# SHOCKING !!



## Madman (Jan 5, 2008)

I found this photo while browsing some photo sites posted by Spule 4 back in November of "09. I found this photo particularly interesting. In reality, I know that one would be perfectly safe climbing aboard this train, even though one's feet were planted deep in the water, and one hand was on the handrail.


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## Spule 4 (Jan 2, 2008)

Shocking, not likely, but would be cause for pause. Great pic regardless! 

Schwimmkrok?









The fear from a friend that is an engineer in the 1:1 world when on tracks under water is if there is any wash-out or sub grade damage that cannot be seen. 

Another longinte friend of the family who had a job that took him all over the world has VHS movies shot in the 1980s of riding (as a passenger) NG trains in China, the same speed was maintained if the track was dry or under a foot of water!


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## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

Intresting!! How deep would it have to get to short out the traction motors?


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## stanman (Jan 4, 2008)

Posted By markoles on 07 Jan 2010 09:14 AM 
Intresting!! How deep would it have to get to short out the traction motors? 

Just my guess, but I imagine the motors are pretty well sealed up because they're exposed to rain and snow.


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## coyote97 (Apr 5, 2009)

Its a masked submarine of the Neptune-Class.

Panthographs are just fake, really its a periscope.

Look at the front! There are two torpedos looking out!


Frank


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## Spule 4 (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By stanman on 07 Jan 2010 09:55 AM 
Posted By markoles on 07 Jan 2010 09:14 AM 
Intresting!! How deep would it have to get to short out the traction motors? 

Just my guess, but I imagine the motors are pretty well sealed up because they're exposed to rain and snow. I think the folks that run the Chunnel service had the same thoughts until recently?


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## Chris France (Jan 3, 2008)

I know that on US Diesels you're not supposed to run through water that is much, if any above the railhead. It will flash the traction motors in a hurry. It is my understanding that a few Railroads in floodprone areas during the 50s kept some steam engines around for floods as they can run through water up to the grates.


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

My fiest impression was those must be large drivers, because of the traction motors. The I wondered if they used a jackshaft drive as that would allow higher motor mounts. 

It's a lot easier to protect a motor from rain and snow than immersion. A lot of Katrina locos had to be rebuilt after being flooded... 

John


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## coyote97 (Apr 5, 2009)

as far as i see, this is a loco with the socalled "Buchli-Antrieb".

The motors are operating from the top of the axle over a single gear-transmission. The specialty of this traction was the suspension. while the motor is fixed in the chassis, the big gearwheel on the axle and the axle itself may move one to each other, so the heavy motors are not un-suspended weight. (Great construction!!!)

For that, the loco can go deeper as others, no question. 

Frank


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## sschaer (Jan 2, 2008)

this is a ae4/7 loco... 7 axles, 4 powered. there was a smaller ae3/6... 6 axles, 3 powered. they're long gone. but i still remember them from my youth.

the first two prototypes were built in 1925. between 1927 and 1934 a total of 127 units were delivered. last run on a scheduled train was in 1996.

for those of you speaking german : http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SBB_Ae_4/7


btw, they had 3120 horses....


an old movie on youtube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDr2x20AMY0




just found out : obviously two of the remaining units have been rebuilt, upgraded with the latest train traffic security gadgets and are back in service !!


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## Madman (Jan 5, 2008)

Thanks for the movie. Enjoyed it thouroughly. I must say, those early Electrics were certainly not given too much thought as far as looks were concerned. Maybe the industrial design trade hadn't quite taken root.


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## Dale W (Jan 5, 2008)

A question that is unrelated this thread but one that I have always been curious: 
Why haven't the Europeans adopted our style of couplers or we (US) haven't adopted their link and bumper/shock absorber style? Would think one system would be preferable to the other. What am I missing here? 

Dale


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## Madman (Jan 5, 2008)

Posted By Dale W on 14 Jan 2010 10:28 AM 
A question that is unrelated this thread but one that I have always been curious: 
Why haven't the Europeans adopted our style of couplers or we (US) haven't adopted their link and bumper/shock absorber style? Would think one system would be preferable to the other. What am I missing here? 

Dale 

That's a good question. And one that I have wondered about myself. Unfortunately, I have no answer for you. 
The knuckle coupler is self coupling. While the hook and link requires a brakeman. The hook and link have a tightening device that draws the cars together. So I believe this eliminates slack. I may be incorrect about that, but from appearances, that's the way I see it operating. Now if the slack is eliminated, the loco would have the entire weight of the train at startup. Then again, European trains are not as long as trains here. Anyway, that's what my mind makes of it. Maybe some of the rocket guys here can enlighten us.


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## Torby (Jan 2, 2008)

The knuckle coupler still needs somebody to hook up the brake pipe and turn the valve handles. It was just Janning's solution to having to stand between the moving cars with your hand in the crush spot.

I think Europe never adopted the knuckle because they didn't have that horrible railroader eating link & pin mess that you had to hold in place as the cars come together. Instead, the cars meet, and when they stop, the man goes in and hooks them together.

As far as needing slack to start the train, that's a myth. It's far easier to get the train started if it's already stretched out. If the loco had a transmition and clutch, you'd never the the whole train moving at once and you would need slack, but both a steam engine, and an electric traction motor develop their full torque at 0 rpm, so the engine doesn't need to get moving before it can pull. If the train has slack, they'll move the loco slowly until the eot device tells them it's moving, then they'll put the power on and "take off." The amp meter (in an electric loco) is marked at the maximum sustained current, and the maximum current for 15 minutes. For take off, they get the train stretched out, then run it up to the 15 minute setting till the train is moving the speed they want or 15 minutes, whichever comes first, then back the power down.


