Any railroaders on here?

[Chris Templeton]

That's beautiful. There's a reason Merle loves trains and Neil Young does too. I think about that.

[Doc Hope]

Retired 1993,carman,car inspecter 43 yr.with SAL,SCL,CSX RR. Doc Hope

[Paul Graupp]

These young boys have been train fans all their lives. The picture is called Three Train Guys and was early Christmas Morning

[Alan Brookes]

Railways have been my lifetime pursuit since I was a kid. Because British railway workshops were turned over to tank production during WW2, when I was a kid it was all steam, and most of it very old by American standards. The same thing happened with cars. There were no cars produced during WW2 in England, so I was brought up in a world which got stuck in 1939 for about ten years.
I have three rooms of my basement in Oakland, CA., devoted to a model railway based on the Birmingham (England) area just after WW2.

[Rick Collins]

When I'm driving to Las Vegas up Cajon Pass on I-15 I always see trains going up and down the pass.

This morning I was reading on the internet:
The locomotives they use are electro-diesel __ huge diesel engines power electric generators,
that produce electricity, that powers the big electric motors, that directly turn the wheels of the locomotives.

Also, on the steep down-grades the big electric motors serve to hold back the tremendous load of the many railroad cars
by a feature called dynamic breaking.
Down-hill, the motors become generators producing electricity (gathered on a grid). This helps the friction breaks on the railroad cars from over heating.

Two locomotives are sometimes in the center of the train __ on very long trains coming down-grade.

[Roger Rettig]

Centrally-placed locos - like 'helpers' that you often see at the rear of the train - are there to take the strain off the couplings throughout a long and heavy freight-train, and not simply to add to the tractive effort.

On the Saluda Grade - a steep incline just south of Asheville, NC - they used to divide the train into three or four sections then haul them up section-by-section; there was a big siding at the top where the train would be re-assembled once the climb had been accomplished.

[Larry Hamilton]

Rick Collins, you read correct. Most people don't realize that feature .

[Roger Rettig]

London's trolleybuses (electric rubber-tyred buses) also had that feature but London Transport called it regenerative braking. When coasting the trolleybus would generate power by virtue of its motion and the surplus power was fed back into the overhead wires. This was on trolleybuses built in the 1940s onwards - significant economies resulted.

[Alan Brookes]

Roger, I remember the London trolleybuses; they took the Birmingham trolleybuses off when I was a kid, but the Wolverhampton and Walsall trolleybuses lasted into the 70s. I remember driving behind them on my way to college, and the sparking of the trolley wheels made the radio crackle.


Of course, here in San Franciso we have a very active trolley bus fleet, and the routes are still expanding.

[Bud Angelotti]

I never worked on the railroad, so to speak, but I lived a few years in a place called Silverton Colorado @ elevation 9,318 ft. I had a little shack right behind where the Durango & Silverton Narrow gauge railroad would drop-off and pick up passengers. Folks come from all over the world to ride that Baldwin steam train. Every day about noon, you would hear the train whistle from down canyon and a few minutes later, my kitchen table would shake as the train pulled in right out side the front of my building. I'd walk around to the front of the building, and folks from all over the world would be getting off that train and they were all looking up at the 13,000 ft. peaks that surround that old mining town. It was incredible, but alas, civilization called. here's a link to some video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdyMOt68MxY

[Joe Rouse]

I was hired as a Fireman by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1972 and promoted to Engineer about 17 months later. I put in 29 1/2 years and it was the best job a man with my education could ever have worked.
I retired on a physical disability in 2001 and have enjoyed the retirement but miss the people I worked with.
Lots' of good, bad, and mixed memories of those years. SP started eliminating the brakemen and switchmen where they could. The position of Fireman became an Engineer Trainee.
The first trip I made on a freight train had an Engineer, Conductor, 2 brakemen and sometimes a Fireman. The last trip I made had me as the Engineer and a Conductor...I'm glad I had the great job and glad I'm retired....started learning to play the psg 6 years ago and wish Id started 50 years ago....jr

[Rick Collins]

For those who know diesels well, a question to which I cannot locate the answer.

Reading about the diesel-electric locomotives is very interesting:
Does each wheel have an electric motor?
Or, does each axle have a motor?
Or, is there one motor for each truck (one for each set of wheels)?

If there is one motor for each axle, does the motor have a single shaft with a wheel mounted at each end?
Or, is the motor connected to the axle by gearing?

[Bobby D. Jones]

I done a little Gandy Dancing in France while in the Army Engineers. French rail tracks did not use spikes to hold the track on the ties, They used a Lag Screw type fastener that had to be turned down with a big 4 handled wrench. And 2 men on the wrench to make it fast. I never worked the railroad here in the U.S., but have spent a lot of time along the tracks. As a Conservation Officer I had to investigate forest fires and help fight them. From Cowen to Erbacon West Virginia is a section know as the Laurel Creek Grade. Loaded coal trains went down several hundred feet in 6 miles. On a big train. they run 2 engines in front and 2 engines in the middle of the train. Had pieces popoff wheels to cause some fires. One of the Dynamick Grids had a short and strung 2 miles of fire one time. Thank the lord it had rained the day before and the fire was only burning about 12 inches high but it covered a lot of area and took quite a crew to put it out. From 1983 to 1988 I lived so close to track the engineers I knew would wave as they went bye.

