I'll pitch in on this one and give Charlie's keyboard a break. :time-out:
Everything slowed down when the economy flushed. I'm an engineer in the northeast US and our trains went from maxxed out tonnage to almost nothing in a matter of weeks. My normal train is mixed freight, lots of lumber, bulk metals, chemicals etc. and the demand for almost all those commodities dropped quickly. Only in the last month or so have the trains started to fill out again but some of them are still awful small. (my last homebound train was only 14 cars for ex.) Almost everything that moves by train was affected: automobiles, bulk materials, chemicals, paper, you name it. That translates into engines sitting around 'laid up' since there's no sense in putting 3 or more big units on a train that's only a couple thousand tons. That went on all over the system so you figure that a fair percentage of the trains that used to run with 3 engines for example, now run with 1 or 2. Thats a lot of trains and if you take even one engine off each of them, you can see where the excess power in storage came from. The carrier always tries to use the absolute minimum power needed to pull the load to save fuel so they put the extras in storage and will haul them out when the need comes back.
And you're right about layoffs...there have been pretty serious cuts in crews and support folks. As goes the locomotives, so goes the people. Again, they're starting to slowly come back, at least in my area as the traffic starts to pick up but there's still a lot furloughed. Changes in the Federal Hours-of-Service Law meant crews are less available to work so the laid-off guys are coming back to fill the holes in the jobs as well as the upturn in traffic. Hopefully, everybody will be back before too much longer.

Keep 'em coming!

 

Agreed with Rule 281's statements.
Also the BN side of the BNSF is famous for running trains with barely just enough HPT. I have been on intermodal trains going east (RR direction)from La Crosse to Chicago which we were concerned about stalling out and having to double the train to make a couple of hills on the C & I. I could have actually walked faster than the train, we had the power in Run 8 and were blowing flames out of the exhaust. The Santa Fe side was different, they would load up the power to the max since the trains were destined to the west coast. They would put on enough power to maintain track speed thru the mountain divisions and run it thru in both directions.
One thing that used to bother me is that when the new power(Dash-9s etc) were being delivered, they would be sent to the Clyde Roundhouse in Cicero IL for "set-up". The mechanical staff would add the safety,emergency and ancillary electronics(radios,DPUs)
equipment, prepare,register and certify the necessary documentation,fuel,sand and test all operating systems and put the power out on the ready track. the very few times I was a hostler, I assisted in this preparation. However within the week the brand new power would somehow always wind up over on the Santa Fe side! If you really want to see an assembly of the newest power, you need to go to the Corwith Yard Diesel Shop.
You'll find it all there!!. Seems like nobody on the BN side of the railroad had the testicular fortitude to speak out and tell Motive Power that we could use the new stuff on the BN side too! I cant begin to tell you the "junk" that I was privileged to run on over on the BN. We had a lot of old SD40-2s. They were monster pullers, but they were aging and they leaked and rattled in every seam and were cold as all get out in winter!
We also were lucky to have some of the old "U-boats" from the Powder River area come to Chicago to run out every last mile in them before turning over to the scrapper. They were the SLOWEST!!!! loaders! One nice thing about them is that the bathroom was big enough for a tall man to stand straight up, not doubled over like the hunchback of Notre Dame.

Charlie

 

Thanks you guys.Charlie,"testicular fortitude" great saying,must remember that,we use the short version!You both have just got me thinking of a couple more questions now!Firstly though, Rule281,dropping power of a train cause not needed,even i should have thought of that!!!Ill only ask one question in this post;at what point when a train is made up,is it decided how many and of what sort of engines are going to pull it?Or does the sort of engine have no bearing on the decision?Thanks in advance,i modell trains but as you know by now,i have nothing to do with the real ones.Very interesting stuff(to me anyway)Cheers,Stu.:mcool:

 

