Them Ol' Steem injines

Mon Aug 17 17:11:54 EDT 2015

WHEW!

EdKing

From: NW Mailing List 
Sent: Monday, August 17, 2015 2:05 PM
To: NW Mailing List 
Subject: Re: Them Ol' Steem injines

OOPS! I was thinking about a single train. I forgot about having a pusher back there. In which case, Ed's explanation is correct.

Jimmy Lisle

On 8/17/2015 10:40 AM, NW Mailing List wrote:

  On 8/16/2015 10:53 AM, NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List wrote: 

    Ed, how did they manage to get those trains started using slack in their favor?? 

  Dave, 
      The same way that you start one of today's trains on the mountain. First of all you have to have good traction. Good sanders are a must! And, we can all see from old photos of all of that white sand on the track on the Blue Ridge grade that the engines must have had some pretty good sanders. Today's diesel powered trains may be even harder to start than one with a steam locomotive. The reason being is that the axles of a diesel are not interconnected like those on a steam loco. If one axle begins to slip, then the unit starts dropping its load and if you are up against the tonnage limit, you have to stop and start over again in order to get the power back to the rails. I have had this happen many a time. If you know you are going to have to stop on a heavy grade, it is a very good idea to stop on sand so that when you do try to start the train, it is there when you need it...not inches or feet away. 
      The other thing is easing into the power. You can get away on the mountain without taking slack. You just have to be patient, easing into the power in order not to slip the drivers. 
      There were a very very few times in the rain when the sanders were out of sand or they were not putting much sand on the rail, that I had to use a small amount of engine brake in order to keep a lead axle from slipping in order to keep from stalling the train. How that was done is one of the little tricks that I kept in my "Book of Experience" and not something to be tried by the casual engineer. 
      And, while I am on the subject of keeping a train from stalling, there were many times when traction was a hard thing to come by that easing off of the throttle was the way to get over the hill. Even with a tonnage train, you can usually get over the hill in the 6th notch and I had to do that when the conditions warranted it. 

  Jimmy Lisle 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
________________________________________
NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
To change your subscription go to
http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
http://www.avast.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20150817/53028b4c/attachment.html>