Coal Train Vid

[Balrog21]

This is an outstanding vid of the Norfolk Southern coal train, it's got some GREAT stuff in this video. 45 minutes long, engine house, laying new track, horshoe curve, and dumping the coal with rotary couplers. Love this vid! Even have some SD40-2's helping push!
Bal

http://youtu.be/___rJuGtksk

[jbrock27]

Coal's all good, until it produces Acid Rain.

[jward]

ah yes......

the strawberry ridge train. it runs with sd60ms now, and the helpers are rebuilt sd50s. otherwise, the train remains the same.

[Balrog21]

yeah, not really into the coal thing, just liked because it showed the huge engine house and the rerailing action, and the other stuff that would help anyone for ideas on their layout. 

[railexpert]

Hello,

I wonder they nail the rails with spikes on wooden ties in a heavy duty track.
It's like in the year 1830. What a modern technology!

Why no concrete ties with a modern fastening system?

Railexpert   

[jbrock27]

Sure JP, I get it.

[jward]

Hello,

I wonder they nail the rails with spikes on wooden ties in a heavy duty track.
It's like in the year 1830. What a modern technology!

Why no concrete ties with a modern fastening system?

Railexpert   

both conrail and csx tried concrete ties in the Pittsburgh area. in both cases most were removed after a few years of service for excessive deterioration. around here wood ties just plain hold up better under heavy traffic.

there are places such as curves where they use a clip system similar to the one on concrete ties to hold the rail in place.

[Jhanecker2]

I suspect that wooden ties are more resilient than  concrete ties .  The weight of track and the quality of that track was such that the rails wore out be- fore  the ties did in  1830  .  The modern heavy duty track that is used today will  probably  outlast several generations  of wooden ties .  Concrete has a problem with  being porous  and soaking  up  moisture  and with freeze & thaw cycles  and the pounding of heavy loads cracks much sooner . The UP track across the street (former  CNW single line freight track ) was  redone with wooden replacement ties and re-ballasted.last year (2012) It gets fairly heavy use with  multi-engine consists and  70 +  car  loads.   They run auto transporters , grain hoppers , centerbeam lumber cars , tankers and box cars several times a day & night.  John II.

[jward]

yeah, not really into the coal thing, just liked because it showed the huge engine house and the rerailing action, and the other stuff that would help anyone for ideas on their layout. 

that's probably because of where you live. you don't see the coal trains fighting their way over the mountains the way I do. that video shows railroading in my neck of the woods, running on the lines I used to work. and I can tell you from experience they just barely touched the surface of what it's like to actually be there. for example, on a heavy train like a coal train, getting to the top of the mountain is the easy part. you just open the throttle all the way and grind it out. the helper does the same. the train slows down to whatever speed the locomotives can lug it at.

coming down the other side is a different story. the grades are compensated. that is, they are designed so that the rolling resistance of a train climbing the mountain remains constant. the straights are steeper than the curves, where the grade lessens to compensate for the increased friction of the curve. when you come down the hill, your train wants to bind up in these curves. so they make a small brake application at the top, and maintain this braking pressure on the way down. speed is controlled by varying the dynamic brake. set too much air, and you may have to pull your train through the curve. releasing the air brake is a no-no because your train may run away before you can pump the air pressure back up.

knowing these problems I have a lot of respect for the old steam locomotive engineers, who  had no dynamic brakes to work with. they had to ride the air all the way down. that's something that few of the railroaders I knew would have been able to do.

[Balrog21]

oh i have much respect for the coal trains, i just worded that wrong. I should have said, the coal thing is not in my layout and believe it or not, we have two coal trains that come through here daily.  Not too steep of hills but we have enough to get the loco's on their knees when they are loaded down. =) Their return journey is always harder because it's all uphill! Yeah, coming down those steep grades has to be nail biting to say the least!

[Jerrys HO]

Great vid Bal.

that's probably because of where you live. you don't see the coal trains fighting their way over the mountains the way I do. that video shows railroading in my neck of the woods, running on the lines I used to work. and I can tell you from experience they just barely touched the surface of what it's like to actually be there.

Jeff
I wished I could have been in your shoes. You know I love that area. The Horseshoe Curve is one of the best sites I have ever wanted to see. I will get there one day. Every time I see a video of it makes me want to go more and more.

As you know there will be coal on my layout. That is the second phase of my layout.

Jerry

[jward]

when you do finally make it up this way let me know and i'll show you around.

[M1FredQ]

Balrog

That was a great video. I remember when the History channel had the series  but I didn't see the episode you put up

Thanks!!!

[M1FredQ]

Last week took 2 of the youngest kids and rode AMTRAK.

We grabbed a bunch of train schedules and one of them the Pennsylvanian goes

through "horseshoe curve". We were very impressed with the AMTRAK. It was packed

lots of young people. We had 4 German Exchange students talking with us. They were on their way to ride the "Empire Builder" then ride South down the coast of California
and then fly home from LAX. I was impressed at how much they knew about the Rail Routes in the USA.