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Working on something for the Brick Train Awards and thought it might be useful for the LUG train layout to have support infrastructure like this. Granted, not as close to the track as this entry example (since our steam engines are huge) but I could generate some transformers, signals, and track lubricators (which this is) as components that can be installed on open spaces.
@philmatt24, this may relate to your interests.
I did not even know “trackside lubricators” were a thing. I just googled and went down a bit of a rabbit hole looking at different manufacturer’s websites. Very interesting.
Yes, we should definitely have one of these on our train layouts. Anyone in the train industry (or a real train-knowledgeable person, which I am not) will recognize and appreciate the authenticity.
Oddly enough, I was looking into that today. Considering how often the big trains mysteriously get a little wheel off the rail on the outer loops, I figure that would be imperative. LOLOLOL
Is a defect detector the kind of device that is needed to prevent more East Palestine, Ohio derailments?
It’s one of the tools at a train company’s disposal. The Ohio Incident had a hot box thermal sensor going off and the brass at Norfolk Southern is rumored to have told the engineer to keep going, which melted the metal wheels and axles, causing the derailment.
Thankfully it wasn’t THAT bad. Defect detectors are usually spaced every 10-20 miles along the tracks and log quite a bit of data about the trains that pass, but they send a necessarily-short audio report to the engineer over the radio (they’re busy driving, they can’t read a digital report on all 400+ axles in their train), typically their milepost location, “no defects” or “defect at axle N, stop the train”, and the total axle count of the train.
(As an aside, train cars are not fitted with individual sensors because trackside detectors usually do the job well enough and are a far lower maintenance burden than active electronics and power supplies on every car in a dozen or more national fleets (some cars aren’t owned by the railroads, but leasing companies).)
The train involved in East Palestine, OH passed numerous defect detectors as it approached the accident site, but the three closest to the accident are the relevant ones. The first registered a slightly high wheel bearing temperature, but nothing very abnormal (I’m not sure how different it was compared to other wheels, it was somewhat hotter than the air, but that seems reasonable for a moving wheel). The second detector 10 miles later registered a significantly higher temperature, but still not quite high enough to trigger any alarm, and there’s no system in place (that I know of) that would track trends for a given wheelset across different detectors to give short post-analysis reports to the crews that something is heating up rapidly even when it’s not yet critical.
When the train passed the third detector, 20 miles after the second, the bearing had reached a high enough temperature to trigger a severe alarm and the engineer began stopping the train almost immediately, but that takes a couple minutes when you’re slowing down several thousand tons of train that stretches a mile or more in length, and the wheelset failed catastrophically before the train came to a complete stop, causing the derailment (and throwing the whole train into an emergency stop when the brake hoses disconnected as a result).
Now, could NS higher-ups have decided to set the alarm thresholds across the whole railroad a bit higher than was prudent? Sure, that’s possible, false alarms would make lots of trains stop mid-line and clog up the system, so maybe they went a little far. But could ANYONE have told that train crew “ignore the hotbox, keep going”? No, there was no time or middleman passing along the defect report to say “this sounded an alarm, but keep going”, and no reasonable engineer would have listened to that anyway because, just as you said, the only way “keep going” ends is the wheelset melting (as we all saw when the train derailed). I’m not sure where this rumor came from but to be blunt, I think it’s rather ridiculous. They’re at fault, sure, but not that directly.
A video I watched not long after the accident (and just rewatched to make sure I was accurate) is https://youtu.be/uPno1IVTkFY from Practical Engineering, it explains things really well for folks who aren’t familiar with railroads (or this particular aspect of them).
Well, yes and no. Actually, it was a policy of NS to let the brass tell engineers to disregard warnings, not simply a rumor. There’s an article on Propublica and more sources/accounts of it if you want to actually dig into it. NS also has a history of stretching maintenance and safety protocols for sake of profit, even overworking skeleton-sized crews into exhaustion. NS were not helpful toward NTSB’s investigation of incident, at some point, seemingly trying to hinder it outright. They also disregarded an engineer’s concerns about the size of the consist the day before and I can’t remember where but it was documented at the time that the engineer on the train was told to keep chugging before this happened. So you can’t simply blame a faulty track sensor for all of what happened in Ohio. It was the brass, their operational policies, and oversizing train consists to minimize costs culminating into one very bad day for Ohio.
Fortunately, we won’t have that problem here as I don’t think anyone has a Lego NS diesel engine. However, I do have a tanker car and a larger one in the works and I loved the first responder scene Will made with them and his beautiful fire trucks. 🙂
As for these modules, I’ll keep working on the designs and get them built for the next train show and we’ll see how many engineers spot them. Between them and the Behemoth Bridge, got lots to build! XD
I wasn’t blaming the sensor (faulty or otherwise), but I may look deeper now, so thank you for the info and also for the nudge back to the main topic. I look forward to seeing the lubricators and detectors in the future!
This is all fascinating. Thank you @gabevistica and @playingwithechoes for your insights.
@philmatt24, this may relate to your interests.
Saw the new thread email but it’s been a busy week… yeah, the ol’ Protector IV, eh? Wonder if I’d get in trouble if I got our new centrifuge logo for us to print on the front…
Protector X could be fun to model, especially the interior.
Excellent work, @playingwithechoes! Just, not nearly enough grease on the ties & ballast. 😉
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