Convoy's!!!

[sic1701]

I am a locomotive engineer, and while my employer (who pays me handsomely) would not be fond of me to discuss operational matters in great detail, I do feel compelled to point out a few things.

Converting road to rail, as in Interstate highway, would be very, very, VERY time and labor-intensive. The rails are clipped to concrete ties (in more modern times) or spiked into wooden ties (old-school)...but you need to have a solid foundation for the ties. One would have to dig a seven-foot wide trench about a foot-and-a-half deep in the road in question, emplace the ties, affix the rails, then fill in the gaps with rock ballast to reduce lateral movement. It may be possible to just put the ties atop the concrete road, affix the rails, then pour ballast (and you would need much more ballast at that point), but even then there would be too much "give" to it and, much like the stories of synchronized marching military formations creating reverberations through a bridge and collapsing it, too much lateral motion would tear your new railroad apart at any kind of speed.

And if you plan to move a train at track speed, you need banked curves; much more steeply than a typical Interstate curve is banked. I don't know exactly how steep (certainly not NASCAR-curve steep...), but when we're stopped on tightly-banked curves, engine vibration will gently nudge your 64-ounce Big Gulp right off the engineer's control stand if you're not paying attention.

The best bet would be to use existing rail...and move very, very slowly. There are many areas in the U.S. where old rail exists, and have federally-mandated 10 MPH speed restrictions (as in, do-not-exceed or you'll be in the dirt...).

[sic1701]

Additionally, a modern diesel locomotive weighs a tad over 200 tons, and there are typically two or three locos for each train. Each has anywhere between 4000-4500 HP (some newer ones are in the 5000 range). An empty coal train of some 110 cars is about 3,000 tons including locos, and a loaded coal train is 17-19,000 tons. Manifest trains (mixed boxcars, covered hoppers, gondolas, tank cars, etc) are generally 5-10,000 tons. Intermodal trains (the long cargo containers, sometimes stacked atop each other, hence double-stacks) are generally 4-8,000 tons.

A loaded coal train takes about 75 gallons of diesel to get up to 50 MPH from a dead stop, and that process takes about 10-15 minutes. There are eight throttle settings; in idle a locomotive burns 3 gallons of diesel per hour. Typical fuel consumption rates are 12 gallons per hour in the lowest throttle setting, ranging up to 210 gallons per hour in full-throttle. A locomotive's fuel tank holds about 4,000 gallons. And they are designed to run 24/7.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by sic1701

Additionally, a modern diesel locomotive weighs a tad over 200 tons, and there are typically two or three locos for each train. Each has anywhere between 4000-4500 HP (some newer ones are in the 5000 range). An empty coal train of some 110 cars is about 3,000 tons including locos, and a loaded coal train is 17-19,000 tons. Manifest trains (mixed boxcars, covered hoppers, gondolas, tank cars, etc) are generally 5-10,000 tons. Intermodal trains (the long cargo containers, sometimes stacked atop each other, hence double-stacks) are generally 4-8,000 tons.

No doubt you would have seen the trains we have here in Western Australia for moving iron ore from the mines to the coast? Multiple big locomotives per train, and each train stretches literally for several kilometres. They don't stop in a great hurry as they carry thousands and thousands of tonnes of ore.

[headquarters]

Originally Posted by Targan

No doubt you would have seen the trains we have here in Western Australia for moving iron ore from the mines to the coast? Multiple big locomotives per train, and each train stretches literally for several kilometres. They don't stop in a great hurry as they carry thousands and thousands of tonnes of ore.

another type - loads of trailers behind a powerful tractor of some sort -was also used by the French in WW1 to bring supplies foreward

[sic1701]

So if you're running at max power and doing 50 MPH, your fuel consumption will be just over 4 gallons of diesel per mile. Per locomotive.

I hope what you have in the convoy is important enough for that fuel outlay.

Regarding the best way to scout ahead, using a "hyrail" vehicle (a truck with small bogey wheels that lower from the bumpers to keep the truck on the track, while the rubber wheels contact the track and provide traction) would be the best bet. Run the train at 10-20 MPH, with the hyrail some 5 miles ahead to monitor track conditions, line improperly-lined switches, check clearances, etc, and radio progress back to the lead unit while 4x4s roam parallel to the tracks to provide perimeter security (beware that railcars are 50-60 feet long on average, so if you have a sizable train you may have plenty of room between your rovers for ambushers to mess things up).

