Anyone into trains at all?

[Nick 95 6sp]

Originally Posted by emd645e3

I've heard of the live steamers. I'll have to get out there sometime. I'm currently working on my HO scale layout. Still in the planning stages. Your job sounds pretty interesting. I work for Norfolk Southern as a Conductor. The systems they have in place now that shut down engines to conserve fuel, then start again to warm the coolant and oil back up seems like it would place a lot of stress on the components of the prime mover itself. All the engineers complain about it because it shuts the engines down even if they're not isolated, so they end up leaving them in notch 1 all the time. What's the problem with just using antifreeze?

Look on Live Steamers website since they have "open to the public" days, otherwise you need to know somebody to get in; I can get you a member name if you want to visit on a non-public day, PM me.

NS uses a lot of our locomotive freeze protection valves; so do all the major U.S. lines, most loco's in the U.S. have our valve on it. Ask one of the guys who work on the engines if they know what a "GURU Plug" is; that's our device. Along the lines of conserving fuel, they really want to shut the engines down whenever it's above 35F outside, so Norfolk Southern has asked us for a lower release temp than usual; the GURU Plug they buy dumps just below 35F, others railroads around the U.S. dump just below 40F.

There are a couple "problems" with antifreeze; one is reduced heat rejection and that amounts to a couple percent power loss which to a major railroad means that they can haul 2% less freight and that's a lot of money; the other problem is leaks, since no matter what they do they get leaks and the cost of replacing antifreeze is a lot more than water, so they'd rather just use a valve to protect the engine than spend the money to outfit the entire fleet with antifreeze; until recently, another issue with antifreeze is that if the leak was more than about 5 gallons, it had to be reported to the EPA as a "toxic" discharge; there is so much paperwork and consequential problems when you involve the EPA that the RR's avoid that like the plague; recently the EPA has reduced the toxicity of antifreeze so now they can dump 300 gallons (typical loco cooling system) into a pristine creek and not have to report it, but the other issues I mentioned still make them reluctant to implement antifreeze ..at least for now.