How SAFE are Locomotives? 

Most crews deactivate the ditch lights, and dim the headlights for oncoming traffic. The exception would be if they are meeting at a crossing. In some places where expressways run parallel to rails, some crews will dim down their lighting to avoid blinding the motorists. That maneuver is discretionary, depending on the situation.

Hello fellow UP conductor (im on the GCSU)

@@stanpatterson5033 deactivate? its just a knob you turn its not that deep lol

Courtesy during the daytime and forgetting to turn the ditch lights on and headlights on bright is a good way to find yourself in a decertification event

I’m a teenager considering working for the railroad, so that’s some neat stuff to know there. Thanks for the share!

yep, but they totally forgot that this button is supposed to be pressed for a long time, and not just pushed by a buckshot, or birdshot, or whatever they tried.

@@pavelslama5543 Kind of dumb if you think about it. If that's your only option to stop a moving train do you really have time to press and hold the button?

The button is a normally closed circuit and damaging the button will open the circuit and activate the safety feature, I found that out when I hit a fallen tree and it ripped the button off my locomotive

@@Unknown_OohNot totally, I mean it would be better in the end to probably have the button in the cab but it’s mainly to shut off the fuel pump for the diesel which only generates the electric for the traction motors that actually pull these units. This is mainly only in for protection for shutting down a runaway Diesel engine not the train itself.

@@pavelslama5543 Actually it doesn’t. I am a locomotive master electrician and can say with certainty that a properly working EFCO should kill the locomotive immediately. If they actually get shot with a bullet they will shatter as they are made of plastic and brass. The EFCO works on the normally closed button switch. There are usually three but some locomotives have more. Rio Grande GP30s for instance. The EFCO supplies power from the local control breaker in series, x3, to the fuel prime engine start switch and an interlock on the fuel pump control relay. The FP/ES switch bypasses the FPCR interlock to pick up the coil on FPCR. When the FPCR coil is energized it connects the interlock creating a self locking situation. Any interruption at the EFCO buttons will shut the FPCR down. When FPCR drops out another interlock picks up D Valve in the govenor to cause the fuel rack to disengage. (On engines equipped with EFI it does the same electronically.) It will also cut power to the ENGINE RUN RELAY, cutting power to all other valves in the govenor. The problem with crazy eights is that the officers shot the fuel cap that is located just below the EFCO which was a bigger target and also painted red. It was an honest mistake.

Yep

Not hard to believe with the shear amount of trains across the United States

@@ATJonzie Also, the insane amount of people that try to beat the trains at the crossings. As we know, in the age old battle of car vs. train, the train always wins.

Derailment with dangerous goods makes the news! Trains hitting véhicules at level cross with fatalité. Train crew two fear collision fuel truck, school bus. School bus, crew wish they died also!

Never happens here in San Diego because the only type of trains are stupid commuter trains lol

Really not a bad idea. Blow an air line or the compressor tanks to send it into emergency or let the brakes lock up as they loose air.

@@Whitebassonly the air breaks weren't hooked up since it was just a yard move.

After watching that movie, I had to do some reading on the event that inspired the movie. I kinda shocked me to learn that they did attempt to shut down the train by shooting the fuel cutoff. My question, why not just shoot a bunch of holes in the fuel tanks? Granted, probably not the most environmentally friendly solution, but given the choice of the damaged caused by derailment I would prefer the fuel cleanup. Shoot a bunch of holes in the fuel tanks, the engines will shut down eventually. I know NOTHING about railroading, so maybe this is a stupid idea to those who do understand locomotives. Am I overlooking something?

@@mattrodgers4878 Shooting the fuel tank can actually cause an explosion, so that will become a problem. Plus, attempting to shoot the fuel cutoff was futile as the button actually needed to be held down.

@@SpheroJr3289 diesel fuel isn’t nearly as flammable as gasoline. You could toss a lighted match into a bucket of diesel fuel and the match will go out.

Negative part is they can’t quickly change direction. This isn’t big problem with America’s long hauls but here in Europe we often change direction of the train. And a turntable would take too much time to turn the locomotive around. Americans locomotives are very efficient for American routes, but would be pretty useless here, and probably other way would be same. We also have smaller sidings, so having your huge strong locomotives would cost us a wagon length less cargo. But because our trains are shorter we also don’t need so many locomotives. I love both locomotives each their speciality.

Imagine not using electrified mainlines in 2022

@@einar8019 Electrification is a waste of money that we don’t need. Even Europeans are sick of paying to maintain all that catenary and are starting to look at battery and hydrogen locomotives as alternatives.

@@redpsycho90 that’s exactly how I feel too!

Not really, most countries are pushing to increase the amount of catenary lines. Reason for hydrogen and battery in cargo trains is for “last-mile” from main junction to the connecting customers. At our company we have some customers that only receive 2 trains per day. And no junctions close to it. So in these cases a hybrid or battery style locomotive would be great. Just before the switch towards the customer change over to battery or diesel. Personally I prefer driving our electric locomotives because they are much stronger then the diesels of same size (and quiet). For me no annoying fuel stops and for company no expensive fuel stops. Also maintenance wise are electric locomotives less needy resulting in more driving time and less chancing oil time. For infrastructure company they can ask more money for electric time schedule. Comparing the electric timeschedule prices vs diesel fuel usage in our company electric is still cheaper. Even now with the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Last reason why I prefer my electric locomotives is that I can do regeneration braking. Then I send electricity back on the line for another locomotive to use. In (most) diesel locomotives we don’t have any engine braking so the energy is lost in heat. But I don’t want to be the private company needing to pay electrification of the HUGE distances of Americans railway system. So I can understand your choices

I don't blame them. It should have just swept right and left. Much simpler mechanism.

