Another bit of history back on the rails.

Historic 120-year-old Locomotive 3001 returns to service at NSW Rail Museum after restoration.


Cheers.

As a result Norfolk Southern announces safety upgrades amid derailments.

Norfolk Southern announced plans on Monday to improve the use of detectors placed along railroad tracks to spot overheating bearings and other problems in response to a fiery derailment on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border a month ago...

..The company said it would evaluate the distance between “hot bearing" detectors — currently 13.9 miles (22 kilometers) on average on its core network — and promised to look at every location where the distance is more than 15 miles (24 kilometers), deploying more detectors if practical.

Norfolk Southern "anticipates adding approximately 200 hot bearing detectors to its network, with the first installed on the western approach to East Palestine,” said the company announcement, which comes amid proposals from President Joe Biden's administration and Congress aimed at improving safety following last month's derailment...

...Norfolk Southern also said it would work with manufacturers to speed up tests and deployment of new “multi-scan” detectors able to scan a greater cross-section of a railcar’s bearings and wheels. It also vowed to work with other railroads to review standards and practices, reevaluating the temperature triggering an alarm and the response to such alarms as well as analyzing data for patterns that could warn of safety issues.

Also announced in Norfolk Southern's six-point safety plan Monday was installation of more acoustic bearing detectors, which analyze the acoustic signature of vibration inside the axle to identify potential problems. Norfolk Southern said it has five such detectors in service and will add 13 more on high-traffic routes...

It's just a shame that they didn't act earlier.

Why oh why not simply put temperature sensors on each bearing housing and require that all those sensors regularly "check in" by one of the low power IoT wireless protocols to the "Engineer's Desk"?

That would also ensure there is a regular "all present and correct" check so that no bits of the train get left behind...

Also, a "checked ok" button could be included to record when a human has physically been there to look at the bearings...


Or are such requirements too hard to regulate for?...

Stay safe?
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Far too sensible?

Cheers.

Why oh why not simply put temperature sensors on each bearing housing and require that all those sensors regularly "check in" by one of the low power IoT wireless protocols to the "Engineer's Desk"?

That would also ensure there is a regular "all present and correct" check so that no bits of the train get left behind...

Also, a "checked ok" button could be included to record when a human has physically been there to look at the bearings...


Or are such requirements too hard to regulate for?...

That is a lot of polluting batteries to change. (Have you seen a FRED?)
1.62 million rail cars times 8 detectors per car ...
who is going to make them and who is going to pay for them?

In OH NS had not just 2 derailments, but 4 in a span of less than 5 months...

USA averages 1000+ derailments per year, about 3 per day.

Train v Truck, both lost.


The line is expected to be closed for about 5 days.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Not a good evening for travelling home by train.

Sydney’s rail network has suffered a “train communication issue” that wreaking havoc ahead of the afternoon’s peak hour rush.

Sydney’s rail network suffered a “train communication issue” that wreaked havoc ahead of Wednesday afternoon’s peak hour rush — with commuters being shut out of stations and being told that the “entire network is down”.

Sydney Trains has updated commuters on the issue, urging them to allow for plenty of extra travel time as services stopped across the city.

“Trains are not running due a train communication issue. Please use alternate travel options where possible,” the official Twitter account posted at 3.50pm. “We expect this to continue into afternoon peak services.

“Allow plenty of extra travel time due to a train communication issue. Trains may stop on platforms or between stations for longer than normal while the issue is ongoing.”

TripView showed several services from Central to Circular Quay were delayed by almost an hour at 3.30pm.

By 3.37pm, Strathfield station had wiped its services board clean.

Commuters were told over the loudspeaker at Central that “the whole network has stopped”, while others were being turned away before reaching their platform.

“This is a big issue, we dont know when trains will go. And will go into peak time,” commuters were told over the loudspeaker.

Footage posted to social media also showed commuters being turned away at the turnstiles at Town Hall station.....

That will take hours to clear.

Cheers.

Yet another train comes off the tracks. :-(

West Virginia train derailment injures 3, rockslide causes fiery diesel fuel and oil spill.

