Engineer 101 - What's running a LONG train on a SMALL railroad like? 

Hey, I didn't panic, I just kept saying "moremoremoremoremoremoremoremore" at you until we started to go the other way. John Meixel got you on video doing that though.... :P

Sounds like you're on a roll with engineering there Leighton

​@@JamesPattersonGeepfanLIMES

Agreed!

If only, right?

A good friend of his called him that once, and it's a nickname that's stuck. He is actually very well known (and for good reason) within the industry, but we call him that to tease him. :)

@@Hyce777 Ah, very nice. Thanks for the explanation!

Nah, give me one of the EBT Mikados! You west coast folks can't get all the narrow gauge glory!

Or have all four locomotives in like a "pay-to-get" bundle extension. Then they'd be added to the purchase menu in the game.

I don't think the US ever got to that level of air brake technology because dynamic brakes (mostly) sidestepped the issue of overbraking. We did eventually get graduated release but that never made it to freight trains in that form. We developed ECP which essentially directly added air to the brake cylinders of the cars, meaning you could make as small or as large of a brake application that you wanted.

@@pootispiker2866 kinda crap because there’s (at least here in Europe) a bunch of fairly bat accidents where trains lost their brakes for whatever reason (early on by not having enough brake shoes to even hope to succeed / not enough brake men to man them, then losing the brakes by braking too often) but the final straw (for Germany at least) was that accident where a malfunctioning anti skid system dumped the reservoir on most to all coaches and the engineer found out on a downhill grade trying to stop die to a slower train in front of him, after which pretty much everyone doing pax in Europe started using reservoir pipes to get inexhaustible brakes (afterwards you only hear about accidents where the brakes were disabled, not exhausted anymore)… but tue US only got PTC in 2015/2020 (technically 1900s / 1930s / 1950s tech), so actually safe brakes (1950s - 1980s tech) are probably another century out (yeah, ECP is great, but reliably keeping the reservoir stocked should be quite a bit easier, fail safer and cheaper than „fancy“ electrocity)

@@genoobtlp4424 Do you even know what you're talking about, there? ECP is all about keeping the brake pipe and auxiliary reservoir at 90 PSI with the brakes set up.

@@pootispiker2866 the European implementation of ESP is the one I know, so probably not, if you’re saying that… because the implementation I know as ESP uses the comm line to tell servos on every equipped car to dump air as a brake acceleration; optionally, it can also start refilling the brake line (5bar) provided a reservoir line (10 bar straight from the compressor), which is typically used in pax cars to also refill the reservoir, thus keeping it at 5 bar and making the brake inexhaustible… dunno how you do it in the US, but that’s how I understand ECP in Europe

@@genoobtlp4424 ECP does the same thing, but adds pressure from the auxiliary reservoir to the brake cylinder across the whole train at the same time, but can also make a partial release (something freight equipment was entirely incapable of until ECP). This solves the issue of overbraking and exhaustion of the brakes by ensuring that the brake pipe is fully charged. A main reservoir line is really only used on passenger equipment afaik. ECP isn't commonly used on American railroads except where mandated or chosen by the railroad. Dynamic brakes are the primary braking method in North America and often allow the air brakes to remain entirely unused. Before those we had retainers to keep the brakes applied while the brake line was being recharged, the early solution to using too much air. That's why our air brakes are so slow to innovate- we don't rely on them so much.

I am sure there's many things that are scaled just by the nature of fewer cars, but it still is a big heavy thing with airbrakes. :D glad to hear it resonates

Oh and considering nomenclature, yeah, feels familiar … here you have "run" just like you and "fill" where you have "release", so basically the same. But the thing is that the fill position doesn't work in this way any more most of the time; passenger trains usually have electro-pneumatic (ep) brakes. In most cases it's still the classic pneumatic brake system with an electropneumatic "add-on". Simplified: Every car has a solenoid valve between the brake pipe and the outside (setting valve) and one between the brake pipe and the car's reservoir (releasing valve). When the equalising reservoir pressure is lower than the brake pipe pressure (i.e. while setting), a pressure sensor activates the cars' setting valves, when the equalising reservoir pressure is higher it activates the cars' release valves. This way the pressure change propagates nearly instantaneously throughout the train no matter the length. Having the release/filling position in the automatic brake valve work would risk nearly instantaneous overcharging of the brakes, so it's cut off when the ep is on. And yet it's still in use - because it double serves for bridging someone pulling the emergency brake which we do to bring the train to a stop outside of places where that would be dangerous (mainly tunnels).

