Bob said:
> During the heat wave in 1995, CC&P ran most of their trains at night to
> avoid excessive stress on the CWR that could cause sun kinks.
And that is still true today. We have heat advisories for the main line
from 1100 to 2100 hrs. (Reduced speed.)
> During the day, even with rail anchors, it looked like a snake sizzling
> through a cow pasture!
The worst derail I've ever had (several years ago) was due to a sun kink. I
was handling a loaded grain train about 1/2 mile long at about 6000 tons.
The rail shot out from under the last truck of the last car about 6'.
Needless to say, the wheels hit the ground, then jumped the rail and rode
the web for the next 1/2 mile. (Laying open that rail like a can opener.)
Seeing as it was rolling freely in the web (steel on steel, almost as if it
was on the ball of the rail), there was only a slight "tug" when the wheel
jumped the rail into the web... much like you'll feel if you missed your air
release coming through a sag and felt a bit of slack at the back of the
train. Berating myself for releasing my air a tad too quick... it was no
biggie. That is... until that wheel set hit the next switch.
I remember very clearly tooling along and all of a sudden it was like
someone cracked a whip and the train shuddered and busted into emergency. I
had a green Conductor with me and he looked at me in puzzlement and yelled
"What was THAT???".
I replied: "We're on the ground and it's bad." Didn't have to see it.
(Couldn't anyway.) Just knew it.
He climbed down and headed back to the mess. There were three hoppers on
their sides, and a fourth one with a truck off the rails. Corn was
everywhere.
Had another friend round a curve in a long and heavy train at speed to be
greeted by a 2' sun kink. He yelled "HANG ON!! to his Conductor" and stayed
with on the throttle and hoped. Miraculously, the engines made it over
it... but the cars didn't. No one was injured but it was a mess.
Sorry for the digression... this IS the S scale list and not the prototype
list. Now back to our regularly scheduled programing!
Andre Ming
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