I just visited the park there a few weeks ago. Caught that same train going around the same Y with the same load. (Not the same engines though). And I’ve never seen an NS CSX engine combo in person
Man that was a hella cool vid! I gotta stop there if I'm ever in the area to check out the action. I bet that was one hella mess to clean up but they looked like they were doing a great job.
That connecting track is in bad shape. I noticed that, last time I was there. You can't pull 200-car trains through a right-angle curve on bad track and expect them to stay on the rails.
Wow, what a mess!! :P They were doing a great job cleaning up tho. That lashup on 326!! And the RPE4C had "Elmer" scrawled on the cab. The old beat up Dash8 leading the autorack where they had to flag the xing was also neat.
That dozer could easily move that many empties on level ground. Only thing to do is to make sure the brakes are released before moving. HOWEVER you must always have a way of stopping the car/ cars. Setting the hand brakes just short of full or as in this case the parked cars.
I'm a Brit and I live in London, but I know a bit about American railroads. So, let me guess; no DPU's,;10,000 plus tons; empty cars in the first third of the train and quite a tight curve? (At least as tight as the minimum requirement?) If I know that, railroad management ought to know that - right? The paradox is; miles and miles and miles of 'stored out of service' locomotives and not enough phucking good sense to use DPU's at least every 5000 tons? In all reality a 15,000 ton train should have AT LEAST four locomotives and not all on the front. More realistically six (every 3000 tons) and preferably nine locomotives (every 2000 tons.) Would that be excessive? A DPU every 2000 tons would be the equivalent of every locomotive hauling what would be a record breaking freight train in the UK. Only mineral trains top 2000 tonnes and never by much. Double heading is rare in the UK and quadruple heading is purely positioning! Obviously our railway systems (in pretty much all of Europe) are quite, quite different from yours. Probably 90% of routes are double track, if not quadruple tracked on the busiest routes. Oh and you want to guess how long passenger trains are delayed for freight trains? NEVER. Or as good as never. I'm sorry, but corporate interests have all but wrecked USA railroads and I'd make a folding money bet that derailments like the above have become almost commonplace because MANAGEMENT doesn't want to put the effort and costs into shifting bigger and bigger trains. It occurred to me the other day; what is the ultimate tensile strength of the standard American buckeye coupler? My second bet would be "about 18,000 tons. Do I win?
