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Freight railroads generally have operated the same way for more than a century: They wait for cargo and leave when customers are ready. Now railroads want to run more like commercial airlines, where departure times are set. Factories, farms, mines or mills need to be ready or miss their trips.
Called "precision-scheduled railroading," or PSR, this new concept is cascading through the industry. Under pressure from Wall Street to improve performance, Norfolk Southern and other large U.S. freight carriers, including Union Pacific Corp. and Kansas City Southern, are trying to revamp their networks to use fewer trains and hold them to tighter schedules. The moves have sparked a stock rally that has added tens of billions of dollars to railroad values in the past six months as investors anticipate lower costs and higher profits.
Calling all Railroad Tycoons...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 05 2019, @12:45PM (40 children)
STOP BLARING THE TRAIN HORN...at every damn crossing. Can’t AI see if it the guards are down and crossing clear and NOT blare the horn?
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Friday April 05 2019, @01:08PM (18 children)
The old steam trains used to have cow catchers on the front. New trains could have bigger, tougher, meaner versions to clear the cars out of the way when they happen to block the tracks in the areas which still have old fashioned level crossings. The train would have enough momentum that it woul not slow down much upon impact. Some articulation or other movement would be needed to flip the wrecked car off the front of the train.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 05 2019, @01:43PM (17 children)
No, hitting a car doesn't slow the train, at all. Doesn't even slow it down when it hits a loaded 18 wheeler. It's anybody's guess how much of the car, or truck, you actually find after the dust settles.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 05 2019, @02:15PM (11 children)
> doesn't slow the train, at all
doesn't slow the train appreciably
Never studied Newtonian mechanics, did you? F=mA is damn reliable (at the macro level) and the train must slow down a tiny bit.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 05 2019, @02:42PM (4 children)
Perhaps. Or, maybe the train just absorbs all the energy, resulting in some dents and crumpled metal. You're not going to measure any loss in speed.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 05 2019, @04:38PM (2 children)
Momentum is conserved, train is minutely slowed down. Git edumacated son!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 05 2019, @04:43PM (1 child)
I think that's exactly what I said - you're not going to measure any loss in speed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 05 2019, @08:47PM
Nope.
"Or, maybe the train just absorbs all the energy, resulting in some dents and crumpled metal. You're not going to measure any loss in speed. "
A human eyeball may not be able to see the loss in speed on the speedometer, but there will be a loss in speed. I wouldn't have made a fuss if you hadn't started with "maybe the train just absorbs all the energy" which makes it sound like there would be absolutely no change in speed. Conservation of momentum says that is incorrect, though your statement about no loss in speed is "basically" correct. Important to realize those distinctions.
Momentum in mass * velocity, so "total momentum" = (M1 x V1) + (M2 x V2)
The masses don't change and after the collision the car is traveling a lot faster than zero so the momentum was transferred from the train to the car, thus the train velocity decreases. The reason it is not very noticeable is because the mass and velocity of the train are so much higher that the momentum lost is a tiny percentage but it will be there.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Friday April 05 2019, @09:52PM
I'm a New Yorker and some days we have 2 or even 3 folks getting hit by the subway cars. It makes the news but, it's not big news when that happens. And, not a big deal for the Transit Authority guys. They run the windshield wiper, they do the little spray and life goes on, you know? A lot of the cars look rusty in the front, trust me it's not rust. And I guess you could have Einstein come in their with a very special instrument to measure the speed when somebody's getting whacked, I don't know.
But I'll tell you this. Nothing stops the Trump Train. And, nothing slows it down!!! 🚂
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday April 05 2019, @05:20PM (5 children)
You're right on an absolute level. Here on Earth, we use sensors, which are usually electronic, and the change in train's kinetic energy is often less than one valence electron knocked loose, so kind of immeasurable. But I know you'll have an absurd response, so I'll eagerly keep checking back for the moronic wisdom that I so desperately need that you'll dispense.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 05 2019, @09:01PM
I would have thought that on a tech/science site that such pedantic points wouldn't be seen as some kind of personal attack, but OK Runaway's alt account!
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Friday April 05 2019, @10:10PM (3 children)
This is not an Einstein thing. This is train. Listen to Runaway1956. He knows. Train runs on time -- does not slow down AT ALL!!!!
