dowlingm
Senior Member
You know, I thought about mentioning the six axle option but I thought, no, be nice to the rail fans they get so annoyed by the SD70s in Chicago but yoooooou had to go there
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Ontario Northland/Northern Ontario Transportation
- Thread starter CDL.TO
- Start date
Bordercollie
Senior Member
I mean Alaska railroad uses them on their trains..and they did appear on the northlander from time to time.You know, I thought about mentioning the six axle option but I thought, no, be nice to the rail fans they get so annoyed by the SD70s in Chicago but yoooooou had to go there
smallspy
Senior Member
More weight also means more tractive effort, as it is a function of weight and grip and force able to be applied. The MP54s are heavy because GO has them ballasted so.
This is also why the trend in freight locos is to ballast them up to 430,000 pounds and above.
A Venture is not a locomotive, it's a passenger car. So it doesn't provide any tractive effort, except in braking.
A Charger - which is a locomotive - weighs about 270,000lbs.
Dan
SaugeenJunction
Senior Member
Saw this on LinkedIn - Track work on the ONR line north of North Bay in Temiskaming Shores. Looks like flash-welding for the jointed track to make it continuous weld. Will help with Northlander speeds.
nfitz
Superstar
How does continuous weld help the Northlander speed? I don't remember the old VIA Turbo being any slower while you were being shaken to death on the unwelded segments.
SaugeenJunction
Senior Member
Modern rail operational standards will limit speeds (a bit) over jointed rail. Welded rails will also give riders a smoother trip.
nfitz
Superstar
At the highest speeds, perhaps.
How much of it's route is currently rated at 80 mph? Let alone 90 mph.
It's certainly a smoother trip. There's an essay somewhere I wrote while travelling to Montreal - and you can tell from the shaky handwriting, which sections were written on jointed rail!
smallspy
Senior Member
No they don't.
Beyond comfort, the one thing that CWR is good for is vastly reducing maintenance requirements.
Dan
SaugeenJunction
Senior Member
That's fair. This whole conversation is giving me PTSD about how a low-level GO employee scuttled a OBRY farewell trip using GO equipment because "GO Trains can't run on jointed rail" (which for numerous reasons is false, GO does do that). Anyways, back to ONR...
micheal_can
Senior Member
When did the Island Falls Sub get CWR?
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crs1026
Superstar
As well, TC is nervous about passenger on bolted rail - risk of broken bars etc.
- Paul
smallspy
Senior Member
That comment was not what prevented that trip, although it certainly managed to garner lots of laughs from those who knew better. It was the exorbitant cost that they provided the Credit Valley Explorer that scuttled the possibility.
Dan
Fritter
Active Member
Were they actual costs to Metrolinx, or made up costs in the vein of a contractor giving ridiculous quotes to jobs the contractor does not want to do, in the hope the potential client will move on and not give the job to the contractor.
I have no doubt there would be costs to operate that farewell trip, but I can't see the costs being much more than could be covered by ticket sales for the trip, and maybe some volunteer work for the operators of the trip.
Maybe a better discussion in the General Railway thread, but what happened to railfan trips that seemed to happen with frequency in the 60's and 70s?
crs1026
Superstar
A bunch of things. Railways not wanting the hassle, accountants using sharper pencils, lawyers taking a far more cautious view of liability, senior executives taking a far more controlling position on local management decisions, availability and cost of labour very different.
Somehow I inherited a bunch of old correspondence between the railways and a certain frequent trip organizer from back in the 1960's. It's fascinating just how casually these were arranged and how much was made possible over a coffee or just by asking. These are simply not the same times.
- Paul
smallspy
Senior Member
There was a quote provided by Metrolinx that would have required a full 10 car train to have every single seat sold, and the tickets priced at something approaching $100 / head in order to break even. And that was before considering ancillary costs, such as CVE's staffing requirements and any catering.
While it felt like a bit of a "go away" price, it also smelled like the result of an organization that just doesn't know how to deal with these kinds of requests. Which very much lines up with Paul's comments above.
Dan