Funny Story - How Many Cars?

[AARR]

From Elba at MIRR.com

Train #502 CN east reported to dispatcher that he left Flint with 102 axles on his wheel, but when he went by the detector at Lapeer road, it gave him a readout of 106 axles. An additional car apparently not on his wheel. Dispatcher made some calls, and checked out some things, and lo and behold, declares they have a mystery car on his train. Dispatcher has given engineer instructions to stop his train in the middle of a block over by Lapeer somewhere, drop off the conductor and do a slow rollby to find the mystery car. He then has permission to back up, and pick up the conductor. Engineer has now reported that the mystery car is really not there. The 7th car back from the locomotive (a BNSF unit) has 8 axles (depressed flat)instead of 4. Embarrassing moment for all. So, the wheel was correct. Train is now on move to Port Huron. Kinda' funny when you think about it.

[Mark Rummel]

I don't know how the technology works, but I always wondered what percentage of these detectors DO make mistakes. In my former days as a printer, with a numbering machine counting sheets, adding numbers, we had many more low-tech errors than we needed.

I figure on some of these cold mornings some pressure point would be iced over or something, and numbers could vary. I guess I thought this maybe happened more often than it seems to?

[AARR]

I figure on some of these cold mornings some pressure point would be iced over or something, and numbers could vary. I guess I thought this maybe happened more often than it seems to?

A few have posted their own stories to the original thread.

It has happened more than once but it does not seem to be a common defect. One of the posters, a former GTW/CN engineer, said that if a person pays attention to their paper work they can save themselves a lot of problems whenever the get an unexpected defector reading.

[BnOEngr]

We get many instances where a detector will be one or two off in either direction on axle counts.

[RRTTF]

Makes one wonder when and where the train had its last terminal (Class 1) air test, which requires inspecting the train front to back on both sides. If they did the proper inspection, the crew should have noticed an 8-axle car in the train, assuming that there had not been a change of crew since the terminal air test.

But, praise should be given to the crew. They noted something "unusual" and took appropriate action to ensure that all was well, rather than just taking an "oh well" attitude. BETTER SAFE, THAN SORRY! As always, SAFETY FIRST!

[CSX_CO]

Makes one wonder when and where the train had its last terminal (Class 1) air test, which requires inspecting the train front to back on both sides. If they did the proper inspection, the crew should have noticed an 8-axle car in the train, assuming that there had not been a change of crew since the terminal air test.

But, praise should be given to the crew. They noted something "unusual" and took appropriate action to ensure that all was well, rather than just taking an "oh well" attitude. BETTER SAFE, THAN SORRY! As always, SAFETY FIRST!

What if a car department is responsible for the Class I air tests, and the first time the crew has any experience with the train is when they put the outbound power on?

Sounds like the CN computer system didn't recognize the car as being 8 axles. Most railroads are tied into the UMLER information on the given cars, which specifies axles. A lot of 'extra cars' are simply cars that haven't had their UMLER data updated to reflect additional axles. We have a lot of 'ash' cars that are draw bar connected single bay airslides. These are 'new' cars that were joined with drawbars. Had a lot of 'false extra cars' until the fleet was updated to reflect 2 car bodies and 8 axles.

Not that mistakes don't happen. Just this morning had a series of cars 'blow out' of the computer at Avon. I found some of them, but Q642 left with 9 cars on their train, that were not on the track list because of the computer error.

Practice Safe CSX

[Typhoon]

Makes one wonder when and where the train had its last terminal (Class 1) air test, which requires inspecting the train front to back on both sides. If they did the proper inspection, the crew should have noticed an 8-axle car in the train, assuming that there had not been a change of crew since the terminal air test.

Most road crews do not do the terminal air test.

[AARR]

From Bill at MIRR.com

When you get a train wheeled by the BNSF or the UP, it has a cumulative axle count column on it, which indicates how many axles each car in the train has, and the total number of axles. The CN has, for some reason, set up their program as to not print this column on our wheels. Therefore it can be a witch hunt sometimes determining the amount of axles you are supposed to have in your train. This is really bothersome with intermodal trains. In those cases most conductors will call the dispatcher after passing the first defect detector, to simply confirm the correct axle count for their train.

It is essential that we know how many axles our train has, and if too many, what and where the extra car is. Hazardous car placement, or an unknown hazardous car in your train, is nothing to be toyed with, and can result in serious monetary fines against the crew. Therefore most are a little anal with the subject. But, as in the case stated above, if the conductor actually saw the suspect car pull by him while doing a pickup, and just didn't see it, one has to wonder what else me missed inspecting the cars as they passed???

[Jochs]

We get many instances where a detector will be one or two off in either direction on axle counts.

The high car detector at Porter on the Amtrak line used to do that.

A local would back up onto the Amtrak line for a signal to go west on the then Conrail line, and get, say 4 axles for the engine, then go forward after getting the signal and only have 3 axles.

DD66.2 on the Grand Rapids sub has been messing up as well, as Amtrak last night had 18 axles there, while having the correct number of 16 at DD91.9.

