Unlike years ago, today, it's all down to profit margins regardless of transport mode of sea, road or rail.

I've suggested in the past that low loaders be used as there would be several safety benefits. The weird looks I got were something else.

To prove my point, 27th Oct this year, one hit a bridge in Carson near Long Beach, container toppled & killed a cyclist. With a low loader, it wouldn't have hit the bridge. Secondly, with a low centre of gravity, it would be less susceptible to winds to a fair degree.

Could the same be said for rail freight?

Unlike years ago, today, it's all down to profit margins regardless of transport mode of sea, road or rail.

I've suggested in the past that low loaders be used as there would be several safety benefits. The weird looks I got were something else.

To prove my point, 27th Oct this year, one hit a bridge in Carson near Long Beach, container toppled & killed a cyclist. With a low loader, it wouldn't have hit the bridge. Secondly, with a low centre of gravity, it would be less susceptible to winds to a fair degree.

Could the same be said for rail freight?

http://abc7.com/news/bicyclist-crushed-to-death-by-cargo-container-in-long-beach/1054667/

"I seen the container tipped over and I was like another one? Because yesterday I seen the same incident, and I was like all bad," said David Alva, a witness.

Alva captured the scene on Monday when another cargo container fell off a flatbed truck, but no one was hurt.

On Tuesday, it turned deadly. It's unclear what caused the container to come off the truck, but it happened just as the driver was passing the man on his bike. The victim never had a chance. The coroner's office has only identified him as an Asian male.

Alva says he believes trucking companies are cutting corners because truck drivers who haul the cargo are on strike at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

"Right now, since we're on strike, the 18-wheelers aren't taking out the containers. I'm assuming that they're hiring those flatbeds because yesterday it was a flatbed too," said Alva. "Those containers weigh from 40,000 and up. They just strap them on with straps, and they basically tear off."

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-1028-truck-cyclist-20151029-story.html

Deputy Geoff Lidman, an investigator with the traffic detail at the sheriff's Carson station, said investigators inspected the bridge, finding scrapes underneath but no serious structural damage. The truck managed to drive under the bridge — which is 14 feet and 5 inches tall — and the container also made it to the other side, suggesting that it did not squarely strike the vertical surface of the bridge.
...
The accident happened north of the 405 Freeway next to a shipping container yard on a stretch of road that is a designated route for truckers, according to Carson and Long Beach maps.
...
Duane DeBruyne, spokesman for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
...
Tuesday's crash was extremely unusual, DeBruyne said.

"This is the first time I've heard of such a case where a shipping container was dislodged in a bridge strike. I'm sure it's occurred before," he said. "I have not heard of a shipping container, regardless of chassis or flatbed, falling after striking a bridge."
...
"It is the driver's responsibility to plan their route appropriately, and that includes consideration of the height restrictions that they may be encountering on the route," DeBruyne said.

Wouldn't surprise me at all to find out some scab loader missed the warning high cube and put it on a standard flatbed rather than a drop center. Of course it belongs on a purpose built chassis not a flatbed.

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Well life has got in the way again, and I have not been able to see and record as much as I would have liked recently.

Hopefully things will settle down a bit now.

Just a quick mention, yesterday was my one year anniversary of recording my first long distance Amtrak through Chesterton!!

I had found the site a couple of days before but had somehow not been watching when Amtrak came through, I had set up a screen recorder by then and was just recording everything passing when suddenly this rushed past.



I was actually totally surprised as I had not realised that Amtrak still ran LD trains. I thought they mostly operated on the East Coast Corridor. How wrong I was.

Just as a comparison, this was the same train Amtrak 29 The Capitol Ltd yesterday, one year on.



Would have been nice if at least one of the P42's was the same :D

With Chesterton and Chicago cams I have now seen all the "roadworthy" P42's.

So what else have I seen

Chesterton has had quite a few notable passings, on the 4th was NS 1701 Central RR of NJ



At least I think that was what it was, as the number is completely missing and it was too dirty to read clearly!!

