Many years ago, late 90s, my son ask me to buy him the NASCAR racing game. I thought it was pretty cool so I got it for him. The game even had a "paint shop", you could change the colors of the cars and such.
At the time, my son hated, and I mean Hated, Jeff Gordon, one of NASCARs best drivers. My son took every car on the track into the paint shop and painted them all white, except for Jeff Gordons car which he left its normal color. He then proceeded to drive backwards around the track at full speed, pick Gordons now highly visible car out of the pack, and crash him, giggling the whole time.
Interesting story about a local short line that has trackage rights on a class 1 to get into their yard, and I think also on the commuter line (which bought the main line from the freight company) to connect to other railroads. The short line was storing a passenger engine for its parent company. When the time came for the passenger engine to be moved downtown to be used on a passenger train, they called the commuter agency for a pilot. Commuter agency said "you guys are qualified." Short line guys were a bit surprised, since they'd never run there before, but they said okay. And they did it. And it is now established that they are qualified to make that move anytime they need to.
The hardest qualifying I ever did was steep turns. You have to do many things simultaneously and quite positively : crank the yoke to the side to get a 60 degree bank, push the throttle to the max, pull back on the yoke to get some gees going, kick the opposite rudder firmly to limit sideslip, check the turn indicator to make sure you're doing a rate-2 turn ( 180 degrees in 30 seconds ), and all the while make sure the arc swept by your nose on the horizon is at a small constant angle ( so that you don't gain or lose height ). And you have to start rolling back out before have reached the 180 course change. The idea is to quickly execute the 'go back out along the same track you came in on' manoeuvre. This would be used, say, for exiting a box canyon you have accidentally gone up in bad weather, or if you have been directed to do so by air traffic control because you've been a naughty boy by straying into controlled airspace where the heavies are! On a good day you might get up to around 2G sustained which actually feels rather more interesting than it sounds ! :-)
After some long hours of practice I could do it quite neatly about 1 time in 3, fairly passable another 1 time in 3, and the remaining 1 time in 3 have to roll out early because I totally screwed up the entry. Then my dear instructor took me up to certify and casually asked me to do a relaxed rate 1 turn ( 180 degrees in one minute ) "just to warm up with, Mike". I nailed it straight off beautifully and then he grinned & told me that I only ever had to achieve a rate 1 for the license anyway. He figured if he got me do rate 2's in practice then the rate 1's would be a doddle. Quite right! He was that type of instructor and he taught in such a well mannered way that I was never, ever taken aback by his corrections ! :-) :-)
Quote:
I haven't heard back yet whether I will be running in one-mile circles this Saturday.
Ah, this would be for the punters coming for a spot of locomotion ! :-)
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
It is now 7:15am my time and in the mid 50's outside and in the low 60's inside, except in my basement of course where it is STILL in the mid 80's! The computers DO keep it warm down there, I just wish it was designed so I could recycle that heat now that it is getting cooler.
One thing to add to the short line story. considering them qualified is not a huge stretch. The line in question is within the territory covered by the Chicago Operating Rules Association (CORA). Every railroad within the Chicago Switching District contributes the relevant portions of its timetable and rules, and CORA publishes it all in one book, which every operating crew person should have in his/her grip. I have a somewhat outdated copy of it myself (picked up at a swap meet). And the rules, signals, etc. for the run downtown would not be any different than for the territory they were more familiar with. Well, until they got into Union Station, anyway. And it's pretty simple there too.
(Further addendum: they got it there a few days early (or maybe this was a different occasion, I don't remember) and were told to park it on an unused mail stub inside the station. They, naturally, shut it down to save fuel and exhaust fumes, and either they drained the cooling water or it leaked out on its own. A few days later, Amtrak refused to send a switcher to get it until they could prove that it was operable, and they couldn't do that without putting water in it, but there was no water supply nearby. So they got a wagon and started taking buckets of water out there and pouring it in. Then Amtrak relented and moved it to a water hose.)
Still no word whether I'm running this weekend. I told the crew caller that if I don't do the streetcar, I could be conductor on the L train.