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday April 05 2019, @10:48PM (2 children)
I don't think you understood my comment; I was responding to an AC mega-troll. I try to never respond to them unless they're positive and contributing to the discussion.
I agree with Runaway, JoeMerchant, and others here. AC was making inane comments about F = MA, etc. I'm an EE, which means I've completed many physics courses and qualify as a junior physicist. As an EE I'm inherently practical, and my point was that a train hitting a car would make an almost immeasurable change to the train's kinetic energy. In fact, I don't even see any practical reason to try to measure it. On to better things!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 06 2019, @12:25AM
Look again at what you said:
> a train hitting a car would make an almost immeasurable change to the train's kinetic energy. In fact, I don't even see any practical reason to try to measure it. On to better things!
And this is in the context of cow catchers. Do you realize cow catchers are there not to spare the cow, but to spare the train? Do you realize that cars weigh more than cows, that the change to the train's KE is going to correlate to damage at the front-end, which can practically have huge impact (yuk yuk a pun)?
What you said is kinda dumb.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 06 2019, @01:28AM
True brilliance, calling a technical correction "mega troll". Typical conservative, triggered by people explaining reality.
(Score: 1) by Improbus on Friday April 05 2019, @05:47PM (4 children)
If it hits a truck, depending on what it is carrying could cause the train to derail. Picture a GIANT electrical transformer on a lowboy trailer. That would cause a bad day for EVERYONE.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Saturday April 06 2019, @05:17AM
I'll clearly need to make better use of the /sarcasm tag for markup in the future.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday April 06 2019, @07:43AM (2 children)
That's a great point. Most of the derailments post collision are due to chunks of debris on the tracks, and sometimes the collision debris wedges the track loose enough to cause the derailment. I've often wondered if there would be fewer derailments if at least locomotive wheels had flanges on both sides, or maybe one axle had inside flanges, then the next axle had flanges on the outside of the track. Maybe someone knows this.
Yes, a locomotive hitting something big and solid like a transformer (or a 10,000 HP motor: http://www.mgmelectricalsurplus.com/Details/Motors/AC%20Induction%20-%20Squirrel%20Cage/107.php [mgmelectricalsurplus.com]) would cause a big problem. In USA, the maximum weight for a "lorry", or 18-wheeler tractor-trailer is 40 tons (36 metric tons). One of the biggest locomotives ever built can be 210 tons (190.5 metric tons). A 100 car freight train can weigh 14,000 tons (12700 metric tons). So the lorry would weigh 0.28% of that train.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 06 2019, @12:35PM (1 child)
> One of the biggest locomotives ever built can be 210 tons (190.5 metric tons).
Since the connection between loco and the rest of the train has some slack in the couplers[1], let's look at just the loco. Consider a medium SUV in USA can be easily 2.1 tons. That is a mass ratio of 100:1 and if the collision was "perfect" the loco would decelerate at .01 g for the instant of the crash.
[1] Slack comes from loose tolerances in the couplers. This is not just a side effect of manufacturing tolerances, it is required to get the train started--the loco tugs on one car and a moment later that car tugs on the next one. To stretch the analogy, it's like ripping a phone book in half, to win you have to start the tear on each page separately.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday April 06 2019, @03:48PM
Thank you! A non-troll AC. I started a lengthy reply, involving coupler slack (which is intentionally up to 1.5 feet per coupler, or 3 feet per coupling), car weights, collision forces, brake force variation, etc., but deleted the lengthy reply (because I don't have enough time to do more research / calculations) after learning 2 things:
1) collision force calculations are complex and I'm not sure if a simple 100:1 -> 0.01 g. You can certainly do a simple calculation based on conservation of momentum, but the peak force will depend on energy-absorption by various structures which will crumple. For example, many of the large locomotives have a pair of stairs in the very front. The 10,000 HP 45 ton motor won't crumple much, but the point is that anything at all will greatly reduce the peak impulse of the collision. If the locomotive is moving relatively slowly, and there's appreciable crumple "stuff", the g force will be less because it's happening over some amount of time.