The 5th saw the NS track train, NS 33 and 34 propelled at speed by 5818



On Sunday NS 8025 The Monongahela



Yesterday 6th of 6 saw NS 6963 GORAIL



Also yesterday the 29 brought 3 brand new Viewliner baggage cars to Chicago.



Note how the actual baggage car for the train is a completely different colour!! That's what a few months in service will do!!

And surprise surprise one of them actually left on the South West Chief, first time I have seen on on there.



Finally I have seen a few people saying that nothing ever happens on the Chicago cam.

Now be fair where else can you see 7 F40PH's at once and moving :lol:



They all came down the far track then reversed back up track 3.

Also yesterday at Chicago, this came across the airline



Metra 3 and 3 pulling an odd assortment. The rear bi-level was left in the yard then they came right past the camera.



Well do I assume that 98 is one of the F59PH's that was all white back in September. Can't seem to find anything on line.

Hopefully I will be a bit more active now.

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Forgive the late reply, been out of town a few days. Ships usually retain the containers a bit better, but it appears they have some leeway in this. I've been involved in shipping airplanes and large airplane parts parts around the world for some years now, and I know you can pay extra to have your container more securely tied down. Makes you wonder what you get when you don't pay extra.



In Canada, truck transport is supposed to use secondary tie downs for containers, such as straps or locking pins (usually this has part of the pin turning 90 degrees after the container is in place). Sadly, they still come off once in awhile, probably because of operators taking short cuts in securing.

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Train meets art. The CP Christmas train on the high Level Bridge at Lethbridge.

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Preface: I originally wrote the below before the outrage this morning, but it had started when I went to post.

Chesterton has had quite a few notable passings, on the 4th was NS 1701 Central RR of NJ



At least I think that was what it was, as the number is completely missing and it was too dirty to read clearly!!

1071, actually.

Yesterday 6th of 6 saw NS 6963 GORAIL

I have yet to see that.

Also yesterday the 29 brought 3 brand new Viewliner baggage cars to Chicago.



Note how the actual baggage car for the train is a completely different colour!! That's what a few months in service will do!!

Yup!

Also yesterday at Chicago, this came across the airline



Metra 3 and 3 pulling an odd assortment. The rear bi-level was left in the yard then they came right past the camera.



Well do I assume that 98 is one of the F59PH's that was all white back in September. Can't seem to find anything on line.

Hopefully I will be a bit more active now.

Ah. Must be fresh from the paint shop. I heard it was in late last week. 97 has been working the MILW lines, but still keeping another engine with it for protection. Not sure about 99.

BTW, NIRC 5 (I think) had a fire last week. Probably out of service for quite a while, maybe permanently.

BT other W, NS has another unit out to watch for. NS 4000 is the first of a new series of rebuilds, taking a 20-year-old Dash 9-40C with DC traction and standard cab and converting it into an AC44C6M with AC traction and wide cab. It also sports a special paint job, reminiscent of Delaware & Hudson but not a faithful reproduction of it like the 20 heritage units.

Late update: the photo of NS 4000 disappeared from the site I linked, the NS site, and all over Facebook. Obviously someone didn't want it out there. Too bad, it's a beautiful picture.

I am told 98 is at Western Ave. Coach Yard today.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Train meets art. The CP Christmas train on the high Level Bridge at Lethbridge.

Really wouldn't want to be seeing that so late at night with a buzz on. :)

---

Searching back through RailPictures.Net for photos from places I've been. Here is two miles of Canadian grain on its way to the world near Moose Jaw, in 2011.

---

Be kinda hard to run a train like that in the UK, methinks.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

A1 - Nothing to do with centrifugal force - its all down to the lateral forces in the couplers. These forces are low despite the length of the train - this is because the angle between each car is quite low.

A2 - Cost, to build a straight railway one would need some very massive earth works, lots of bridges, cuttings, tunnels, embankments......