The wig wag module is a much easier design and probably more practical you can find them everywhere. Old cop cars are the most common lol

Those old Mars type locomotive lights really do get your attention. We have a rural train that runs occasionally and it's very hard to tell the distance on the runs that only have regular headlights on.

RRs now use ditch lights which are far brighter, closer to the ground and have the ability to flash. Far more visible than Mars/Gyralights of the past.

That engine will return in no time. There was a UP SD70M that was demolished not long ago by run away cars at a yard north of me in Palestine TX. You should've seen it in person, whole back half was absolutely shredded to pieces. I watched it get scrapped on site. Of course they took important stuff of it.

Not to mention European railways do Not need PSR at all

A lot of the times it's also idiots thinking they outrun a train, and cross as fast as possible. Which normally doesn't work as you can see.

I think its mostly due to how long American trains are, costing drivers upwards of 10 minutes at the crossing so people are more likely to jump the gates. Lots of urban areas have quiet zones where trains do not blow their horns because of increased safety measures at crossings, but many rural crossings lack a gate or even flashing lights which is why many of our trains have the features you mentioned.

@@Ty-qx1ui not only that American locomotives Every since the 1900s Were always HEAVlY and MASSIVE for average height of main line locomotives were 15-16 ft tall, I tell you they are Massive compared to British and eoupern locomotives put them on British Rail lines or eoupern these heavyweight locomotives on those rail line and they will cause those rails to Sink in the ground that's Why Railroads in this country is more expanded and Can carry More loads than any other country.

@@bnsflover7062 Thats very interesting! I never considered that

Cabooses also had to get bullet proof glass, which is why many cabooses had the windows plated over, cheaper than bullet proof glass.

Thanks for watching!

Anytime!

they call that a wayside horn, ten times more annoying then just letting a train do it.

H2 is honestly the worst livery, but I guess it does add a bit of extra color. I really don't care as long as it's not a pre-production ES44AC, those things at least have some significance.

By law we have to have the headlight and ditchlights going over crossings.

Needing a horn at a crossing is even stupider

@@einar8019 How? With how many idiots try to outrun trains it's actually not a bad idea.

Unfortunately crews die in those cabs with an alarming regularity.

Thank you!

@@v12productions Your welcome brother and have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

Thank you!!

too bad its a POS

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing!

It's also quite different for people like me who operate over about 3 miles of track with multiple crossing, yet its all private property. We switch out a plant and then shove cars uphill to the yard. There is safety meetings and a thick binder of general good practice rules but to be quite blunt, I'm shocked we haven't derailed more than twice this year with how horrendous the maintenance is. It seems like any one of our GP39-3's is down for major maintenance monthly. They are years past blue card spec and kept together with zip ties. I have photos of this. But hey whatever feeds the world

Even better, ship them by rail. They have specialized, covered cars, just for steel coils. Could also load them on traditional flatcars. Yes, you're going to say that not every steel plant (shipping or receiving) has rail access. That could be addressed in the planning stages of starting up a business... build where the rails are.

@@stanpatterson5033 You're correct that rail transport of sheet steel coils is better than trucks. There have been many designs for covered coil steel cars over the yrs. However, RRs would never haul steel coils on a flatcar. The buff & draft forces experienced by the flatcar would toss the coils into the next car ahead or behind the car carrying the coils. No amount of wood blocking would keep the coil where it should stay. Thus the designs for coil steel cars over the yrs.

Google locomotive fencing

DPUs are controlled by radio and can be synchronous with the lead or operated separately. The head end could go into DB while the remote is still pushing.

@@r_mon_e correct, this would be called putting the fence up and the engineer can control in certain situations

Thanks, I really appreciate that!

The CSX Crazy 8s runaway loco incident started in Walbridge OH, not PA & the loco headed southward towards Cincinnati...... May 2001 8888 was an EMD SD40-2............ Goggle is your friend.........

Pretty much all the locomotive safety devices in use in North America applys to Australia. Obviously the newer locos are a little better than some of the older ones. Although a lot of older locos have been retrofitted. Unfortunately the large number of idiots that run rail crossings also applies wherever you go.

Thanks!

I have seen that mate its a class 36 I think and two carriages they put on too it the locomotive weighed 139 tonnes with carriages it weighed 220 tonnes that flask weighed 50 tonnes and it was in the 1980s in england they put the flask on a flatbed and they weigh about 40 to 50 tonnes why I say that is because that locomotive come out quiet good I seen a picture of it upright on some sideing also the track was took away just a few foot from the flask and flatbed so that train hit over 100 tonnes going 100mph I think the kinetic energy rebounded back at the train , I was about 7 years old lol wen I seen that video , godbless you,

You're comparing locomotives from the 20th century to locomotives of the 21st LMAO

@@AbelG8781 the Locomotives were gp40s which was new then with the Canadian comfort cab which still operates now

And the irony off it the trailing sd40s had a safety reset while the geep didnt