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sectorTVA

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    Yard Safety

    in Metal Heads

    Posted

    Originally posted by aederone

    i've never painted in a yard before and i found one today (middle of nowhere) and i was wondering if anyone cold give me some advice.....like how to see if its chill to paint and all that....i'm used to rollin up to a building/wall and just goin at it....but i know yards have security and stuff.. so......go forth..advice.........

     

    not much to say...just scope it out for a while....its better to find a layup...how big is the yard you are talking about? some smaller yards arent 24-7 and you could be able to hit it late night and possibly weekends....i can only recommend you drive past it alot and see what they are up to various times of the day...other than that, read this thread on saftey, which you probably already have done right?

     

    as far as security at yards, i suggest finding a layup, alot more chill....some smaller yards may not even have security though....

    Yard Safety

    in Metal Heads

    Posted

    Re: slack action and other tidbits

     

    Originally posted by fr8oholic

    all by kabar.

     

    Everybody has heard about Slack Action, but not everybody understands exactly what it is. The railcars are built with couplers that automatically close when two cars are banged together in humping, when humped over a hump crest, or by "flat-switching" the cars in a small yard with no hump. When a switchman cuts out a car on the crest of the hump, he has to do it at just the right moment. The unit powers up in reverse (humping is done in reverse--the unit pulls the string over the hump, then starts backing up so the cars can be cut out, humped, retarded and switched into their new string) and gets the string rolling, then he slacks off the accelerator and the car to be cut (called a "cut") rolls up slowly to the hump crest. When the switchman sees the unit is off the power, he pulls the pin (it's a lever that goes out the side of the coupler) opening the coupler, releasing the "cut" and allowing gravity to roll it into the hump and the master retarder. As the car rolls down the hump, the switchmen in the crest tower hit the MR, and you can hear the squeal of the retarder shoes rubbing the outside of the train car wheels to slow it down. Couplers can handle an impact of about 5 mph, no more. There is another retarder farther down the hump line, called a "group retarder" but I think my local yard doesn't have one. The car rolls until it hits the string of cars in it's CONsist. When it hits, the impact closes the coupler, and it locks automatically.

    There is about 1"-3/4" slack in the couplers themselves. The couplers are connected to the "draft gear." The draft gear isn't really gears, it's like "gear" in terms of somebody's stuff, rather than a transmission gear. The draft gear can move in and out about 12"-14" max. So when a unit starts to pull a train, the first car hits slack action after a foot. The second car, after two feet, and so on. On a long train, say 80 cars, the unit may move 85 feet before the FRED moves an inch. Slack action is much more violent in the back half of the train, like the tail on a bull whip. As the train "stretches out", you hear slack coming down the string b-b-b-b-B-B-B-Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom-BOOM-BOOM-BANG! and all the sudden your car is jerked into motion. Stretch out is also called "draft" like in "draft horses." It means "pull." Then, if the engineer gets on the brakes, the train starts contracting the same way, but it's called "buff." It sounds the same b-b-b-B-B-Boom-Boom-Boom-BOOM-BOOM-BANG! and suddenly your car is slowing down. It is now "buffed in." What this means to people in railyards is that they need to be aware that trains can move at any second, especially a long string. The units way down on the other end of the yard may suddenly get powered up and told to move, or get "called." Or the string your car is on can be hit by a midnight rambler at any time, as the hump crew suddenly starts making up a consist. BE ALERT AS TO WHAT IS GOING ON AROUND YOU. Really tight crews have at least one guy (maybe a rookie) serving as a spotter, watching for ramblers, bulls, cops, etc. If you're hopping, you definately need to understand slack action to the nuts. ALWAYS HANG ONTO SOMETHING. Don't ride freestyle or skylining. Only FNG wannabes do shit like that. HIDE. "No exposure without purpose." That's what I think, anyway. (Yo, Collinwood, your shit rocks. "CK, rock like him," and Ride Safe.)

     

    this is great info....a brakeman i was talking with was saying how slack made the ride in a caboose very nerve racking...we were talking about FRED and cabooses...he said when cabooses were in use comming around a corner the slack in the line would snap the caboose extremely violently esspecially on longer trains...he said some cabooses were better than others though since some had some sort of cushioned coupler or something and that made caboose travel quite a bit better...

     

    question about brakes...

     

    how do they operate?

    when pressurized do the brakes activate?

    i read someplace in this thread that when a train dynamites the brakes lock...that would lead me to think that when there is no airpressure the brakes activate and lock...

    ARE YOU ATTRACTIVE?

    in Channel Zero

    Posted

    if i shave i look pretty decent. but of course i dont shave until i feel like it...and it takes me 2 to 3 weeks to feel like shaving. im shy...i dont talk unless spoken to. ive always kept to myself. im never smiling unless with my friends, the few i have at least. i dont mind not having tons of friends, in fact people make me nervous. i used to have a terrible case of acne, but its all gone now thanks to a torturous miracle drug called acutane. the treatment involved 3 monthes of dry horrid red skin, and constant nose bleeds, but in the end, 95% of my acne is gone. i wear glasses when im too lazy to put the contacts in, so i basicly always were glasses. the biggest thing with me is that im too shy...i think it comes from being in a military family and always having to move from one place to another. basicly im a lonely person, that doesnt mind being lonely, but at other times does, and i am happiest painting, even though i dont paint enough. fuck it, i need some prozac......

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