Winning!
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
.....asked me to do a relaxed rate 1 turn ( 180 degrees in one minute ) "just to warm up with, Mike". I nailed it straight off beautifully and then he grinned & told me that I only ever had to achieve a rate 1 for the license anyway. He figured if he got me do rate 2's in practice then the rate 1's would be a doddle. Quite right! He was that type of instructor and he taught in such a well mannered way that I was never, ever taken aback by his corrections ! :-) :-)
Cheers, Mike.
Mike,
You should have followed that up with an Immelmann maneuver + a "Split S "
Just to "Surprise" the instructor )))
You guys DO know how a helicopter stays airborne right?
It beats the air into submission.
Phil
Edit: The Chicago CORA book. I hate that book. One of many reasons I don't run Chicago anymore. One wonders when the FRA is going to force all the railroads to use a single signal system. Railroading in Chicago is real fun memorizing multiple railroads signal systems and rules. One railroad alone may have a hundred (literally) different signals. Choose a random railroad and it may have 8 different ways to display the exact same signal meaning. A lot of crews just do the "if it ain't red, just keep going real slow till you get out of Chicago" rule.
Whining complete. Rebooting to better attitude OS...
Mike,
You should have followed that up with an Immelmann maneuver + a "Split S "
Just to "Surprise" the instructor )))
Yeah, I could have done a Cuban 8 - 'flip & tip' - but I like the guy! :-)
The airframe on a Piper is rated -1 to +3 gees. There is a Pitts Special down at Yering that has a very clever aerobatic pilot : he does all his stuff at 5K feet minimum. It's the silly ones that play chicken with the planet, and more often that not become one with it. I'm a harsh man on this topic, seeing no point in metal-flesh amalgams smearing the landscape. There are old pilots, bold* pilots, but no old bold pilots !
CORA - Chicago Operating Rules Association ? Sounds like it should be Chicago Co-Operating Rules Association ... :-)
Quote:
It is now 7:15am my time and in the mid 50's outside and in the low 60's inside, except in my basement of course where it is STILL in the mid 80's! The computers DO keep it warm down there, I just wish it was designed so I could recycle that heat now that it is getting cooler.
Hey ! It's our turn on the Sunny Side Of The Sun now ... :-)
Cheers, Mike.
* So when the other weekend I see a plane pull up below 10 metres above the ground in a low level 'stunt entertainment' session I DO NOT think "he's a good pilot!". Rather, I think "What a lucky moron. I don't wanna see you die, so go somewhere else and do it !".
Mind you after that I sat back and watched our V8 'Supercars' racing. However they have this amazing core frame/cell of fabulously expensive alloy to protect them. It costs about 30% of the preparation of the car from stock and takes some 1000 hours of work from specialist welders. Here's an example of it's use from that race meeting. I was watching from a few turns further on and only saw a flash of something happening. It turns out a wheel hub fractured/exploded and the shrapnel cut the brake lines. Seeing the car come past later on a flatbed there was nothing worth having except as memorabilia.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Edit: The Chicago CORA book. I hate that book. One of many reasons I don't run Chicago anymore. One wonders when the FRA is going to force all the railroads to use a single signal system. Railroading in Chicago is real fun memorizing multiple railroads signal systems and rules. One railroad alone may have a hundred (literally) different signals. Choose a random railroad and it may have 8 different ways to display the exact same signal meaning. A lot of crews just do the "if it ain't red, just keep going real slow till you get out of Chicago" rule.
Whining complete. Rebooting to better attitude OS...
Yeah, I understand that sentiment. I grew up looking at BN signals and still don't understand all the variations on eastern ones. It would help a lot if each railroad would get all of its predecessor lines on the same system, at least. And if you think it's hard for freight guys, Amtrak runs on multiple railroads with multiple predecessors each. Is it any wonder that train rear-ended the stack train a few years ago?
