Sanding is good, but it's still steel on steel. Low Friction! I once rode a coal train out of Sesser, Illinois loading 103 cars with 100 tons of coal each. We just pulled thru under the tipple at 0.3 mph in a continuous move. There was a hump and dip with a slight grade (1%) on the way out, the engineer was sanding, and slack action snapped a coupler mid train. The engineer sanded the rails the rest of the way out then went back for the back half of the train to try and make it out of the mine spur. It was a long night! Regards, Bob S.
On 12/4/06, David Savage <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > At 08:47 AM 5/12/2006, Bob Sullivan wrote: > >I'm a fan of trains and worked for a railroad for a time. Any of the > >managers in the Operating Dept. would have transfered back into the > >line to be a steam locomotive engineer. > > > >Any train that a steam locomotive could get rolling, it could pull at > >60+ mph. (Traction is poor with steel wheels on steel track, but steam > >locos had plenty of horsepower. So if you got it rolling...) > > > >Diesel-electrics had the weight to get the train rolling, but didn't > >have the horsepower to move much faster than 20 mph. They were sold > >by companies like GM to the Maintenance Departments based on repair > >records and available time. > > The iron ore trains up north, which run to km's in length, have a few > slight uphill climbs. To increase traction they dump sand in front of the > wheels as they go along. > > Cheers, > > Dave > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