Also, modern locomotives are very sophisticated and very dependent upon computers and electric apparatus to run. I question whether or not they could even run at all after EMP. The U.S. rail system may then be relegated to steam operations only.

I didn't work during Y2K, but I did see some paperwork in an archive that crew instructions were to stop the train by ten minutes to midnight on 12-31-99 and await the go-ahead from the dispatchers, just in case switches malfunctioned (a very much bad thing when traveling over them at speed) or onboard computers dumped. Everything worked without hitch, I am told, but I seriously doubt that EMP would be that forgiving. Maybe the special EMP-resistant computer chips from one of the early T2K modules could be used to get an EMP-damaged locomotive up and running; that's an idea for a story or two. Or, perhaps, the small electric locos used in mines.

And finally, an empty railcar is about 25-30 tons. A hyrail vehicle, even a sturdily-built one, isn't going to move one easily or quickly, and not without great power consumption. So the idea of rigging up a Kenilworth as a hyrailer and pulling a coal train isn't going to cut it. You MIGHT move a single empty car, IF you can obtain enough traction (the bogey wheels aren't powered). And let's see you stop, once you get moving. I've seen backhoes affix a cable to a car's coupler and gingerly pull it into place, but that, too, is very resource-intensive.

Hope this helps.

[sic1701]

Targan, I've seen pictures of those goliath trains...how do they keep from getting knuckles? (i.e. broken couplers) Is it all flatland there? Or do they get up to speed and just idle from there?

If you want to find the train-related threads and give 'em a little bump, I'll see what I can do in terms of correcting or updating or expanding. Everything I've said tonight, and will say in this open forum, can be found on the Internet with a little looking either in open literature or on the umpteen thousand railfan sites (we call them "foamers", but we love 'em just like the Air Force pukes love the fans taking pictures from lawn chairs at the ends of runways; it's like our own papparazi...). Regarding certain operational matters, it isn't so much that they're classified top-secret like SIOP but that we can get into serious trouble if we discuss them, as well as jeopardize the ability of my employer to do their thing that pays my mortgage...and keeps my electricity going so I can get on the Juhlin site.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by sic1701

Targan, I've seen pictures of those goliath trains...how do they keep from getting knuckles? (i.e. broken couplers) Is it all flatland there? Or do they get up to speed and just idle from there?

Australia in general is a very flat continent. It sits in the middle of its own tectonic plate and hasn't had any volcanic activity of any note for billions of years so erosion has worn away most of the tall terrain features. I guess that is why Australia has such a huge mining industry - most of the work of getting down through the sedimentary layers to the goodies has already been done for us by erosion.

In the Pilbara region of Western Australia where most of the iron ore mining is done there are a few mountain ranges (in name only, really they are more like hills) but they mostly aren't in the way and where they are in the way the rail lines rarely go over them, they mostly travel through cuts blasted through the ridges.

[weswood]

Great info Sic1701.

Do you have any opinions of the Going Home module you'd care to share? As Targan said, specialist info is gold here.

[rcaf_777]

It should be noted that the US Army maintains troops speically trained to contduct Railroad operations, see attached document, it is my understanding that one unit would deploy to Europe, while the other would running operations stateside, Canadian Army also created a unit for the Canadian Army in TW 2000, I'll posted it when I find it

[Targan]

Originally Posted by sic1701

I am a locomotive engineer, and while my employer (who pays me handsomely) would not be fond of me to discuss operational matters in great detail, I do feel compelled to point out a few things.

Thanks for posting sic1701. We've had many train-themed discussions here and at the old boards over the years. I wish we'd had you around back then to answer questions! If you have the time and the interest, feel free to maybe look through the thread list and the archives and bump any old train-related threads that perk your interest. Specialist knowledge is like gold around here, IMHO.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by Targan

If you have the time and the interest, feel free to maybe look through the thread list and the archives and bump any old train-related threads that perk your interest. Specialist knowledge is like gold around here, IMHO.

I added the tag "trains" to this thread. (It is near the bottom)
You can click on that to see a few other threads I have tagged with "trains".