Railways Recovery In TW2000

[Panther Al]

But, bear in mind most of the old pre-70's era motive power has been scrapped by the time the 90's roll in (mainly because of fuel efficiency and maintenance issues). I think the -2's will be fine, as well as the U-Boats and the Century Series. Dash 8's a maybe, 70's very iffy. The handful of Alco's will still go like gangbusters, but thats about it I think. I think the SF will regret scrapping the Alligators.

[schnickelfritz]

Most of the more obscure models will have been scrapped, but there are still quite a few 600hp-1500hp yard switchers and road switchers in regular use even today, in branch line roles and industrial switching service. You will also be able to find a sizeable number of GP30/GP35/GP38/GP40 general purpose road units as well.

For what we are talking, there will be plenty available. There are plenty of these units in the large BNSF and CN/CP yards in the Chicago area, some still wearing their pre-1987 Milwaukee Road paint.

I'd recommend the rail classifieds at www.railswap.org -You can see a number of these units for sale as well as pictures of the other types of equipment needed.

Occaisionally you even see stuff for sale abroad-

[Panther Al]

True- I didn't even think about the jeeps.


Good catch.

[ArmySGT.]

[Graebarde]

I agree there will be limited use of rail initally, but I think it will be the first industry to be put back 'on line' since it is critical to recovery. As has been siad it IS the best for land travel in ton-mile per gallon of fuel. And the diesel can be fueled with biodiesel..

Operations will be with train order until such time as there are suffieicent trains running to warrent timetables. Bidirectional traffic will be closely watched you can bet. Land line and radio will be used, forget the block systems initally I think. And the inital rails will be run by the government. It will be a while before commercial traffic as we know it will be running again post strike. There will not be a shortage of labor for the refurbishment of the tracks.. many roads are multi-tracks, and the second set will be sacrificed for material to get one good track going. Yes it will be grunt work, for food and security as much as anything else. The use of highway equipment for use as motive power is a possiblity, but stop gap only and perhaps for local divisional use on 100 miles of track of the rail division.

I would see each train with some cars designated as 'passenger' types too, no dedicated passenger service probably, but it will come back faster than bus or highway traffic if for no other reason than fuel constraints.

Yep the Jeeps will see a lot of service as will like sized engines of other manufacture. The 5000 hp bemoths will come back into service, especially hauling coal I think. Coal from western pits will help put the coal power plants back in operation, which will power the industry to rebuild with imo.

A thought on the highway truck as a power source.. if you use a gas engined vehicle, and fabricate a wood-gas generator, you power with wood. I'm not sure how good wood-gas would be in a diesel or if it would even work though.

Rails will be polished again with in due course, faster than I think many think possible. Food needs to be moved from the areas of surplus to other areas, rail is the best method. Fuel from the wells to refineries, and refineries to the 'front' also, and rail will fill the gap in pipelines with diminished supply. Military movements long distance are best put on rails, saving wear and tear on equipment and using less fuel. I think the limited supply of fuel will be allocated in a large part towards the railroads along with the military.

While I REALLY like steam engines, I think they will play a minor role overall in the rail operations. From a maintenance perspective and special needs, especially in the form of water for their operations, they are a pain.. one of the reasons the railroads jumped on dieselization so rapidly in the prewar, and after ww2. It was economics that made it happen. And economics will make it happen post strike in twilight as well, perhaps not the monitary aspects as much as resouce allocation and the best use of resources for the recovery.

Just some thoughts.
Grae

One of the MANY MOS I aquired in the army was a 65K.. Rail Movements Coordinator (dispatcher, station agent, etc) while assisgned to the T-school in the mid 70s. It was a WAR TIME only mos designation too. Nothing like playing on a full sized model railroad system inside the fort. But I digress in my memories...

[Hybris]

Is this possibly to do in a Twilight world on a lower scale?


http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdiges...d-locomotives/

[raketenjagdpanzer]

There's been some work done on my nearby rail system since Florida is bound and determined to have itself a boondoggle in the shape of a "light rail" commuter transport system...but that aside...what I've seen a lot of are trucks fitted with fold-down bogies that drive up and down the railroad track. I wonder if a few of those, towing light trailers of freight, maybe a few passengers (going to work in fields, etc.) wouldn't be the start of a "rail recovery". Of course there's going to be hundreds (thousands?) of rail lines with abandoned trains both passenger and freight just sitting there due to EMP damage to spark systems, etc. - you'd have to find a way to move those depending on where you were and what you needed the rail system for.

But yeah, I could see a rail service truck with bogies hauling a few trailer-fulls of oranges to a central location to convert to fuel or food here in Central Florida.

Come to think on it, maybe the 1st JMC has gotten one up and going to recover fuel from the Sanford Intl. Airport...hmm...