[Ray McCarthy]

It must've been some fun building that Silverton line! I've always loved the railroads.
I remember as a small kid in Kearny, NJ walking with my mother across a bridge with the tracks (Eire-Lackawana) down below. I remember seeing steam engines and coal cars sitting on the tracks. That was in the late 40s. Those tracks are now overgrown with weeds, as are abandon tracks all throughout the woods where I now live in the lakes region of NH. It's a sad thing to see. But there's talks of restoring some of the train lines here--I doubt it will really happen.

[Ray Minich]

Our area here is northwestern Pa. is full of old rail grades, bridges, tunnel remains, and assorted railroad leftovers. Most obvious are the remains of the Erie-Lackawanna railroad that ceased to operate for long haul freight in 1959. The old grades are being turned into walking and bicycling trails. Bicycling 8 miles of 2%-3% grade is a workout going uphill, but a blast coasting back down.

Last year, walking the Erie, I found a lump of coal the size of a pumpkin laying over the side of the grade. Had to have fallen off the gondola prior to 1959. Also, the stone culvert bridge in the section of the grade below Lewis Run, Pa, has a date of 1864. There are also the remains of an attempt at a tunnel thru the mountain that was undertaken around 1840 that failed due to running out of money.

I have a telegraph sounder from the local B&O Railroad station. Scarfed it just before they tore the station down in the early 1970's

For a treat Google "Horseshoe Curve". It's a big railraod landmark just west of Altoona, Pa. Quite to sight to behold. One heck of a lot of rail traffic navigates it daily. Lots of 150 car tanker trains loaded with ethanol.

[Alan Brookes]

...Does each wheel have an electric motor? Or, does each axle have a motor?
Or, is there one motor for each truck (one for each set of wheels)?...

The answer is both. Most locomotives have a separate motor for each axle, but some don't. Some locomotives have carrying axles. For instance, C represents three powered axles, whereas A1A represents the same bogie, but the centre axle is unpowered, while Co represents a three-axled bogie with one motor powering three axles.
The biggest confusion is caused by referring to locomotives as diesels. They are really electric locomotives that carry their own generator. A diesel locomotive that worked like a truck would be known as diesel-mechanical. Many years ago there were a few diesel-mechanical locomotives, but the clutch was their Achilles heel and there are very few of them around nowadays. People don't realise that an electric locomotive and a diesel locomotive are the same thing, the only difference being that an electric locomotive takes its power direct from an overhead or third/fourth rail, whereas as a "diesel-electric" is an electric locomotive which carries its own electric generator.

In Europe there are Electro-diesels. They pick up their current from the overhead or the third/fourth rail, but where there is no electricity supply they switch on their generators and work as diesel-electrics.

[Rick Collins]

Thanks Alan __ interesting.
It would seem that 18 wheel semi-trailers could use the same, diesel powered generator, electric motor system.
The torque of an electric motor, to get a load moving and eleminate the multi-shift gear-box, would seem to be the better.
Weight and fuel cost might make it prohibitive?

[Paul Graupp]

In the early 1940's, my grandfather who lived in Altoona, PA. died working a train wreck near the Horseshoe Curve. Growing up we saw trains all around us and when I left home to join the USAF, it was on a train first to Baltimore and then to Lackland AFB, Texas. I didn't know then that years later I would return to Texas looking for MSA and information about their pedal steel guitars. It, as that guy said in the movie Lonesome Dove...has been one helluva journey !!

Regards, Paul

[Bud Angelotti]

Hey Ray - Ever heard of the Black rock tunnel near Phoenixville?

[Ray Minich]

Did not know of that one Bud, but did visit the tunnel at Gallitzin, Pa, which is about 4 to 5 Miles west of the Horseshoe Curve and used every day by the same rail line feeding the Curve. Pusher engines scream up the back door getting those loads up the hill.

The tunnel at Gallitzin has the distinction of being a target for the Germans during WWII. As the story is told by the townspeople, during the war a U Boat crew was apprehended on their way to blow up the tunnel.

The photos I see of the Black Rock tunnel look like the photos used to promote the movie version of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged".

Here ya go Bud.. enjoy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tu ... nnsylvania

[Bud Angelotti]

The black Rock tunnel, from 1838, goes thru the mountain and then immediatly crosses the Susquhanna. The river itself does a turn and crosses on the other side of the tunnel. It's a crazy spot. Was used by the native americans for centuries because they had protection on 3 sides. Spooky too!

[Steve Alonzo Walker]

I am a Model Railroader And A Lover Of Trains!

[Steve Alonzo Walker]

I am a Model Railroader And A Lover Of Trains!

[Steve Alonzo Walker]

I am a Model Railroader And A Lover Of Trains!

[Steve Alonzo Walker]

I am a Model Railroader And A Lover Of Trains!