But neglecting the obviously short duration of crumpling, you still have:
2) car coupling compression is a total unknown. They could be in full stretch, full compression, or unknown, so we'll never know the full peak energy of impact of a 100 car 14,000 ton train hitting a 45 ton motor unless we put accelerometers in locomotives.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday April 05 2019, @01:53PM (19 children)
They do that because it saves lives. I know it's annoying - I sometimes wake up to them going by at 2:30 AM or so.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Friday April 05 2019, @02:25PM (13 children)
Somehow last year I stumbled onto YouTube videos of train accidents at railroad crossings.
This should not happen. It is an amazingly stupid thing. And I must squarely place the fault upon car / truck / bus drivers.
To my astonishment, even with a train coming, the signals down, and a train blaring its loud horn, people will attempt to bypass the signals and cross anyway.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday April 05 2019, @02:39PM (12 children)
The old saying attributed to P.T. Barnum doesn't just apply to people's handling of their own money (there's a sucker born every minute) - it also extends to their handling of their own safety. Not everybody is an idiot in that regard, but in a population of millions, there are plenty of idiots out there, and idiocy isn't always a one-dimensional measure.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday April 05 2019, @02:56PM (2 children)
I have to consider this thought for a moment. Maybe it is better that these people "darwin award" themselves. The very way they rush, drive wreckfully, without regard to their own or others' safety is why they get hit by a train. How in the world does a car, with plenty of warning, and a loud train horn, get hit by a slow moving train? Because they just don't care. These would probably be the same people who tailgate. Who cut other people off in traffic. Who believe that they and only they have a God given right to drive in the carpool lane, or in the road shoulder in order to get ahead of everyone else. Because they are important. And probably self entitled.
And I was not trying to describe only BMW, Audi, Mercedes, and Lexis drivers.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Friday April 05 2019, @03:23PM (1 child)
Unfortunately, I don't think it's genes (nature) so much as learned behavior (nurture), so the real solution would be to correct the system that let them grow up stupid - because as long as that exists, new idiots will continue to replace them.
I do feel like we hand out the driving privilege far too easily, and take it away far too late to avoid endangering others. But, even idiots without cars can kill themselves on train tracks - fortunately they do less collateral damage that way.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 05 2019, @11:17PM
Like cheetos, idiots are cheap. Thanks to unskilled labor, more will me made to replace the less successful specimens.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday April 05 2019, @05:33PM (8 children)
Interesting timing here (pun not intended). Up until yesterday I have always thought people who stop on tracks are just idiots. And I could write on and on about how people seem to live in their own fantasy, not reality, and blame it on TV, movies, computers, smartphones, and even formal classrooms where people theorize more than deal with reality.
However, yesterday I was in a small town where there are very obvious heavily used tracks crossing a major highway. There's a sign "Do Not Stop On Tracks". I thought- anyone who can read that sign hopefully already knows better, right?
But here's the problem: idiot DOT (or whoever does this crap) put a traffic light 3 car lengths past tracks. So if you're in a heavy moving pack of cars, and light turns red (yellow is by economic definition split-second), it would be very easy to be stuck in the middle of the pack, stuck on the tracks. Can't go forward, can't back up. Train comes around curve, and if you're paying attention, you might get out of car and run for your life. Light should have been put on other side of tracks- stopping cars before they cross tracks. I'm sure the locals know this and most of the time deal with it, but being new to the town, it would be very easy to get trapped. I'd love to know how these things get approved.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday April 05 2019, @06:08PM (5 children)
I had a conversation with local DOT about why they re-striped 10 miles of 2 lane road to push the vehicles toward each other in the middle, widening the bike lanes. The lanes were narrowed to the point that school buses would touch both the centerline and the rumble strip separating the car lane from the bike lane at the same time at points, and never more than 12" to spare.
Local DOT informed me that the lane narrowing was done "to increase safety" since cars in narrower lanes tend to drive slower. I asked what they based this opinion on, their response "years of professional experience."
In truth, it was a politically motivated thing, in a town that's trying to become car unfriendly. BTW, those bike lanes went 10 miles to the middle of nowhere - bikes ride that road for pleasure, mostly on the weekends, while thousands of homes feed cars, SUVs and trucks onto the road to commute to work, shopping, etc.
