Rolling Thunder

I recently had to make a trip down to Wisconsin to visit my ill mother-in-law. It was a rush trip and totally unexpected, but it all worked out good. She recovered in spectacular fashion, I was able to visit with some family members and before the battery on my camera crapped out, I got a few pictures of one of my favorite subjects, trains. I've been fascinated with trains ever since I can remember. While I was standing near the tracks, waiting for the train, I could both hear and feel the rumbling of the approaching train; the ground vibrated like a small earthquake as it came nearer and the flashing red lights and ringing of the bells  of the crossing were just the icing on the cake for me. Growing up,whenever a train happened to be passing in front of our car, I'd sit in the back seat with a grin from ear to ear while my dad fumed at being held up.The only time I shared his disgust was when I  had to pee really bad. There are no trains in Southeast Alaska, although I do wish there were. They would be much faster than ferries and most likely cheaper than planes. It would take quite an extensive network of bridges to accommodate them though, and I suppose the expense would outweigh the convenience. Whenever I visited my grandparents so many years ago, I would always dash out the screen door in back upon hearing the horn of an approaching passenger train blow. I could run to the corner and look up the street and usually I would be perched upon a yellow fire hydrant before the engine appeared at the station. Occasionally my grandpa would take me down to watch the the trains come in. Somehow we'd always end up at a bar on the street that parallel the track where he could have a beer and buy me a 7 up with instructions not to let Grandma know that I'd had a soda so early in the day. It's apparent that I'm not the only person who has an uncommon interest in trains, railroads, signal crossings and whatnot. I did a little research, and if I wanted this post to go on for pages, I could easily fill it with a number of facts. There is so much to know that I'll just put it out there in no particular order. I discovered that it's illegal to stand on the tracks and take pictures of the trains. Fortunately I wasn't on the track when I took these pictures. I'm not sure how true all these facts are, since some time has passed since the original articles were written, but I believe for the most part the facts remain the same. The worlds largest locomotive engine is owned by the Union Pacific railroad. Engine number 6936 weighing in at 270 tons and utilizing 6600 horse power to pull the heavy loads it pulls. The average weight of a typical steel wheel on a train car is from 240 to 480 lbs, although apparently there are new, lighter weight ones being developed using aluminum alloys that weigh only about ten percent as much. Train crossing signals are activated by the passing of the train over the detection circuit on the track. Though it varies state by state, trains are not permitted to block a crossing for more than 20 minutes. Who do you complain to if they do though? Federal rules require a train to blow its horn 15 seconds before it enters the crossing and continue all the way through it. When trains and traffic became more prolific, there was an increase in accidents at railroad crossings, so watchmen were hired to sit in towers at some of the busier crossings and wave red lanterns to warn of the coming train. Some even manually lowered crossing gates. The first automatic crossing signals were bells mounted on poles. Signals were soon expanded to include swinging red signs with a red light. They were called automatic flagmen or wig wags. Wig wags gave way to the current alternating red lights mounted as part of the cross buck sign. The first flashing signal was mounted in New Jersey in 1913,  but is reported to have been created by Albert Hunt, a mechanical engineer in 1909. Currently crossing lights utilize 100 watt light bulbs, but I believe that LED lights may be starting to replace them. For those who are environmentally conscious, trains are currently the most environmentally friendly way to move freight. They can move one ton of freight 470 miles on one gallon of diesel fuel. One article I read mentioned that there are fewer box cars on the rails than there has been in quite some time. Part of the reason for that is the cost. When the article was written, the cost of making a new box car was $135,000.00. They have a 50 year life span and then the law requires them to be retired. There are all kinds of behind the scenes operations going on with railroads. As you can imagine, one freight line's cars can be mixed in with other line's cars and sent to all points of the country. I guess with the use of computers it's much easier to keep track of where your cars are. There is a system for maintaining all those cars as well. Rail car management is a big business, replacing bearings, painting, hydraulic repairs, brakes and whatnot. Paperwork must be filled out for every repair and the bill sent to the appropriate owner in order to be reimbursed for the work. Big money people seem to think that railroads are a good investment. Warren Buffet owns quite a bit of rail stock, and Bill Gates owns some 3.2 billion dollars of Canadian National stock, about ten percent of the company. Finally, I come to the end or what used to be the caboose in trains. With the exception of a few small local lines, cabooses are no longer used by the railroads. They've been replaced by end of the train devices, a suitcase sized steel box attached to the last car. The average caboose weighed in at a startling 25 tons, and was costing from fifty cents to a dollar a mile to run. The new devices cost about a half cent a mile, so losing the caboose was strictly a monetary decision, saving the railroads about 200 million dollars a year. Like so much that I've witnessed in my life, there have been some major changes in the railroads. I imagine that they could be considered improvements. I'm just glad that there are still trains that run for all of us folks who never grew up to enjoy.