[GLLX3002]

A friend who is a former employee of CSX said that when he would leave his home terminal they would have a Class 1 does by the car department. All he was responsible for was the first 6 cars.

I, on the other hand, never had those luxuries.

[J T]

From Elba at MIRR.com

Train #502 CN east reported to dispatcher that he left Flint with 102 axles on his wheel, but when he went by the detector at Lapeer road, it gave him a readout of 106 axles. An additional car apparently not on his wheel.

Is there a word missing from this "on his wheel" phrase? I've never heard that before. On his wheel count?

[GLLX3002]

From Elba at MIRR.com

Train #502 CN east reported to dispatcher that he left Flint with 102 axles on his wheel, but when he went by the detector at Lapeer road, it gave him a readout of 106 axles. An additional car apparently not on his wheel.

Is there a word missing from this "on his wheel" phrase? I've never heard that before. On his wheel count?

I think when AARR says "wheel" he is referring to the Wheel Report.

[AARR]

I think when AARR says "wheel" he is referring to the Wheel Report.

I copy and pasted verbatim. I don't know what Elba was referring too

[C&O6084]

C&O tested out a design for an articulated, 3-axle coal hopper, #300001. It worked pretty well, except that it messed up the RRs weigh-in-motion scales: they'd work properly intil #300001 rolled by, then, the weight on 300001s last truck would be added to the first truck of the next car, and the error would repeat to the end of the train, with the last car getting half the weight of the caboose.
so, 300K+1 sat around Raceland for some years before it was finally scrapped.

[J T]

I copy and pasted verbatim. I don't know what Elba was referring too

I'm glad to see I'm not the only naive one here.

[AARR]

I copy and pasted verbatim. I don't know what Elba was referring too

I'm glad to see I'm not the only naive one here.

At least your relevant
And Elba heard/read about the question here and responded

On one of the "other sites"...someone posted my initial report of this incident. Now it seems as though some folks are dumbfounded as to the reference to the word "wheel". In this case, I've heard some CN crews refer to their computer manifest as "the wheel", some refer to it as "their mark-up", some call it their "car index". I hope this clarifies the confusion. Also, there was no detector error. The first readout at Lapeer road (one of the new detectors) was the same as when they went over the one at MP 283.0 (Elba rd.) Both called out 106 axles.

[J T]

"Dumbfounded" is a little strong. I simply hadn't heard that term before and was curious.

[AARR]

"Dumbfounded" is a little strong. I simply hadn't heard that term before and was curious.

I thought "dumbfounded" was a little strong too. Elba is very patient answering questions and a solid contributer so it's possible he is not happy about me posting his observation here. If that's the case I hope he's not a lawyer

[AARR]

From Ron at MIRR.com

All railroads use the same types of documents, although they are known by different names.

The CN "Wheel Report" will list the train from the Locomotives back to the rear car. The Union Pacific lists theirs from the rear car to the Locomotives. (At least they did when I last worked)

And in the last few years FRA and Management became real snotty about maintaining a proper wheel report when work is done en route.

If you set-out some cars, then you need to renumber the wheel to represent this. If you pick-up some cars....the same thing. Lord help you if you got boarded en route and who ever asked to see your wheel report, it better be correct. And it was supposed to be brought up-to-date before the train left the location where the consist changed.

And of course there is a valid reason for knowing the order of the train if any additions or subtractions to the train have occurred. If the train ever went in the ditch, the location of any hazardous railcars is right up there at the top of the "We need to know" list.

When it came to doing paperwork en route....a Coal Train, either loaded or empty was the best train to be on, in my opinion. No hazardous, (usually) no work en route, get on it and go. They would be of such a length that we knew where we could easily stop them to stay off crossings. And when you got there....get off it and go home, or go to the hotel.

From Bill at MIRR.com

"The Wheel" or Wheel Report, is a listing of all the cars in our train, their loading status, type of car, contents, excessive dimensions, weight, hazardous instructions, etc. I guess you could call it a Manifest, although I've never heard that term used on the CN before.

Our "Markup" is a listing of the train number, crew, on duty time, locomotives in the consist, the amount of loaded cars, the amount of empty cars, total tons of the train, total length of the train, and the fuel readings of all the locomotives. This information is gathered from the Wheel, our Call Sheet and the sight glasses on the fuel tanks. This information is given verbally to the Dispatcher. We also keep track of this information in our time books for pay purposes.

The other document we have to have in our possession while on duty is the Tabular General Bulletin Orders, or TGBO's for short. This lists all the current Operating Bulletins that are in effect, as well as any slow orders, foreman work orders that are in effect, plus other important information we need to know about for the trackage we will be using during that shift. The train number listed on this document must match the train number listed on our Wheel and our Call Sheet.

[BnOEngr]

A friend who is a former employee of CSX said that when he would leave his home terminal they would have a Class 1 does by the car department. All he was responsible for was the first 6 cars.

I, on the other hand, never had those luxuries.

Now they tell us that we just trust the paperwork and don't have to check anything other than handbrakes on the first couple cars.