Meanwhile, the weather geeks like to talk about thunderstorms "training," a series of them following the same path for possibly hundreds of miles. The term is apt this evening -- it looks like they're marching right up the Santa Fe all the way from Ft. Madison.

Maybe they have a unit spewing smoke and seeding the clouds? ;-)

By the way, I hit my head three times in different places on the conduits running across the ceiling above Percy's doors.

---

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

Maybe a hard hat should be required there?

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Savoir-Faire is everywhere!
The T1 Trust, T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, America's First HST

So as David suggested the two AEM7's did indeed head west on the 3 today.

First were the three locos, 200, 822 and 144.



The the two AEM 7's



Then surprisingly 6 old "heritage" baggage cars.



Then the actual Southwest Chief which was one VL Baggage and 9 superliners

Making the total train of 21 vehicles, I think only the Amatrak auto train is longer!!

So as David suggested the two AEM7's did indeed head west on the 3 today.

First were the three locos, 200, 822 and 144.

Then surprisingly 6 old "heritage" baggage cars.

That's a surprise. Not sure where they'd be going or why.

---

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

That's a surprise. Not sure where they'd be going or why.

Well as Virtual Railfan the" other" railcam site now has cameras at La Plat MO, the more active "chat" there noted the AEM's and baggage cars and supplied these two nuggets of info

As to the heritage baggage cars

"No the heritage baggage cars are headed for an area in the desert align with the Amtrak's MHC boxcars and Amtrak's roadrailers"

And more info on the AEM 7's

The AEM 7s are headed for TTC in Pueblo Colorado for permanent use for 125 MPH testing,

Obviously this is just railfan chat, but sounds reasonable.


I used the 24 hour "DVR" facility to get shots of it arriving at La Plata MO at 8:22 pm CT yesterday but the combination of the fading light and the fact the cameras are too close to the track caused lots of pixalating.

However here they are, I have pics from, Shenandoah Junction, Chesterton, Chicago and La Plata.

East facing cam



And the west facing cam.



The woman in the east facing shot, is I believe the station agent as she helps people on and off the trains, she seemed a bit perplexed when the train just kept on going with no sign of the superliner passenger cars :-)

Now some of you may well have heard of Jack London Square in Oakland CA.

Notable for the fact that the main rail line runs down the middle of the main street, no barriers or segregation. Amtrak has several trains a day .

However there is one other town in the US where the trains travel down the main street with no barriers or segregation.

La Grange Kentucky, where Virtual Railfan have just installed 2 cameras.

The is the North facing camera.



and this is south



Very much small town America, however you cant help but notice the rail tracks.

There is no station or Amtrak trains here, just the CSX mainline. Here is a northbound freight.



Interesting cargo, behind the first hopper.



Four tanks and what looked like a mine sweeper.

Here a southbound freight.



Not sure it improves the town, unless you are a railfan, because this train was interesting as well.



The strange looking thing between the two locos is called a "slug". It is usually made from a older engine, where the prime mover is removed but the traction motors are left, it gets its power from the loco it is connected to.

A slug is used to increase adhesive weight, allowing full power to be applied at a lower speed, thus allowing a higher maximum tractive effort.

You can see another one behind the following loco. I don't recall every seeing one before on any camera.

There are several such places in the US. The nearest to me that I can think of is the South Shore at Michigan City, IN. Electric MU commuter trains and diesel freights run for a number of blocks down two different streets. These are cars from the early '80s and/or the second order from (I think) the '90s. More recently, they have also acquired bilevels similar to the Metra Electric cars.



Historically, their freight was also hauled by electric locomotives such as these:



Although they are commonly known as "Little Joes" after Joseph Stalin (they were built for the Soviet State Railway, not not exported due to the start of the Cold War), current wisdom is that this name was used only on the Milwaukee Road, and the South Shore mainly called them 800s. (I want to do a bit more research to verify that this isn't revisionist history.)

Another place is Bellevue, Iowa, originally Milwaukee Road and now Canadian Pacific.



There's also a place in western New York or Pennsylvania, I forget which. And I believe there are a few others. Come to think of it, there's also Davenport, IA, although in that case the track is in an unpaved median with a single lane on each side.