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Centrifugal force is mainly associated with high speed. I doubt this train was moving particularly fast, but if centrifugal force came into play, it would tend towards toppling the wagons off the outside of the curves.

The lateral forces from the couplers will tend to pull the wagons into the centre of the curves. Since the forces are working in opposite directions, a touch of speed (within reason) would actually increase the stability of the ensemble.

It wouldn't have been a bad question*. Have you seen any of the statistics (and debate) on Food miles?

* But probably not in this thread.

Pulling cars off to the inside of curves is called stringlining. It is a factor that must be considered when putting a train together. One way to counter it is with mid-train or rear end helpers to relieve the trailing strain. Of course, too much pushing force can produce the opposite effect, pushing cars off the outside of curves.

BTW, IRM is in the car storage business this winter. A maximum of 270 empty coal hoppers/gondolas not needed because electrical demand is down in the winter. They arrived in two trains. UP shoved them into the property as far as Olson Road, then our guys took over with UP 1848 and CB&Q 504 to shove them down to the east end of the main. Contract specifies that they will be removed by April 30th. I suppose this means the first month's public operations won't go farther than Seeman Road. Oh well, we only operate on Sundays in April.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

A3 - 'cos it's so far from the middle of the fields to their perimeters that the only (sensible) way to get the grain to the consumers sitting at the edges is by rail. (Throwing it one grain at a time would take rather a long time)

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Chris, I'm sure UK railroads have curves too. Same laws of physics there as here. As several posters pointed out, centrifugal force is balanced by lateral coupler loads. BTW, grain cars are much lighter than the same length of, say, coal cars, and that keeps coupler loads and centrifugal forces lower.

Richard's link on food miles is interesting, but not very realistic. Much of the grain on that train will feed people thousands of miles away, where they can't grow enough grain to feed themselves. We either grow the grain where we can and transport it, or uproot a few billion people and move them to where the grain does grow (and hope the grain still grows there after said few billions move in). Which do you think is easier to do?

The curving of the track is emphasized a bit by a long photo lens. If you have ever seen contour maps, the rail line tries to follow a contour (line of constant elevation). This keeps the force required to move the train low, which reduces the coupler loads, and reduces the fuel consumption, and makes long trains going around corners possible.

Back in the heydays of railway construction, the UK had ten times the population to pay for one tenth or less of the mileage we built in Canada. Big cuts like this make economic sense there. In Canada we had fewer people, less money, but more cheap (even free) land. Different "right answer" with different input conditions. (BTW, is that Sir Topham-Hatt on the right in the photo?)

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We can do 'straight'



but we do have curves too.



Complete with centrifugal force.

And we did some long cuts in Canada, when it made economic sense (usually in the east, where higher population densities made land more expensive).


We also did some amazing 19th century bridge projects, where big river valleys had to be crossed.

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but we do have curves too.



Complete with centrifugal force.

I think you'll find that the superelevation of that track is only to balance centrifugal force for passenger comfort, not for any actual operational necessity.

Curvature also adds resistance, so it has to be balanced against gradient, but it takes a lot of tight curve to equal a relatively small grade.

Horseshoe Curve in Pennsylvania was built not only because it was easier and cheaper than building a straight-line fill across the valley, it's also a gentler grade than the fill would be.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

It's more than just track superelevation in that case - the APT tilted the coach bodies relative to the wheelsets.

But I agree that the purpose was more for comfort than any pressing safety need - and most importantly of all, so that the center of mass of the tea remained directly above the saucer.

That was our home-grown attempt at solving the problem: now our curves are taken by Pendolino trains designed in Italy, or Hitachi trainsets from Japan. The original...



... is stabled at the Crewe Heritage Centre, under the care of the Vintage Carriages Trust

Amtrak's Acela Express trains have active tilting, again for comfort.

Washington and Oregon have Talgo trains, based on the Spanish passive tilting system, for Amtrak Cascades service. Sometime soon (or not), Michigan will start using two set of Talgos built for Wisconsin and then canceled by the new Governor.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.