A couple years ago, I went to a meeting of some historical society or other where people from Amtrak were speaking. I got a door prize for answering the question "Which Amtrak train travels over the most railroads getting out of Chicago?" The answer then was the Cardinal/Hoosier State, 7 (now 6, but just as many predecessors): Amtrak (PRR), NS (PRR), Metra (C&WI), BRC, UP (C&WI again), CN (GTW, now CSX), and CSX (Monon).
At the museum, we only have 6 indications, but (because we have examples of a lot of different things from different railroads) 47 aspects! Clear, 10; Approach, 11; Diverging Clear, 3; Diverging Approach, 4; Restricting, 8; Stop, 11. And you have to know which Stops are Absolute and which are Permissive; not all the Absolutes are marked. (Note to railroads' signal departments: every one of our signals is an antique, but most or all of them are now illuminated with LEDs. If they work for us, they should work for you.)* And BTW, on the Car Line, the signals only indicate block occupancy, not whether there's a switch against you.
Anyway, I agree: time for a better attitude.
Winning!
*Aside: I heard a story of an engineer on the UP line parallel to the museum who called to tell his dispatcher he was stopped at a red signal. The dispatcher replied that they didn't have any signals out there (they don't, yet, but they will within the next couple of years). Where are you exactly? The engineer told him. THAT'S THE MUSEUM!!! I suppose the conductor was just as clueless.
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
(Note to railroads' signal departments: every one of our signals is an antique, but most or all of them are now illuminated with LEDs. If they work for us, they should work for you.)
The big ongoing debate on LED signals is what constitutes a burned out signal. Since each "light" is composed of many many individual LEDs, a single burned out LED would not really affect brightness. But at what point do you say it's gone? 10% LEDs burned out? 20%? 50%? Until they sort that out mainline track will not get them.
I personally advocate for the all or nothing approach for safety reasons. The signal should sense a single burned out LED and shut off the entire light. A "dark" light forces the oncoming crew to assume the most restrictive aspect possible on that mast. I've gone past signals before at track speed and neither the engineer nor myself was sure what it was at the time of passing, forcing us to slow to restricted speed. It's no fun riding a 20 million pound wrecking ball (train) at 60 mph while passing a questionable signal aspect.
Sometimes 2 people together are not enough and we have to slow down or stop. Yet American railroads are actively trying to get rid of conductors! They want to go to 1 man crews, engineer only.
Greed is a powerful thing.
It's in the 70s F today. Sun is out. Life is good.
Phil
Edit: I just found out my roommate is leaving for the weekend to watch his mothers farm while she is out of town. Woot!!!! Get the house to myself for a few days. Party!!!!!!
single burned out LED would not really affect brightness. But at what point do you say it's gone? 10% LEDs burned out? 20%? 50%? Until they sort that out mainline track will not get them.
Interesting that the focus is on burned out ones. Because well-built LEDs generally won't do a sudden fail, but will slowly lower their output over tens of thousands of hours. So if you are using lots of them in a signal, there is a good chance that by the time you get one hard failure, you have already lost more light than the contribution of that LED from progressive deterioration of the whole set.
By the way, on incandescent lamped signals what is the system approach to deal with the (vastly more frequent) hard failures? Pre-emptive replacement before expected life has expires? But there must still be premature failures. I'm genuinely curious on this point, not trying to make a case.