---

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

And you have this on 3rd Street just east of Downtown Los Angeles

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Thomas weekend, Part 2.

Saturday: This is a very short report. I wasn't there. I went to a non-rail event in Indiana instead (although I did hear a train go by near the end of the day). I took lots of pictures, but they are not suitable for posting on this site. I will mention that I was on my feet too much and that I fell flat on my back, almost causing me to call Crew Caller and try to get out of doing Sunday. My back felt (and still feels) more bruised than anything backs usually feel, but the greatest pain is my right ear -- it feels like my glasses tried to rip it off and is still very sensitive on the back of the upper lobe.

Sunday: conductor on Percy again. Unexpectedly, I felt better than last week. Even better, the eager young guy checked all the journals before I got to the train. Plus, after a muggy and mosquito-y start, it turned out to be a slightly nicer day. 1630 came out with just enough time to get on the train and tested without rushing. Apparently, they were having trouble with the signals on Saturday, so Sunday morning Signal Dept. sent 415 out to test them, with no malfunction. Nevertheless, they issued a bulletin taking the signals out of service and putting Manual Block Rules in effect. Dispatcher then gave me an order to operate in both directions in the Bend and Karstens Blocks and Station Track 2 from 10:15 until the end of the operating day. We made our first departure on time. Immediately, the signals malfunctioned again. What is supposed to happen in the Percy operation is that as soon as we get east of Signal 201, it goes to Clear and we can head back west. Then, 151 would be Approach and 121 Restricting. In this case, all three displayed Stop. With the system out of service and Manual Block in effect, we just went right by, but as we were coming in I reported it to Signal Dept. On the second trip, I watched 121 go to Restricting after we went by eastward, but again 201 and 151 were Stop when we came back. When I came around the bend and saw 121, it was Stop too, but I glanced away for a second and when I looked up again it was Restricting. Two Signal guys were in the control shed at 121. After that, the signals worked normally for the rest of the day, but we stayed on Manual Block anyway -- no reason to change the order. At the end of the day, I talked to the head Signal guy; he said there was a malfunctioning timer that wasn't letting 121 do what it should. I also asked him about Wednesday, when all the track lights were on. It turned out there was a blown 4KV fuse outside the substation, on the line feeding everything to the east. He thought that was worrisome because there are several other safeties that should have blown before this fuse and they didn't.

A couple of times, we were oversold and had to put some passengers off before we could depart, delaying us a minute or two. In the afternoon, my friend the Metra conductor showed and took a lot of pictures of me and the train. I let him in the cab for a look, pointing out the extra things that aren't on a regular train car. Later, an old friend showed up with his two small boys. I let the boys see the cab too, while he was pleased to show them a real live steam engine, 1630. With dwindling crowds, Thomas had his last two trips canceled and ran his last at 4:10. We had our last one canceled, but the 4:45 was pushed back to 4:55, then 5:00. I think we finally left about 5:05. The other Trainmaster (not the new one, the one who's been for years) rode with me on the last trip and we discussed how terrible Percy rides. He pointed to something and said "What's this?" I told him it was the retainer valve, then pointed out the paragraph about it in the instructions on the back wall. Which reminds me, I took pictures of the cab interior. Perhaps I shouldn't post them in public, but if you're interested send me a PM. I also demonstrated for him how I do the running brake test on the emergency valve. When we got back, I informed Dispatcher (who had come over in his golf cart) that we were done with the operating day and I was releasing the Bend and Karstens Blocks. Once the passengers were off, I held off the official photographers while 1630 cut off, this time taking the water car with them and not going to the service track to take water. The flatbed truck was already present to take Percy away to his next appearance, somewhere in Iowa. There are at least three Thomases, but only one Percy, so he's a busy little bone rattler. Before that, though, I got all my stuff off, plus the air valve exhaust redirection pipes; the guy who devised them couldn't be present, so the Thomas conductor and I promised to remove them. I caught a golf cart ride to my car and slooooowly (there were still people) drove back down to the platform to get my stuff. Finally I got back to the office to sign out.