As for RRX design, I'm going to guess that's a matter of "it's always been like this" and nobody important has died as a result, yet, so that's how they leave it. Generally, around here, if there's a new traffic signal or pavement widening for a turn lane, it's usually traceable back to a fatal collision at the spot.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday April 05 2019, @10:01PM (1 child)
Oh this frustrates on so many levels. I used to know a very successful businessman who was very cynical about govt., and he dealt with many: codes, inspections, health, food, licenses, taxes, etc. His degree and years of work was sociology and generally a nice guy and believed in people, but at some point things cross a line and even he gave up on them. He said that govt. workers were "the dregs of society". There are exceptions, but I have to sadly generally agree.
Yes, I'm sure that SOME people will slow down for narrower lanes. The stupidity in this is overwhelming. Any motion of a car can result in an accident if the car wavers in its path. What about large vehicles? Ever drive a truck, DOT idiot? They don't quite track like an Audi A6 now.
And like you said, intelligence doesn't seem to come into play until someone dies.
Someday I hope to understand stupidity (thinking about the Boeing 737 MAX problems as well as many others...)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 06 2019, @12:00AM
"Someday I hope to understand stupidity (thinking about the Boeing 737 MAX problems as well as many others...)"
Look much closer to home. It's easy to throw shit at others on the net by reflex while being completely ignorant of the real underlying problems. There's far too much of that going on these days.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 06 2019, @02:45AM (2 children)
I'm going to have to side with the DOT guy on this one. Jeff Speck -- who's a city planning engineer -- covers this topic in his book, The walkable city.
The gist of it is that there is overwhelming empirical evidence to support the idea that people drive safer in unstructured, hazardous environments, i.e. less accidents.
Your common sense may tell you otherwise, but common sense isn't common, and the real world can be counter intuitive.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday April 06 2019, @07:50AM (1 child)
It makes perfect sense to me, especially if you consider inattentive driving to be a big factor in crashes. More difficult driving conditions would force people to pay more attention. But it could overwhelm some people.
I have more thoughts but sadly SN is becoming a troll site and I'm tired of being trolled. I hope admins start noticing and remember why they started SN in the first place.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:05PM
Being a self important jackass is your problem. I went through this whole thread and no one trolled you. Maybe you're just too sensitive, and as for "why they stsrted SN" you just outed yourself as totally clueless.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 05 2019, @09:06PM
Yay, another internet person learns that reality is complicated and maybe just maybe they shouldn't judge things so harshly. Next up you'll be voting for universal healthcare!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 05 2019, @11:48PM
It's not that tough to figure out. No major conundrum or existential crisis or legislative BS. Don't try to cross the tracks until you're double damned sure you've got room on the other side. Granted the yokels at DOT could show some smarts, but jesus. You have a responsibility to protect your ass. Be aware of your surroundings and try not to be a dead dipshit.
I don't believe in "common sense." But when bad things are coming, if at all possible try your best not to be there.
Have you complained to the DOT idiots about the situation, or do you reserve these types of complaints specifically for SN?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday April 05 2019, @02:36PM (3 children)
We rode the Silver Meteor from Charleston to DC, it was like one non-stop train horn the whole way.
I lived about a mile from the tracks in Miami, you get used to the noise from that distance - sort of soothing like bird calls. I think we're 5 miles from the crossings here, can still hear the horns when we're outside, but not inside with the A/C on.
Pity for the people who live right by the crossings, though.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday April 05 2019, @05:37PM (2 children)
Have you seen (in the Russian crash videos) what they've done in Russia? Those car-blocking ramps that pop up? Might be a good idea here, may cut down on need for horns.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday April 05 2019, @06:10PM (1 child)
The horns mostly blow on rural crossings without even automatic gates or lights - far too expensive to put in popup ramps at the thousands of uncontrolled crossings just to cut down on noise pollution.
As with all things US rail oriented: it might work in the NE Corridor, but not so much anywhere else.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday April 05 2019, @10:03PM
Good points and perspective. Can you imagine a country whose government actually served the people and did what we want? (within reason of course)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 05 2019, @07:51PM
They do that because regulations compel them to. Other countries use higher-pitched horns, prefer non-level crossings, rely on the guard arms, or all of those.
It was the prime criterion for me finding a place to stay that it was out of earshot of a RR crossing. And even formerly inactive lines are active again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 05 2019, @02:26PM
Most railroad crossings in the US are not guarded. Even if they are, people are stupid (possibly more stupid than the "AI" we currently have in self-driving cars) and will try to beat the train, with varying degrees of success from "made it" to "this is all we could find of them".