Rail roads and their tracks.

   / Rail roads and their tracks. #1,991  
BravoXray said:
Yeah, I actually remember when you could see the cars they were carrying.
Click to expand...
Yep. But they sustained so much damage in transit that they started enclosing the cars.

Back in the 80s I had a part-time job driving 5-ton trucks, Hummers, and postal vehicles out of the AM General factory in South Bend, IN to rail spurs all over NW Indiana, and loading them on rail cars. Most of the time they were all loaded on flat cars. However, once in a while we loaded Hummers on the double height auto rack cars. They are totally enclosed except for the little round holes. Hummers are a tight fit as it is, but one siding in LaPorte, IN was on a curve! So you had to drive the hummer up the ramp to the 2nd level, then down 15-20 cars and you could only see into the car in front of you. Not much room on the sides. In fact, if you had a Hummer with doors, you had to climb out the window and SQUEEEEEEEZE around to the hood, then climb over the tops to the nearest end of the rail car and hop out between cars.
 
   / Rail roads and their tracks. #1,992  
Good to see everything was wrong with a Vega start to finish. 🍻
 
   / Rail roads and their tracks. #1,993  
Looks like a load of “Family Trucksters“ from the Chevy Chase movie “Vacation”


1658918036251.jpeg
 
   / Rail roads and their tracks. #1,994  
The Chevy Vega….little before my time, but I remember a few kids in HS driving them. They really disappeared quickly. Probably from rust :LOL:
 
   / Rail roads and their tracks.
  • Thread Starter
#1,995  
Yahoo news
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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Union Pacific will spend more than $1 billion to upgrade 600 of its old diesel locomotives over the next three years and make them more efficient, but regulators still want it to do more to cut pollution from its engines.

The move will accelerate the pace of upgrades UP already planned to make and help the Omaha, Nebraska-based railroad cut roughly 210,000 tons of carbon emissions each year -- the equivalent of taking 45,000 cars off the road. The railroad will go from modernizing 120 locomotives this year to modernizing 200 a year in each of the next three years.

“It’s really taking the older locomotive fleet and applying the latest and greatest to get one of the most fuel efficient locomotives we can have,” said Grace Olsen, who oversees locomotive engineering for Union Pacific.

The railroad estimates that this program will improve the fuel efficiency of these long-haul locomotives by up to 18% and help them produce peak power more reliably. To accomplish that, locomotive manufacturer Wabtec will strip down the locomotives, and spend eight weeks overhauling their engines and installing new software and electronic controls.

The improved power will let Union Pacific pull the same amount of freight with fewer locomotives. That, combined with the railroad's efforts to significantly boost the length of its trains, will allow Union Pacific to keep more of its fleet of 7,400 locomotives in storage. UP has already parked hundreds of locomotives as part of the operational changes it has made over the past several years.

Wabtec says this UP project is the biggest single investment in modernizing locomotives in railroad history although other major freight railroads are making similar improvements to their fleets. Earlier this year, Norfolk Southern announced plants to modernize 330 of its 3,200 locomotives over the next three years to give it more than 950 modernized locomotives by the end of 2025. UP will have 1,033 upgraded locomotives after its project.
 
   / Rail roads and their tracks. #1,996  
I applaud the efforts to make locomotives cleaner, but one has to wonder if that billion dollars could be better spent improving existing railroad infrastructure which is crumbling and being discontinued at an alarming pace.
I’d rather see a little black smoke than derailments and track taken out of commission.
 
   / Rail roads and their tracks. #1,998  
ArlyA said:
Yahoo news
---------------------------------------------
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Union Pacific will spend more than $1 billion to upgrade 600 of its old diesel locomotives over the next three years and make them more efficient, but regulators still want it to do more to cut pollution from its engines.

The move will accelerate the pace of upgrades UP already planned to make and help the Omaha, Nebraska-based railroad cut roughly 210,000 tons of carbon emissions each year -- the equivalent of taking 45,000 cars off the road. The railroad will go from modernizing 120 locomotives this year to modernizing 200 a year in each of the next three years.

“It’s really taking the older locomotive fleet and applying the latest and greatest to get one of the most fuel efficient locomotives we can have,” said Grace Olsen, who oversees locomotive engineering for Union Pacific.

The railroad estimates that this program will improve the fuel efficiency of these long-haul locomotives by up to 18% and help them produce peak power more reliably. To accomplish that, locomotive manufacturer Wabtec will strip down the locomotives, and spend eight weeks overhauling their engines and installing new software and electronic controls.

The improved power will let Union Pacific pull the same amount of freight with fewer locomotives. That, combined with the railroad's efforts to significantly boost the length of its trains, will allow Union Pacific to keep more of its fleet of 7,400 locomotives in storage. UP has already parked hundreds of locomotives as part of the operational changes it has made over the past several years.

Wabtec says this UP project is the biggest single investment in modernizing locomotives in railroad history although other major freight railroads are making similar improvements to their fleets. Earlier this year, Norfolk Southern announced plants to modernize 330 of its 3,200 locomotives over the next three years to give it more than 950 modernized locomotives by the end of 2025. UP will have 1,033 upgraded locomotives after its project.
Click to expand...
Reminds me of the program AM General did back in the 80s where they took old military trucks in, stripped them down, rebuilt them with modern power and transmissions, suspension, etc. and returned them to the military. It was 2/3 the price of a new truck.

Strange thing was, they took most of them in by rail, right at the South Bend plant, but transported most of them out by rail in other towns.
 
   / Rail roads and their tracks. #2,000  
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