Coming up: I didn't know how my life was going to be, so I haven't signed up for anything beyond this point except dispatching for a few special events. There will be training on the CA&E steel cars this Sunday; I'm less anxious to learn and qualify on those than some other cars, but I might as well -- the knowledge will be useful. Saturday, there are openings, but so far I'm not feeling much enthusiasm, especially with a forecast of 90F and humid.

---

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

And you have this on 3rd Street just east of Downtown Los Angeles

I think Bernie and I were only thinking about mainline railroads, not streetcar or light rail systems.

---

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

And you have this on 3rd Street just east of Downtown Los Angeles

I think Bernie and I were only thinking about mainline railroads, not streetcar or light rail systems.

Thought you might like to see some nice tight overhead cable anyway. Line was put in in 2009.

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And you have this on 3rd Street just east of Downtown Los Angeles

I think Bernie and I were only thinking about mainline railroads, not streetcar or light rail systems.

Thought you might like to see some nice tight overhead cable anyway. Line was put in in 2009.

It does look nice and tight, and I'm sure it's properly centered over the track too, which is more than I can say for quite a bit of our wire at the museum, which in turn is why equipment with pantographs runs so seldom and on such a limited stretch. It was centered when installed, but poles start leaning with time. There is now an effort in the works to straighten (or in many cases replace) the poles, then tweak the wire hangers. Nevertheless, we have very little catenary like in L.A., mostly just simple trolley wire.

---

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

On sliding contact system (typical catenary & pantograph current collection) you do not want the contact wire centered on the running track, you need a stagger in the line. essentially you arrange for alternate contact wire supports to move the wire a distance either side of the centre line by some distance (several inches). This prevents a grove being worn in the contact strip, thus massively improving its life. With a trolley contact (rolling contact) you can have the contact wire centred over the rails as there is much less potential for wearing things out.

---

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

On sliding contact system (typical catenary & pantograph current collection) you do not want the contact wire centered on the running track, you need a stagger in the line. essentially you arrange for alternate contact wire supports to move the wire a distance either side of the centre line by some distance (several inches). This prevents a grove being worn in the contact strip, thus massively improving its life. With a trolley contact (rolling contact) you can have the contact wire centred over the rails as there is much less potential for wearing things out.

There is some debate among our experts over the truth of this axiom.

Our greater and more immediate concern is that the wire can't be so far off center that the pan goes out from under it, pops up, and then either rips itself off the car, rips the wire down, or both. Rumor has it that this happened at another museum last month.

---

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

For sliding contact it is a well established fact that if there is no stagger the life of the contract strip on the pantograph will be decimated (or even worse). I've seen the damage caused from on a few miles of wire installed with no stagger - there was a grove about an inch wide and right down to the air-bleed tube which broke and caused the pantograph to drop "instantly".

---

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

For sliding contact it is a well established fact that if there is no stagger the life of the contract strip on the pantograph will be decimated (or even worse). I've seen the damage caused from on a few miles of wire installed with no stagger - there was a grove about an inch wide and right down to the air-bleed tube which broke and caused the pantograph to drop "instantly".

But what speed was that running? TGV or Bullet I'd expect, but a streetcar???

Heavy freight - maximum speed below 50mph (might have even been below 30mph due to local temporary speed limits).
Not the worst new wire installation damage I've seen. That prize goes to the jerk who messed up the vertical alignment at the end of a neutral section which wiped out the pantograph on the first unit through, and dragged about 10 miles of double track wire with it, span wires, tensions wires, the lot.

---

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

Heavy freight - maximum speed below 50mph (might have even been below 30mph due to local temporary speed limits).
Not the worst new wire installation damage I've seen. That prize goes to the jerk who messed up the vertical alignment at the end of a neutral section which wiped out the pantograph on the first unit through, and dragged about 10 miles of double track wire with it, span wires, tensions wires, the lot.

Ooooh, that sounds messy.

---

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

Heavy freight - maximum speed below 50mph (might have even been below 30mph due to local temporary speed limits).
Not the worst new wire installation damage I've seen. That prize goes to the jerk who messed up the vertical alignment at the end of a neutral section which wiped out the pantograph on the first unit through, and dragged about 10 miles of double track wire with it, span wires, tensions wires, the lot.

Ooooh, that sounds messy.

This is messy

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