Working rail roads and their tracks.

[the old grind]

Slash, I just had to add this:

 

[caver]

Nearest to what town?

Looks like Taft MT is nearest to the portal but you rent a few miles up I90 at Lookout Pass Ski Resort and they shuttle to the portal. They pick you up over in Idaho. You can also use your own bike. The Route of the Hiawatha Scenic Bike Trail (Official Website)

 

[MossRoad]

Slash, I just had to add this:

Since it was never scrapped, it's officially recorded as preserved.

 

[ArlyA]

This 1927 photograph displays a sign commemorating a record in the largest number of miles of track built in one day during the construction of the Transcontinental railroad.

In the run-up to the meeting between Union Pacific and Central Pacific at Promontory Point, 155 years ago tomorrow, Central Pacific built 10 Miles of track in a single day. Built by a mostly Chinese construction crew, this single day record brought the railroad to within 4 miles of Promontory Summit, Utah. Note, I love this history stuff.

 

[ArlyA]

Shop Scenes Saturday. UP 1218, an 1000 horsepower SW10, is outside of track 5 and is getting some fresh air during a generator change out. It will later re-enter the shop to have a rebuilt generator applied. Then it will be aligned and sent out to start and check. If all is well, it will be released for service. Photo by Warren Johnson. Not sure where this photo was taken, may be Duluth MN.

 

[ArlyA]

Concerning the Great Northern RR.

 

[ArlyA]

Neat video of pictures of the trans continental RR building. They say is was completed in 1904 which was not accurate, it was much earlier than that in 1869. Many more accuratecys that just that.

 

[aczlan]

I'm not understanding why brakes on a few tankers, let's say in the middle of the train, would keep a derailment from happening. If, let's say for argument sake, a rail breaks and cars start to derail 10 back from the powerhead. At normal operating speeds, all cars after the first one hits the dirt will be skidding to a stop, weather there brakes were on or not. Of course as soon as as a two cars are separated, all train brakes go on max.

As I understand it, the problem is that rail car breaks use one pneumatic hose, they lower the pressure to apply the brakes, then bump the pressure back up to release them, the hose goes through a tank on each car and so to release all the brakes the locomotive has to bring all the cars back up to pressure.
It takes time for the pressure drop to get from the engine back to the end of the train, the thought behind electric controlled pneumatic brakes is that all the brakes would start applying at the same time and they would all release at the same time.
The downside would be coming up with a connector that is tough enough to handle being disconnected abruptly like airlines are and easy enough to connect that it can only go in the right way and that will handle years of abuse.

Aaron Z

 

[California]

Neat video of pictures of the trans continental RR building. They say is was completed in 1904 which was not accurate, it was much earlier than that in 1869. Many more accuratecys that just that.

There are a lot of videos that show this history accurately!

This video looks like they gave a primitive AI app an assignment where it collected photos that seemed relevant, colorized them, then wrote nonsense narrative that was collected from those photos' captions. The narrative then repeats itself, word for word, starting about halfway through. Then at about the 2/3 point, no more narrative, just flipping through photos till the end of the vid. WTH? The narrative later correctly said the east/west segments met in 1869 while the very first sentence in the video says 1904.

One of the trains shown (the one coming out of a red-brick tunnel with 'bumpers' on the front corners of the locomotive) is clearly British.

Obviously nobody cared enough to 'proofread' what the AI assembled. I've read of fears that AI will make possible all sorts of bogus political statements etc. This is the first thing I've seen that appears to be a primitive example.



But alongside that vid was a link to an important one. An old UP safety video showing how to dismount a moving train safely. Well worth watching.

 

[ArlyA]

As I understand it, the problem is that rail car breaks use one pneumatic hose, they lower the pressure to apply the brakes, then bump the pressure back up to release them, the hose goes through a tank on each car and so to release all the brakes the locomotive has to bring all the cars back up to pressure.
It takes time for the pressure drop to get from the engine back to the end of the train, the thought behind electric controlled pneumatic brakes is that all the brakes would start applying at the same time and they would all release at the same time.
The downside would be coming up with a connector that is tough enough to handle being disconnected abruptly like airlines are and easy enough to connect that it can only go in the right way and that will handle years of abuse.

Aaron Z

I do understand the basic system since I worked as a carmen for years. But why these longer trains are are not being properly braked is my lack of understanding.