RE: Funny story about
+1000
RE: Interesting story about
The hardest qualifying I ever did was steep turns. You have to do many things simultaneously and quite positively : crank the yoke to the side to get a 60 degree bank, push the throttle to the max, pull back on the yoke to get some gees going, kick the opposite rudder firmly to limit sideslip, check the turn indicator to make sure you're doing a rate-2 turn ( 180 degrees in 30 seconds ), and all the while make sure the arc swept by your nose on the horizon is at a small constant angle ( so that you don't gain or lose height ). And you have to start rolling back out before have reached the 180 course change. The idea is to quickly execute the 'go back out along the same track you came in on' manoeuvre. This would be used, say, for exiting a box canyon you have accidentally gone up in bad weather, or if you have been directed to do so by air traffic control because you've been a naughty boy by straying into controlled airspace where the heavies are! On a good day you might get up to around 2G sustained which actually feels rather more interesting than it sounds ! :-)
After some long hours of practice I could do it quite neatly about 1 time in 3, fairly passable another 1 time in 3, and the remaining 1 time in 3 have to roll out early because I totally screwed up the entry. Then my dear instructor took me up to certify and casually asked me to do a relaxed rate 1 turn ( 180 degrees in one minute ) "just to warm up with, Mike". I nailed it straight off beautifully and then he grinned & told me that I only ever had to achieve a rate 1 for the license anyway. He figured if he got me do rate 2's in practice then the rate 1's would be a doddle. Quite right! He was that type of instructor and he taught in such a well mannered way that I was never, ever taken aback by his corrections ! :-) :-)
Ah, this would be for the punters coming for a spot of locomotion ! :-)
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Sounds like you had a good
Sounds like you had a good one there Mike!!
It is now 7:15am my time and in the mid 50's outside and in the low 60's inside, except in my basement of course where it is STILL in the mid 80's! The computers DO keep it warm down there, I just wish it was designed so I could recycle that heat now that it is getting cooler.
One thing to add to the short
One thing to add to the short line story. considering them qualified is not a huge stretch. The line in question is within the territory covered by the Chicago Operating Rules Association (CORA). Every railroad within the Chicago Switching District contributes the relevant portions of its timetable and rules, and CORA publishes it all in one book, which every operating crew person should have in his/her grip. I have a somewhat outdated copy of it myself (picked up at a swap meet). And the rules, signals, etc. for the run downtown would not be any different than for the territory they were more familiar with. Well, until they got into Union Station, anyway. And it's pretty simple there too.
(Further addendum: they got it there a few days early (or maybe this was a different occasion, I don't remember) and were told to park it on an unused mail stub inside the station. They, naturally, shut it down to save fuel and exhaust fumes, and either they drained the cooling water or it leaked out on its own. A few days later, Amtrak refused to send a switcher to get it until they could prove that it was operable, and they couldn't do that without putting water in it, but there was no water supply nearby. So they got a wagon and started taking buckets of water out there and pouring it in. Then Amtrak relented and moved it to a water hose.)
Still no word whether I'm running this weekend. I told the crew caller that if I don't do the streetcar, I could be conductor on the L train.
Winning!
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
RE: .....asked me to do a
Mike,
You should have followed that up with an Immelmann maneuver + a "Split S "
Just to "Surprise" the instructor )))
Bill
You guys DO know how a
You guys DO know how a helicopter stays airborne right?
It beats the air into submission.
Phil
Edit: The Chicago CORA book. I hate that book. One of many reasons I don't run Chicago anymore. One wonders when the FRA is going to force all the railroads to use a single signal system. Railroading in Chicago is real fun memorizing multiple railroads signal systems and rules. One railroad alone may have a hundred (literally) different signals. Choose a random railroad and it may have 8 different ways to display the exact same signal meaning. A lot of crews just do the "if it ain't red, just keep going real slow till you get out of Chicago" rule.
Whining complete. Rebooting to better attitude OS...
I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
RE: Mike, You should have
Yeah, I could have done a Cuban 8 - 'flip & tip' - but I like the guy! :-)
The airframe on a Piper is rated -1 to +3 gees. There is a Pitts Special down at Yering that has a very clever aerobatic pilot : he does all his stuff at 5K feet minimum. It's the silly ones that play chicken with the planet, and more often that not become one with it. I'm a harsh man on this topic, seeing no point in metal-flesh amalgams smearing the landscape. There are old pilots, bold* pilots, but no old bold pilots !
CORA - Chicago Operating Rules Association ? Sounds like it should be Chicago Co-Operating Rules Association ... :-)
Hey ! It's our turn on the Sunny Side Of The Sun now ... :-)
Cheers, Mike.
* So when the other weekend I see a plane pull up below 10 metres above the ground in a low level 'stunt entertainment' session I DO NOT think "he's a good pilot!". Rather, I think "What a lucky moron. I don't wanna see you die, so go somewhere else and do it !".