There is an operating dep't. that builds and maintains files on all the trains. I'm having a senior moment and CRS what we called it. Rule 281 has a better handle on how they do things at the present. Normally the Trainmaster will decide what trains will operate during any given 24hrs based on what cars and trains are made up or soon to be made up and ready to go. Yardmasters are normally the ones who build the trains and are "supposed" to ensure that they are in compliance with operating rules and procedures. There are formulae that determine Horsepower Per Ton(HPT)for different types of trains. Then the operating philosophy comes into play, do you want speed or hauling power or both. Then it all depends on what sort of power is available. I have seen some pretty imaginative trains and loco consists. The former Chicago Great Western was famous for MU'ing anything that would MU and would sometimes have consists of 7 or 8 locomotives of just about the same number of varieties!! Very photogenic to say the least! As far as train consist goes, some yardmasters get very
creative. I was working East Yard one midsummer's afternoon while the yardmaster was building a manifest freight greater than 8000 ft. I had to protect the east end of the train and we had to shove up the south lead to the E.J.& E to get the train in the clear at the west end so that the road power could tie on. There was a T-storm going thru at the time and I wasn't too thrilled about being out in the open while "propeller head" was making a train to be proud of! One benefit we got from the whole deal is that it effectively tied up the yard for about 1/2 our shift! One more example of Engineer Mike's
axiom "The more THEY think, the more money WE make".

Rule 281, please help the man out some more. Details like that just weren't high on my
list of priorities. Besides, too much has changed in the last 5 years.

Charlie

 

Ill just jump back in here.STALLING:Are you meaning when train runs out of grip?or runs out of power and comes to a grinding halt(would something want to burn out?).You said about splitting the train,taking one half up hill then going back for other.Would it be hard getting the train to move from a standing start on an incline?The half that was left behind must have alot of strain on brakes and wheels.Is there always a sidling at the top of a major incline?I know this is totally different but i have had a 45ton truck,semi&trailer stop on a hill,darn near rips the clutch out to get going again,in fact you can actually lift the front axle of the ground,not a nice feeling.cheers stu:tb-coolS.I know you wont lift wheels of on train!!!!!

 

I can imagine that would sound great.Sad thing is i havent even seen a big steam engine working!Ill just give a nervous cough and ask,"hogger,hostler"?????(i live a sheltered life)and how the hell did these names come about?cheers,Stu:tb-cool:

 

Sadly there sometimes remains a bit to be desired between the promise and the fulfillment as regards railroading and train makeup. Dispatchers on the BNSF arent really
responsible for train makeup, that is the job of the yardmasters and trainmasters.Dispatchers are responsible for what trains can,and will run on the main tracks and how they are to be run and what work they will have enroute if any. Just like any other machinery, each train,loco,car has its own quirks and peculiarities. No two trains,locos will ever have the same dynamics. Since I was,among other things, a commuter train engineer for a short time, I can vouch for that in CAPITALS. Also it can
best be hoped, I refrain from saying assumed, that the paper work for any given train
truly represents its actual makeup,tonnage,length et al. Example, I was running an EB
stack train from LaCrosse to Cicero. We had all the necessary paperwork and believed everything to be in compliance. CRS exactly what siding we were in,Chana(??),Waterman(??) but we were making a close meet with a WB(this is on the C & I). I pulled as far east as I could and still be able to view the signal. Our meet was coming on just as I came to a complete stop at the signal. Our meet was coming pretty slow so we asked him if he was coming thru on an "approach" indication to which he replied in the affirmative. We asked him to look over our train as he went by an tell us how we looked at our west end. After the appropriate length of time he radioed us that we were"JUST in the clear" ,meaning that our rear end was just past the fouling point. Knowing where our head end was and what the length of the siding was, this gave us the idea that our train was just about 100' LONGER than what showed on our paperwork. This did NOT amuse us! The reality was that we could have been fired for not being aware of that major of a difference between what our paper said and what we actually had. Not to mention the serious safety hazard that could have been.
I envy you the opportunity to run a steam loco, and listen to that "stack talk" but I dont
believe the Yreka Western runs very many 16,000 ton coal trains, or 7000 ft stack trains
over an undulating track profile like the C & I. It's not so much being able to get the durn
thing going but to maintain control of it at 60mph with 1/2 the train on the upslope and 1/2 the train on the downslope and to be able to slow it and/or stop it when you have to make a meet. It's never a "sure thing", its just being able to outguess what your train wants to do and ensure that it does what YOU want it to do.

Charlie