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## Madman (Jan 5, 2008)

Thank you. That was very interesting and informative. You learn something every day, I always say. Although, with some poeple I work with, I think I've forgotten more than they'll ever know.


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## coyote97 (Apr 5, 2009)

@the coupler question:

those hooks and bumpers are a traditional development and like said before, the link-and-pin solution of the early american RR is THAT bad a solution that they had to find a better one.
For more, in Europe we dont have that long trains, because the knuckle couplers can hold MUCH more than our hooks. one point more not to change.

In Europe, the UK delivered the first engines and RR technologies for some years. so all the countries here gained the same construction.
Nowadays its very difficult to change the system, beause of international car-changing, u should change ALL couplers in ALL countries.

And for more, we proof since many years, that we dont want to get fitted to foreign system when we are not able to over-complex those systems completely.

We HAVE knuckle couplers.

But for sure (we´re German, dont forget...) we added all automatic device we could find:

automatic air coupling, automatic electrical connection, automatic uncoupling, specialized couplers from tram to heavyload, a breakfasttable and a dishwasher......

In the end, NOONE of those System proofed to work, because they are much too complex.

This way, we are beating down every effort for new couplers since MANY years.


Our hooksolution is a bit weak, working-intensive, in no way to make working automatically(not even for uncoupling) and the bumpers are often a problem for to go in sharp industrial diameter curves.

But its OURS.
And we are PROUD of.

At least.....it seems like that..... 

Frank


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## Dale W (Jan 5, 2008)

Interesting responses. 
I can appreciate the fact it would be nearly impossible to change systems now with the amount of equipment in use. However I am surprised to hear that knuckle couplers are in use in Europe. In my few and very brief visits there I don't recall seeing cars with knuckle couplers but that wouldn't be surprising i didn't. But this must pose a problem with car interchanging. Or are cars/locos with knuckle type couplers confined to certain railroads? 

Torby: I was always under the impression (perhaps mistakenly) that steam locos were not efficient in starting loads compared to diesels. I recall an old saying, when discussing/ arguing the relative merits of steam vs diesel: that steam couldn't start loads they could run at speed whereas diesel could not run at speed with with loads they could start. While this is obvious incorrect it pointed out (at least I thought) the relative strength of each motive of power. 

Dale


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Dunno about Dismals, but with steam you often have to back-up the engine to compress the train against the slack and then start forward, jerking each car in the train forward, one at a time, to get the whole train moving.

Trying to start a train on an upgrade is difficult with a steam locomotive. The engineer has to set the brakes lightly for the whole train to get it to stand still on the grade and then back it up with enough force to overcome each cars brake to compress the train, and yet not cause the last car to move too far and cause the train to uncompress the slack. The engineer would then set the brakes full on and then start pulling forward and release the brakes. This utilized the propagation of the release down the length of the brake-pipe in conjunction with the engine pulling to get each car start moving forward one at a time. If the engineer can time it right so that the force of forward motion for each car as the slack is taken up coincides with the brakes coming off of the car, the train can be started... otherwise, he has to do it all over again. Trains have been known to have to back up a mile or more in multiple short sequences trying to get it started forward. Some roads had a rule that if you could not get it started in some certain number of attempts they had to split the train and "double-the-hill" (take the train up in multiple sections to an area where it could be re-assembled and be started as a whole).

Freight engineers substituting in a passenger train would jostle the passengers a lot if they thought a passenger train had to start the same way. Passenger trains had few cars and over-powered engines so they could start a train without compressing the slack (and knocking the passengers about!).

My Mother told a story on herself when she was a little girl (around 1918 or '19) when she and her Mother took a trip. They got passage in a caboose of a freight train. Mom says she was up "swatting flies" before the train started, and the Conductor told her, "You'd better sit down, little girl." and she says she thought, "He's not my Daddy, he can't tell be what to do!" and she deliberately didn't do as he said and continued to chase the flies. She said she then heard a loud rumble in the train in front of her and suddenly she was sitting on the floor! The rumble was the slack being taken up and the impetus to suddenly sit down was the caboose floor being jerked out from under her feet!


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## Dale W (Jan 5, 2008)

I recall from reading accounts of the difficulties getting those long consists started by steam. Pretty much as you describe it. 

Funny story regarding your mothers ride in the caboose. Thanks for sharing. 

I wonder if that was a common practice in the early days of issuing passage in a caboose. Recall my Dad stating there they would attach a passenger car to those short mixed consists and his high school basketball team would travel on them to play other schools. This was in rural Wisconsin during the late 20's. 

Dale


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## ohioriverrailway (Jan 2, 2008)

The B&O had, until just before the onset of Amtrak, a more-or-less scheduled freight train between Parkersburg and Huntingdon WV that utilized a pair of cabeese for the comfort of passengers. Ran on an every-other-day schedule. It once had a coach tacked on the back, but the train never went fast enough, far enough to keep the batteries charged. I actually got to ride it once.


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## Chris France (Jan 3, 2008)

It is a fact that steam engines generate more power once they are moving. They have more power at higher RPMs, that is why the Shay was as successful as it was, the cylinders were moving at a much higher RPM than their rodded counterparts. Even with diesels there are times when we have to take up the slack. 

When we hosted the AAPRCO event at the B&O museum back in 2001 we had to clear our front yard. The front yard is on a VERY steep grade and when I had the GP-38 tied to 20 or so freight cars (some of which had been sitting for a long time) I had to take up the slack to get the whole train up the hill. When you do this it uses momentum to your advantage. Once you get the first car moving, it has momentum, and its therefore easier to get the next car moving. Trust me its not a myth.


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