Train Tracks

CMoore · May 24, 2021

Any of you guys photo trains.?
Ever notice how Quiet they are.?
While safely away from the tracks, I have been surprised by them several times, If i need to be on the tracks, or turn my back to one direction, or lay down on the tracks, i have a friend stand guard.
If they are not using a horn, it really is amazing how quiet a mile long train, going 50 MPH, can be........almost "silent"

I am 200 yards from one of the UP Main Lines. A guy just got killed crossing the tracks a few hours ago.
It happens frequently.
If you guys do a lot of train stuff, just stay aware of how silent trains are, especially when they are not in the yards, and are out on The Main.

ChristopherCoy · May 24, 2021

oh man... this one is gonna get good.

Horatio · May 24, 2021

Hey! You found the popcorn!

Seriously though, thanks for the advice. I would imagine most of the noise is behind the train as it moves along.

jvo · May 24, 2021

the sections of track are now welded so that you no longer get the clackity-clack of the car wheels.

DWThomas · May 24, 2021

I can often pick up a sort of throbbing sound from heavy diesels half a mile or more away but the electric locomotives used on a lot of traffic on the NE corridor can really be stealthy -- not to mention approaching at close to 90 MPH. A good setup to amplify the results of any bad decisions or inattention.

CMoore · May 24, 2021

DWThomas said:
I can often pick up a sort of throbbing sound from heavy diesels half a mile or more away but the electric locomotives used on a lot of traffic on the NE corridor can really be stealthy -- not to mention approaching at close to 90 MPH. A good setup to amplify the results of any bad decisions or inattention.

Certainly, a lot of it is terrain, wind, and ambient noise.
But with my back to them, i have had 3 unit freight trains get within 50 yards before i knew they were there.
They can be deceptively quiet.

beemermark · May 24, 2021

from the Union Pacific https://www.up.com/aboutup/community/community_ties/photography_reminder.htm
900 people killed on tracks last year, no small amount

DWThomas · May 24, 2021

Another way folks get in trouble is they have no clue how long it takes a heavy freight train to stop. There are some wild YouTube videos of cross traffic getting whacked by locomotives. It's nothing for the loser in the contest to scrape to a halt a half mile from the point of impact.

UP has the world's largest classification yard just west of North Platte, Nebraska where I spent a few hours in 2016 -- the yard is eight miles long and something like 300 tracks across. Another potential problem there is they are using remote controlled diesel switchers to do some of the sorting and train makeup. They actually have signs here and there, in addition to the No Trespassing stuff, warning that some locomotives have no humans on board. If you wander in front of one you can become instant sausage!

seall · May 24, 2021

Making silent movies must have been really dangerous.

CMoore · May 25, 2021

DWThomas said:
Another way folks get in trouble is they have no clue how long it takes a heavy freight train to stop. There are some wild YouTube videos of cross traffic getting whacked by locomotives. It's nothing for the loser in the contest to scrape to a halt a half mile from the point of impact.

UP has the world's largest classification yard just west of North Platte, Nebraska where I spent a few hours in 2016 -- the yard is eight miles long and something like 300 tracks across. Another potential problem there is they are using remote controlled diesel switchers to do some of the sorting and train makeup. They actually have signs here and there, in addition to the No Trespassing stuff, warning that some locomotives have no humans on board. If you wander in front of one you can become instant sausage!

Wow.....Nice
How were you able to photo there, did you work for The UP at one time.?

ChristopherCoy · May 25, 2021

Wow. 10 posts in and no one's twisted off about the legality of it. I'm quite surprised. Have we turned a corner? Folks must be in better moods these days.

CMoore · May 25, 2021

ChristopherCoy said:
Wow. 10 posts in and no one's twisted off about the legality of it. I'm quite surprised. Have we turned a corner? Folks must be in better moods these days.

Those types are probably busy photo-shopping yearbook pictures.
We may see one yet.

pentaxuser · May 25, 2021

beemermark said:
from the Union Pacific https://www.up.com/aboutup/community/community_ties/photography_reminder.htm
900 people killed on tracks last year, no small amount

It looked to be about 25 in the U.K. for 2018/19 which was the last year before Covid struck and which reduced those figures slightly. We must be doing something right with railway safety

pentaxuser

MattKing · May 25, 2021

ChristopherCoy said:
Wow. 10 posts in and no one's twisted off about the legality of it. I'm quite surprised. Have we turned a corner? Folks must be in better moods these days.

Perhaps because getting run over by a train is more problematic than any legal consequence might ever be?
My wife and I like to visit Fort Langley, which has one of the main rail lines running along its edge.
The trains roar through there at an amazing speed, making an amazing amount of noise. The noise may be intentional - they don't want to surprise any one.

ChristopherCoy · May 25, 2021

MattKing said:
Perhaps because getting run over by a train is more problematic than any legal consequence might ever be?

Well I mean... if you play stupid games.....

