Working rail roads and their tracks.

[BravoXray]

Yeah.

These:

28 Different Types of Train Cars Explained - Lemon Bin Vehicle Guides

Discover 28 distinct train car types, from locomotives to passenger coaches, freight cars, and specialty vehicles. Gain insights into the fascinating realm of trains.

lemonbin.com

Not these:
View attachment 755862

Yeah, I actually remember when you could see the cars they were carrying.

 

[MossRoad]

GM and a railroad, don't know which one, experimented shipping Chevy Vegas vertically in special cars for a short time. Didn't look like a good idea to me.

What could possibly go wrong?

Feds change bumper standards, cars got longer, wouldn’t fit in container anymore.

 

[MossRoad]

Yeah, I actually remember when you could see the cars they were carrying.

Yep. But they sustained so much damage in transit that they started enclosing the cars.

Back in the 80s I had a part-time job driving 5-ton trucks, Hummers, and postal vehicles out of the AM General factory in South Bend, IN to rail spurs all over NW Indiana, and loading them on rail cars. Most of the time they were all loaded on flat cars. However, once in a while we loaded Hummers on the double height auto rack cars. They are totally enclosed except for the little round holes. Hummers are a tight fit as it is, but one siding in LaPorte, IN was on a curve! So you had to drive the hummer up the ramp to the 2nd level, then down 15-20 cars and you could only see into the car in front of you. Not much room on the sides. In fact, if you had a Hummer with doors, you had to climb out the window and SQUEEEEEEEZE around to the hood, then climb over the tops to the nearest end of the rail car and hop out between cars.

 

[spitter]

Good to see everything was wrong with a Vega start to finish.

 

[Hay Dude]

Looks like a load of “Family Trucksters“ from the Chevy Chase movie “Vacation”

 

[Hay Dude]

The Chevy Vega….little before my time, but I remember a few kids in HS driving them. They really disappeared quickly. Probably from rust

 

[ArlyA]

Yahoo news
---------------------------------------------
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Union Pacific will spend more than $1 billion to upgrade 600 of its old diesel locomotives over the next three years and make them more efficient, but regulators still want it to do more to cut pollution from its engines.

The move will accelerate the pace of upgrades UP already planned to make and help the Omaha, Nebraska-based railroad cut roughly 210,000 tons of carbon emissions each year -- the equivalent of taking 45,000 cars off the road. The railroad will go from modernizing 120 locomotives this year to modernizing 200 a year in each of the next three years.

“It’s really taking the older locomotive fleet and applying the latest and greatest to get one of the most fuel efficient locomotives we can have,” said Grace Olsen, who oversees locomotive engineering for Union Pacific.

The railroad estimates that this program will improve the fuel efficiency of these long-haul locomotives by up to 18% and help them produce peak power more reliably. To accomplish that, locomotive manufacturer Wabtec will strip down the locomotives, and spend eight weeks overhauling their engines and installing new software and electronic controls.

The improved power will let Union Pacific pull the same amount of freight with fewer locomotives. That, combined with the railroad's efforts to significantly boost the length of its trains, will allow Union Pacific to keep more of its fleet of 7,400 locomotives in storage. UP has already parked hundreds of locomotives as part of the operational changes it has made over the past several years.

Wabtec says this UP project is the biggest single investment in modernizing locomotives in railroad history although other major freight railroads are making similar improvements to their fleets. Earlier this year, Norfolk Southern announced plants to modernize 330 of its 3,200 locomotives over the next three years to give it more than 950 modernized locomotives by the end of 2025. UP will have 1,033 upgraded locomotives after its project.

 

[Hay Dude]

I applaud the efforts to make locomotives cleaner, but one has to wonder if that billion dollars could be better spent improving existing railroad infrastructure which is crumbling and being discontinued at an alarming pace.
I’d rather see a little black smoke than derailments and track taken out of commission.

 

[MossRoad]

Looks like a load of “Family Trucksters“ from the Chevy Chase movie “Vacation”

 

[MossRoad]

Yahoo news
---------------------------------------------
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Union Pacific will spend more than $1 billion to upgrade 600 of its old diesel locomotives over the next three years and make them more efficient, but regulators still want it to do more to cut pollution from its engines.