Mind you after that I sat back and watched our V8 'Supercars' racing. However they have this amazing core frame/cell of fabulously expensive alloy to protect them. It costs about 30% of the preparation of the car from stock and takes some 1000 hours of work from specialist welders. Here's an example of it's use from that race meeting. I was watching from a few turns further on and only saw a flash of something happening. It turns out a wheel hub fractured/exploded and the shrapnel cut the brake lines. Seeing the car come past later on a flatbed there was nothing worth having except as memorabilia.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
RE: Edit: The Chicago CORA
Yeah, I understand that sentiment. I grew up looking at BN signals and still don't understand all the variations on eastern ones. It would help a lot if each railroad would get all of its predecessor lines on the same system, at least. And if you think it's hard for freight guys, Amtrak runs on multiple railroads with multiple predecessors each. Is it any wonder that train rear-ended the stack train a few years ago?
A couple years ago, I went to a meeting of some historical society or other where people from Amtrak were speaking. I got a door prize for answering the question "Which Amtrak train travels over the most railroads getting out of Chicago?" The answer then was the Cardinal/Hoosier State, 7 (now 6, but just as many predecessors): Amtrak (PRR), NS (PRR), Metra (C&WI), BRC, UP (C&WI again), CN (GTW, now CSX), and CSX (Monon).
At the museum, we only have 6 indications, but (because we have examples of a lot of different things from different railroads) 47 aspects! Clear, 10; Approach, 11; Diverging Clear, 3; Diverging Approach, 4; Restricting, 8; Stop, 11. And you have to know which Stops are Absolute and which are Permissive; not all the Absolutes are marked. (Note to railroads' signal departments: every one of our signals is an antique, but most or all of them are now illuminated with LEDs. If they work for us, they should work for you.)* And BTW, on the Car Line, the signals only indicate block occupancy, not whether there's a switch against you.
Anyway, I agree: time for a better attitude.
Winning!
*Aside: I heard a story of an engineer on the UP line parallel to the museum who called to tell his dispatcher he was stopped at a red signal. The dispatcher replied that they didn't have any signals out there (they don't, yet, but they will within the next couple of years). Where are you exactly? The engineer told him. THAT'S THE MUSEUM!!! I suppose the conductor was just as clueless.
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
RE: (Note to railroads'
The big ongoing debate on LED signals is what constitutes a burned out signal. Since each "light" is composed of many many individual LEDs, a single burned out LED would not really affect brightness. But at what point do you say it's gone? 10% LEDs burned out? 20%? 50%? Until they sort that out mainline track will not get them.
I personally advocate for the all or nothing approach for safety reasons. The signal should sense a single burned out LED and shut off the entire light. A "dark" light forces the oncoming crew to assume the most restrictive aspect possible on that mast. I've gone past signals before at track speed and neither the engineer nor myself was sure what it was at the time of passing, forcing us to slow to restricted speed. It's no fun riding a 20 million pound wrecking ball (train) at 60 mph while passing a questionable signal aspect.
Sometimes 2 people together are not enough and we have to slow down or stop. Yet American railroads are actively trying to get rid of conductors! They want to go to 1 man crews, engineer only.
Greed is a powerful thing.
It's in the 70s F today. Sun is out. Life is good.
Phil
Edit: I just found out my roommate is leaving for the weekend to watch his mothers farm while she is out of town. Woot!!!! Get the house to myself for a few days. Party!!!!!!
I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
RE: single burned out LED
Interesting that the focus is on burned out ones. Because well-built LEDs generally won't do a sudden fail, but will slowly lower their output over tens of thousands of hours. So if you are using lots of them in a signal, there is a good chance that by the time you get one hard failure, you have already lost more light than the contribution of that LED from progressive deterioration of the whole set.
By the way, on incandescent lamped signals what is the system approach to deal with the (vastly more frequent) hard failures? Pre-emptive replacement before expected life has expires? But there must still be premature failures. I'm genuinely curious on this point, not trying to make a case.