Quote:
Originally Posted by robne68
About 18 yrs ago my sisters boyfriend was driving tractor/trailer with wood chips in Oregon. while pulling out of the loading yard in the winter the tractor slid sideways in the snow while crossing the tracks. Before they could unstick the truck the train destroyed the tractor.
During the incident the railroad personnel instructed them to "short" the rails, as in throw chains or jumper cables across the rails to short them together should this ever occur again. As this would trigger a signal in the system alerting the railroad to a possible track issue.
Does this still apply today? If someone were to get stuck on the tracks could you warn the railroad of a problem in this manner? Just curious.
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Yes.IF and it's a big "IF",you are in CTC(Centralized traffic control)or ABS(Automatic block system).But if you are in dark territory(non-signaled)It will not work as there are no signals to turn red.
You're not really shorting anything,rather you're completing a circuit.Chains won't always work.Jumper cables or a piece of steel will.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith Vrabec
Bill, how much does your average freight train actually weigh? Jim-what about the weight of a small commuter train-even that has the ability to pitch a Hummer a few football fields right?)
Consider the fact that anyone can swing a ball bat hard enough to smash a skull, why oh why would you want to mess with a train?
Stupidity is a great tool for natural selection...As we continue to make more laws to protect stupidity, we only dilute the gene pool more. Hence adding to the genereal stupidity in the population. Viscious cycle...
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Our trains vary from 2 or 3 thousand tons to 18,000 ft ,weighing 15,000 tons(they just ran one of these last week).10,000 ton trains are common.Usually grain or coal.