The move will accelerate the pace of upgrades UP already planned to make and help the Omaha, Nebraska-based railroad cut roughly 210,000 tons of carbon emissions each year -- the equivalent of taking 45,000 cars off the road. The railroad will go from modernizing 120 locomotives this year to modernizing 200 a year in each of the next three years.

“It’s really taking the older locomotive fleet and applying the latest and greatest to get one of the most fuel efficient locomotives we can have,” said Grace Olsen, who oversees locomotive engineering for Union Pacific.

The railroad estimates that this program will improve the fuel efficiency of these long-haul locomotives by up to 18% and help them produce peak power more reliably. To accomplish that, locomotive manufacturer Wabtec will strip down the locomotives, and spend eight weeks overhauling their engines and installing new software and electronic controls.

The improved power will let Union Pacific pull the same amount of freight with fewer locomotives. That, combined with the railroad's efforts to significantly boost the length of its trains, will allow Union Pacific to keep more of its fleet of 7,400 locomotives in storage. UP has already parked hundreds of locomotives as part of the operational changes it has made over the past several years.

Wabtec says this UP project is the biggest single investment in modernizing locomotives in railroad history although other major freight railroads are making similar improvements to their fleets. Earlier this year, Norfolk Southern announced plants to modernize 330 of its 3,200 locomotives over the next three years to give it more than 950 modernized locomotives by the end of 2025. UP will have 1,033 upgraded locomotives after its project.

Reminds me of the program AM General did back in the 80s where they took old military trucks in, stripped them down, rebuilt them with modern power and transmissions, suspension, etc. and returned them to the military. It was 2/3 the price of a new truck.

Strange thing was, they took most of them in by rail, right at the South Bend plant, but transported most of them out by rail in other towns.

 

[MossRoad]

A subject for another thread…

Chevrolet Cosworth Vega - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Gator6x4]

I toured the NC Railroad Museum in Spencer NC one time and came away with a very healthy respect for the railroad workers that maintained railroad engines and cars.

If ever near Spencer NC stop in at the Museum. The layout is huge so wear a good pair of walking shoes and look at what mere man with the tools of that day were able to do an accomplish.

https://www.nctransportationmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/NCTM-Map-General-Front-2022-web.pdf

 

[bcp]

Anyone want to build switches?



Bruce

 

[BravoXray]

The Chevy Vega….little before my time, but I remember a few kids in HS driving them. They really disappeared quickly. Probably from rust

I had a Vega GT, I think it was a '75. It had a four speed and the 110 hp engine with a Rochester two barrel carb. Vegas had a big problem with the shock towers rusting out in just a year or two, and the one I had had been repaired under warranty and the rest of the paint was good. It was a great looking little car, silver with a black racing stripe and steel spoke wheels, like a four spoke Magnum 500 wheel. The wife loved it, small, good on gas, and the hatchback was really handy for groceries and such.
I know some people had bad luck with them and hated Vegas, but ours was a good little car for the years we owned it.
I only ever saw a Cosworth Vega once, at a car show. Cool little car.

 

[ArlyA]

Pretty neat British film about building an engine there in 1935. Much is shown about casting the parts.

 

[BravoXray]

I watched that video a couple of weeks age, pretty interesting.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Big boy 4014 went to Denver today.

 

[MossRoad]

Saw something on a history type show tonight. Quite interesting reading.

”
The 1953 Pennsylvania Railroad train wreck occurred on January 15, 1953, when a passenger and mail train from Boston to Washington DC (the Federal) failed to brake sufficiently on its approach to Union Station, Washington, jumping the platform and plunging through the floor of the concourse. There were no deaths, but 43 people were injured.

The cause of the accident was a design flaw that allowed a brake-valve to close without human intervention.”

Read more about it here:

1953 Pennsylvania Railroad train wreck - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[BravoXray]

Did you ever hear about the Great Train Wreck of Mishawaka?
At least 60 people pf the 150 on the trail were killed outright, many more injured when the train went off a bridge over a creek and into the ravine below.

Scroll about halfway down the page for the account.

History of Mishawaka, Indiana

 

[MossRoad]

Yes. I saw the original newspapers in the archives in the basement. Big news. There was another pretty bad one west of SB. I think around New Carlisle. A friend of mine has a copy of the original photo, also from the archives.