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.

[Roto]

I have a model railroad on my work desk...actually I'm in the process of completely redoing it...N-gauge with DCC.

[sg2k9]

lol i had to check this out and see what kind of trains you were talking about

[enigma]

I drive one of these every few weeks to load railcars.

[2point0T]

slow and a tremendous amount of power.....meh

[Demonicbird00]

Originally Posted by enigma

I drive one of these every few weeks to load railcars

where do you work? i drove the same thing a year ago

-brandon

[enigma]

delaware city refinery

[den9]

i was taking pictures of a building in plymouth meeting and there were train tracks behind it so i ran over and started snapping pictures, then randomly the train just stops, waits 3 minutes then takes off again, any reason why they do this, there wasnt any traffic or a rail yard ahead.

btw brake dust taste like ****, and im sure i have cancer

[Nick 95 6sp]

^ hobo stop? ...or the track signals may have indicated that there could be another train on a common track somewhere ahead and to avoid it, stop here for a while.

[DropTopChevy]

I was watching a show on PBS last night about a huge model railroad in Chicago. It was a scale model of a trip from Chicago to Seattle. It was a real detailed layout of the cities at HO scale.

[DelCoTuninG]

Originally Posted by 2point0T

Damn you, before I got to your post I had every intention of writing

"Yeah I love to run the train, who doesn't!"

haha same

[the4g63]

Originally Posted by den9

i was taking pictures of a building in plymouth meeting and there were train tracks behind it so i ran over and started snapping pictures, then randomly the train just stops, waits 3 minutes then takes off again, any reason why they do this, there wasnt any traffic or a rail yard ahead.

btw brake dust taste like ****, and im sure i have cancer

Man, I completely forgot I started this thread! I'm a little late, but if you were where I think you were in Plymouth Meeting, that train most likely had a stop signal since there are a few controlled points on that line. The line that runs through Plymouth Meeting goes to Morrisville, PA. And yeah, those brakes smell like **** and can be burned away very quickly. I found out the hard way one night.

I'm just starting to get back into this stuff since I got back to work and I have some money. I bought some new HO scale cars and locomotives.

[OPZ]

I have an old HO set, and then another SUPER old HO of the original steam train set. And lots of that track...I used to be pretty big into it as a kid.