Just In Case You Thought It Was Easy..

Anything pertaining to railfanning in Michigan.
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Doktor No
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Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2015 4:49 pm
Location: Rockford, Michigan

Just In Case You Thought It Was Easy..

Unread post by Doktor No »

Curb Your Enthusiasm.

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TSB
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Joined: Sun Apr 27, 2008 7:20 pm
Location: Florida

Re: Just In Case You Thought It Was Easy..

Unread post by TSB »

I understand Doctor No's anger (presumed)

As owner of TSB I allowed many people to operate locomotives.
I even allowed the grade school class of
one of my grandchildren to bring their parents and
go for a loco ride. They rode in a passenger car and several at a time came into the loco
and were allowed to operate it. (The parents were excited but were not allowed to touch anything.)

The kids had an experience they will never forget. They executed most functions of the loco.

However, standing directly behind them, against the engineer's seat, stood the Supervisor of Locomotive Engineers.
He an engineer of many years experience.

My long standing opinion on the talents of RR Engineers is that the actions required of engineers are refined over years
of experience but do not rise to a great deal of manual talent.

What is special about engineers are the decisions and complex processes they have mastered. Truck drivers (although they
master special talents) do not operate with a hundred trailors coupled behind them and thirty million pounds of steel
riding on their ass.

Mr Menk should have spent more time with his employees.
5 years on college faculties
34 years working on railroads

RR is more fun

PatAzo
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Re: Just In Case You Thought It Was Easy..

Unread post by PatAzo »

Must not be any truck drivers out there. I'm sure one would have commented on the rigors of being surrounded by idiots everyday on the highway.

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justalurker66
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Re: Just In Case You Thought It Was Easy..

Unread post by justalurker66 »

Too busy trucking to complain. :)
Since he was in passenger service shouldn't he be a "glorified bus driver"? He should have bragged about the number of busloads of people behind his engine instead of the equivalent number of semi-trailers on a freight train.

But seriously ...

It is a good article about the author's personal experience. He stayed away from a detailed rebuke of the engineer and Amtrak when referring to the Cascades accident.

As far as the Cascades accident, according to the NTSB interviews the engineer made the training runs in Charger equipment. So this was NOT the first time he was ever behind the controls of the Charger train. The only issue reported in the transcripts was the overspeed indicator sounded different. It was not clear if the training runs were made at full speed.

It is obvious that less than a handful of runs (two north one south behind the controls - the rest "observing" with some "observation" done not from the lead engine) was NOT enough.

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Doktor No
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Location: Rockford, Michigan

Re: Just In Case You Thought It Was Easy..

Unread post by Doktor No »

TSB, you are spot on. An engineer knows the territory milepost by milepost, the good ones anyway, and I worked with many. Every hill, dip and crossing is in the back of your mind at all times. Every train being DIFFERENT in its behavior, every train air being different demands utmost attention at all times. Using air to get the train to behave...is a lost art form. Now its DYNAMICS and no air EVER. You get what you had east of GR with trains torn apart on the hills east of Williamston...its just a major PIA...and that's why they NEVER ran ginormous trains....too hilly. Think about driving a 2 mile long slinky, with varying diamaters on the coils of that slinky, up and down multiple hills and around curves. I never wanted to do it. I preferred being Mr Conductor and watching the countryside go by....8-) Throw in the older cars back in the 70's with cushion drawbars and a couple of feet of slack in each car times 40 or 50 cars...then add auto racks with finicky air valves that produced kickers a lot of the time...naaa....I'm riding.
Reason number 20 as to why I went into the yard!
Curb Your Enthusiasm.

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