Category: Jim Futrell

I chased this train up and down the Columbia Gorge, the dates were June 6 and 7, 1997.  But my trusty Yashica had finally given up the ghost. My developed Ektachrome slides were all out of focus.

If it hadn’t been for photo stops and preventive stops to check for hot bearings, I would have only seen this train once in each direction.  These two days the former ESPEE 4449 was running excursions between  Portland, Oregon and Wishram, Washington.  The Burlington Northern graciously hosted these runs, and the BNSF continues the practice.  The train is traveling on the former Spokane, Portland & Seattle (SP&S) Railway on the Washington side of the Columbia River.   Great scenery, good safe access for railfans,  Beacon Rock,  the Bonneville Dam tunnel,  other rock lined tunnels and miles of track parallel to Hwy 14 only a few yards off the fog line.   It doesn’t get much better than that, unless all your own slides had developed nicely too. Duh.!

The tunnel here is the result of moving the line further away from the river and dam when the “dam” people built the second powerhouse and bigger & better fish ladder at Bonneville.  Lessons learned: a. Not a great idea to chase trains in a motor home, and b. Always have a backup camera.  Credit to Gary Ostlund, submitted by James Futrell.

Back a year or so we saw how the wheels could develop flat spots from sliding along the rail. Those flats pots cause that Whooomp, whoomp, when a train goes by.    On a freight car it is relatively simple lifting the car off the wheelset, remove the guilty wheels and axle, replace it or turn it on a lathe.   Since the wheels on the axle rotate as a unit both will be flat.

But, woe be the engineer that lets flat spots develop on his locomotive. Now you are talking serious issues.  The master mechanic and road foreman will have his hide.   The loco goes to the back shop, where all the drive wheel/axles must be removed.   If one drive wheel has a flat spot, all will because they are connected and work together.

A gas fired ring heats up the tire.   You can see the axle is secure in a cradle, and the heat will expand the tire enough for a machinist to sledge hammer it loose.   A safety chain will be looped through the spokes.   The process is reversed for applying the new tire.

The importance in not allowing the loco to slide along the rails,  ever,  is best explained by the fact that a train has two sets of brakes.  One system is for the locomotive only, the other for the train.  A smart engineer will use only the train brakes while operating out on the mainline, and bringing the train to a stop.  Once stopped, he can apply the engines to secure the train.

Books have been written on train brakes.  The above is only “RR Brakes 101.”  – Gary Ostlund, submitted by Jim Futrell.

Tuesday morning, March 6, 2012, James Futrell found Canadian National Engineering Test Car 1501 (Budd RDC) idling at the Fulton yard office.

Submitted by James Futrell

These photos were at a train derailment in Fulton, Ky.  The derailment (we know now) started at a broken rail the car derailed and took out some MOW equipment stored on an adjoining track.  As the car continued under the bridge it took out several switches and rail before coming to a stop south of the bridge.  In the preceding morning pictures you can see a group in the lower left corner of one shot assessing the situation before cleanup began.  I’m told that the north bound Amtrak had just cleared this track before train 194 used it going south and derailed.  The amount of work performed between 8 AM and noon is nothing short of amazing.  It looks like chaos but everyone has probably done this many times before and hit the ground running.  The 5 or 6 train backlog was gone by noon.

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