Andrew O'Neill · May 25, 2021

A late friend of mine was a train photographer, preferably steam. He said the very same to me. Diesels are very quiet compared to a steam locomotive. Makes me think of electric cars having to generate an artificial sound so people hear them coming...

DWThomas · May 25, 2021

CMoore said:
Wow.....Nice
How were you able to photo there, did you work for The UP at one time.?

Actually the "Golden Spike Tower" is advertised along the highways as a tourist attraction. All those shots were taken from legally accessible locations. There is a museum that looks like a depot and a parking area for visitors. The tower was an effort by the local business community that replaced a previous rickety steel structure. There is a modest admission charge, but it was well worth it. (And this was just one of many stops on a 3 1/2 week 5800 mile cross-country driving tour.) Be it also noted the 'Golden Spike' bit was apparently some UP/Nebraska milestone and has nothing to do with the legendary transcontinental railroad ceremony at Promontory Point Utah!

Whilst there we learned, via a UP retiree who was schmoozing with the guests, that there is a UP Challenger 4-6-6-4 (UP's next to the largest Iron Horse) on view in Cody Park on the north side of North Platte which we added to our list to catch on the way out.

Note that Yers Trooly is ecumenical on photography, the color shots are electrocuted bits, the B&W at that site were with the 6x9 Ercona II folder, although a Yashica 124G TLR was also in play on the trek.

AgX · May 25, 2021

I repeatedly crossed a major rail double-track with my bike at an official, but uncontrolled/unprotected pedestrian crossing which I considered very dangerous if one is not utmost alert. Whilst the noise of a train, especially freight trains, can be unbearable when standing near to the track, the noise from such train coming ahead is typically too weak to be a decent alarm. The only means thus is sight.
And that excludes standing with ones back to the direction a train is coming from (assuming single-direction traffic per track). Another issue is draft.

Vaughn · May 25, 2021

pentaxuser said:
It looked to be about 25 in the U.K. for 2018/19 which was the last year before Covid struck and which reduced those figures slightly. We must be doing something right with railway safety

pentaxuser

Scale, my friend, scale. That's 140,000 miles of track in the US vs 10,000 miles of track in the UK...

Ok, did the rough math(s)...we got 14x the track and being the USA, 3x the deaths/mile...we fully exercise our rights to be idiots.

As a bicyclist, when out of town, it is the sound of the car tires on the pavement that I usually hear first.

DWThomas · May 25, 2021

Back around 19-ought-67 I lived in an apartment near the Reading Railroad Bethlehem Branch in Hatfield, Pennsylvania. One evening an impatient dude, tired of the crossing gates being down, drove around the gates to beat the train ...

Remarkably, he lived -- good thing he didn't have passengers! Back in those days the main freight traffic was 70 or 80 car trains of iron ore headed for the Bethlehem Steel plant.

Edit: In these views the car had been dragged off to a parking area to clear the highway. The building in the back was Hatfield's own municipal power plant running large diesel powered generators -- a relic from the early 20th century!

Andrew O'Neill · May 25, 2021

I should add that my late friend didn't die by contact with a train.
Also, the CPR knew him quite well, including the railroad police. He always had permission. His prints hang in many of of their offices (some of them I printed).

Horatio · May 25, 2021

I had nightmares of being run down by a train when I was four.

beemermark · May 25, 2021

This is a classic. Detroit fire fighters responding to a vehicular accident near the tracks park their hook & ladder firetruck across the tracks. 1st is a cab video of what the train engineer saw and second is an article. My cousin was an Engineer and had his share of hitting vehicles. Always said no one every thought what the train crew was going though sitting on 5000 gallons of diesel fuel.

https://www.firerescue1.com/apparat...-fire-truck-train-collision-yyCKC3JvObKouqV6/

ChristopherCoy · May 25, 2021

Horatio said:
I had nightmares of being run down by a train when I was four.

why? That’s an odd thing for a 4yr old to think about.

pentaxuser · May 25, 2021

Vaughn said:
Scale, my friend, scale. That's 140,000 miles of track in the US vs 10,000 miles of track in the UK...

Ok, did the rough math(s)...we got 14x the track and being the USA, 3x the deaths/mile...we fully exercise our rights to be idiots.

As a bicyclist, when out of town, it is the sound of the car tires on the pavement that I usually hear first.

What I suspect is the case is that you have tracks in places that may be more open than ours for good reason and thus only extreme caution will do but isn't always exercised. I also suspect that if our tracks were as open, our fatalities would certainly be a lot higher. The idiot gene is probably distributed fairly evenly across all nations

We have paths that are used by cyclists but are not dedicated to them and as a walker what I have come to realise is that the cyclist thinks he makes a lot more noise than that transmitted to the walker. A lot of cyclists will not ring their bells at all believing it will only startle the walker and be rude to do so but a bell sounded when say 20-30 feet away is IMO far safer

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