Wacky, yeah, we'd both be lost then huh :D

@@Hyce777 I'd sooo love to see it happen xD

Each car can only really apply so much force based on it's own weight - and proportionally, they're a fair bit smaller than the engine; so, to make up for the engine, you gotta have a fair bit of cars.

So I've heard. It was a steep hill name that came to mind for me, haha

@@Hyce777 there are two routes that are still 4% grades that are still active. And the 3.7 just got new ties and ballast about 2 months ago.

The 491 is the prime tourist attraction at the museum as it gets the most run time out of the 2 steamers, I haven't seen much of the 20 but it's quite similar in proportion.

I owe that choochoo a video one of these days. It's neat. Oldest engine in the state of Colorado.

Planning on it at some point!

repeating what Hyce has answerd to previous askees of the same question. Be willing to do the hard work, work hard, go in with an open mind and ask questions.

Apply and go for it! They'll teach you all you need to know. Be receptive and ready to learn and work hard.

He's pushing the bar forward such that it travels it's full length, to even out wear. The K-37 bar is... so far forward it's easiest to use your foot for it. lol

Need more land to do that. If that can happen, potentially!

Mostly clockwise but every so often they go counterclockwise to wear out the wheel evenly

Yeah, as Johndoe-jd said, clockwise is the most common, but we do go both ways to even out wear. Clockwise is better when fire danger is higher, as the cinders rain down on the museum, and not our neighbors' fields. The whistle on 491 is badass, I almost want to do an entire video on it :D

@@Hyce777 thank you for your reply :D

@@Johndoe-jd thanks for the reply :D

@@Hyce777 sorry if I give you a paragraph but, I have a little story and a couple questions. so my grandpa is a train lover much like me and we have a model railroad to maintain but back to the topic. I showed him your video about the ridgeway spark arrester and he loved it; I mean he wanted to look at different videos across the channel and was thinking about a membership to the channel. so, for the questions will we be seeing any more of the railroads online olympics? because I loved the porter toss and the galloping goose race. and for my other question have you been watching videos by squirrel? he has been showcasing different aspects of DV simulator, because the devs gave him early access? if you read this thank you! ;D

I enjoy that song, I'd be happy to. The one at the beginning is called "Big Hook" - it's not released yet. :) volume 2

@@Hyce777 Nice. I learned how to play it by ear but I’m exited for the second volume!

www.trains.com/trn/train-basics/ask-trains/measuring-track-curvature/ Degree of curve is a wacky railroad way of knowing how sharp something is. There's tables out there for converting degree to radius. The article should help explain it.

yes

About two more cars and it would've been right up against it.

Yeah, you reach a certain point where the couplers can't handle the force. More locomotives in the middle can fix that... so if you kept doing that, who knows. They run some pretty long trains nowadays... 16,000 foot long+.

It's Jeff's tractor.

We've got a few odd spots in the track, and it was a bit wet. In a sharp curve, any little dip can cause you to lose it pretty quick putting down that much power.

If so that would be funny lol

We do not - there's a lot that goes into it. We do let folks try out the handcar on select days. :)

@@Hyce777Thx. What are the days?

The geese

346 & 20 and very easily. They couldn't pull this train.

@@Hyce777 Thanks. I also assume that peaches can’t get to tonnage because there isn’t enough cars and space, correct?

@@Johndoe-jd I mean there's space, we just don't have enough serviceable cars to make it happen really lol

I was first lol

@@Redwagon2012 He was actually first

I comitted before he

When i wrote the other comment, you commented 7 minutes ago, and he 12