A train derailment in West Virginia on Wednesday morning left three people injured and caused a fire after diesel fuel and oil spilled out onto the ground.

CSX said in a statement that four locomotives and 22 empty train cars derailed in Summers County near the New River. The company said that the lead locomotive, carrying a conductor, engineer, and an engineer trainee, caught fire and the crew members suffered non-life threatening injuries.

The company also said that an unoccupied locomotive was left partially in the river after the derailment, adding that oil and diesel fuel spilled. Environmental containment measures were in place after the derailment.

"An unknown quantity of diesel fuel and oil spilled from the derailed locomotives and environmental measures will be deployed in the New River for containment," CSX said. "There were no hazardous materials being transported by this train. The incident posed no danger to the public."...

The story just keeps getting worse. :-(

Railcars with loose wheels discovered during cleanup, Norfolk Southern says.

Norfolk Southern — the railway company whose train derailed last month in East Palestine, Ohio, contaminating the surrounding area with toxic chemicals — announced Thursday night that it had determined that some of its railcars, of a specific make and model, had loose wheels.

During its cleanup of the derailment site, Norfolk Southern investigators discovered that a "specific model and series of railcars had loose wheels," the company said in a news release Thursday night, calling the discovery "an urgent safety issue."

The wheels came from "a series of recently acquired cars from a specific manufacturer," Norfolk Southern said.

Norfolk Southern did not identify the manufacturer, or say if or how many of the railcars specifically involved in the East Palestine crash were part of that model and series....

Oh b*****r.
It's never good to have a loose wheel on a rail vehicle :-(
This report poses several questions, including how old were the wheelsets in question (a wheelset is the combination of wheel, axle and bearings); where are the manufacturing records for those wheels, including press-on forces (wheels are press fitted to the axle and the force required is measured for every wheel, then every nth wheelset has the "push-off" force measured along with a whole load of dimension). Are there records of hot bearings associated with the affected batches of wheelsets? (a trend of these wheelsets running hot may indicate poor assembly or may lead to the wheel/axle interface loosening).
Lots for the investigation teams to get their teeth into.

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

When Trump got in his big push was to eliminate all the red tape "holding back" businesses.

However, when you hear business complaining about red tape, what they are complaining about is that their profits aren't nearly as high as they would like them to be, and cutting back on time consuming practices- such as inspecting products for compliance to safety standards- and getting rid of the staff that are no longer required once those checks (and often the very standards themselves have been removed) is a great way of reducing those costs of doing business.
Naturally, none of those savings are passed on in reduced purchase prices to the customer, but the customer does end up with increased costs due to the crappy quality of the product they have bought, and the lost time & money from the impact to their business in repairing/replacing the crappy product & the impact that failed product has had on them doing business.

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Grant
Darwin NT

When will the wheels be pulled? After the next derailment, greedy profits come first...

Fixed it for you. ;-)

I have nothing against companies making a reasonable profit, but these days that "reasonable" bit doesn't seem to be enough when gouging can be had instead. :-(

Not a good evening for travelling home by train.

Sydney’s rail network has suffered a “train communication issue” that wreaking havoc ahead of the afternoon’s peak hour rush.

A 2015 system already becoming obsolete? Who didn't do their homework?

Sydney trains digital radio system parts 'obsolete', according to confidential report.

In the case of communications or computers it is obsolete by the time it comes off the assembly line.

Great result for the climate.
Let the train take the strain

Not a good evening for travelling home by train.

Sydney’s rail network has suffered a “train communication issue” that wreaking havoc ahead of the afternoon’s peak hour rush.

A 2015 system already becoming obsolete? Who didn't do their homework?

Sydney trains digital radio system parts 'obsolete', according to confidential report.

Guess what?
More chaos on the Sydney train network. Apparently there are urgent signalling repairs being carried out at Homebush.

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Grant
Darwin NT

The whole UK rail system seems to have been affected by a spate of signal failures recently. Sometimes these are attributed to the theft of electrical wiring from the trackside, but more often it's just left as a generic report without further explanation.

Burrowing badgers halt Dutch train services https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/badgers-trains-netherlands-intl-scli/index.html

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