Train of the Week

I've missed this blog again, this time due to some family medical stuff that required quite some of my attention. All is fine though. Anyway I had a chance to stroll around the vast inter web for some time again, with the hopes that I'd find some technical papers of my interest. I found this, a catalogue of bogies  by Siemens, or in North American English, trucks, offered on various rail vehicles. It's not all that technical, more of a marketing brochure. The interesting bit is though, this catalogue does reference the types of rail vehicles in service each truck has been fitted to. Are some of your favourite equipment listed in the reference sections of the catalogue? Now it's your chance to have a more complete look on what they really look under those skirts. Cheers!

Wait. What? The Class 43 again? Haven't it already been regurgitated on this blog a couple of times already as the locomotive only and the InterCity? Well, this Class 43 ain't our usual Class 43. This Class 43 was a being of the very early 1960s, at the time when TOPS classification still wasn't a thing. TOPS stands for Total Operations Processing System. It was a computer system to manage and track all locomotives and cars used by a railroad. Although made popular among the railfans by British Railways, this system was actually developed by one of the fallen flags in our neck of the woods and was said to be used by a number of our railroads as well. The TOPS system was developed by the famous Southern Pacific Railroad, now part of railroad giant Union Pacific. Anyway, so, the Class 43. Well, she really is pretty much the same as the Class 42 I've briefed about last week, based on the same German twin-engined diesel hydraulic locomotive, except built at a later d...

So I did some digging on Wikipedia (initially quite aimlessly actually) on the relatively recent comeback of multi-engined diesel locomotives. Actually I didn't realize the popularity of multi-engined, especially twin engined diesel locomotives, back in the days until literally a couple of hours ago. It all makes sense though. When you need big power out of engines in an era where they just can't produce that much, you jam more of them in. Not a bad looking little thing at all This locomotive I'm writing about today is quite an oldie and is apparently closely related to a German diesel hydraulic locomotive of the same era. She's called the Class 42 and she has nothing to do with the more popular Class 43 that we all cherish. This is one of the 2 preserved units. Interestingly they have inboard bearings like our LRC and Amfleet cars There have been 2 batches of Class 42s, both built by British Railways Swindon Works between 1958 and 1961. They differ by engin...

This week's post is based on some thoughts I've had after reading the TSB report on the Quebec rail disaster last year... I don't like to touch politics but the investigations and aftermaths have been very political events... It's been over a year since the rail disaster in Quebec. The TSB investigation report is finally out and is publicly available on their website (if you do care to read, Google it, it's not linked here). I didn't read it in great detail or try to analyze every little section. My intelligent reading stopped at the early part in the report where it stated that the locomotive engineman performed a handbrake effectiveness test with locomotive independent brakes applied. The rest of the report became a formality from there. A simple Google search will yield some quite detailed information on freight train brake systems in North America. Briefly speaking, for a conventional freight train, there are 3 sets of brakes. Two of which are pneumatic...

Diesel electric locomotives are usually a rarity in Western Europe. The vast coverage of electrification usually means that only lines with the lightest of volumes can quench a railfan's diesel thirst. This week I'll write about an introduction of a new type of such rare locomotives. It has taken some pretty radical new directions of design of a locomotive carrying its own prime mover. Although the Bombardier TRAXX DE locomotives aren't exactly new (diesel electric variants of the famous TRAXX), this is the first time I've heard of any single locomotive that carries so many diesel engines. Now the model number for the DB Class 254 is TRAXX P160 DE ME. Quite a long one isn't it. We know what TRAXX and DE are. The rest isn't difficult to decipher. P160 for passenger 160 km/h, ME for multi-engine or multiple engines. We've had a few twin-engined diesels to date. The most famous in our neck of the woods would probably be those legendary, slick, streamli...

All right, another week just flew by. Let me go back to an EMD again this Friday and write about this flavor of the SD70 locomotive, expertly crafted upside-down in London, Ontario, for the State of New South Wales in Australia. The long hood does have some family resemblance, but what's up with the old school trucks? Locally she's known as the 90 Class. To those of us from the Northern Hemisphere, she's called the GT46CWM (somehow people really like the number 46, it must mean something, I just can't figure out what). Well, actually, most of the locomotives of this class were built properly in London, except for the last 4 units, which were built by EDi in Upside-down Cardiff (to distinguish from The Cardiff). Bruce. For Australia, the 90 Class is a heavy locomotive and only works in coal service in NSW. She weighs in at about 364 000 lbs. and pump out the standard 4 000 horsepower.

Argh I'm late again this week because I've lost track of time again. I haven't got anything nerdy to say this week. I was bumming around on YouTube and saw this music video made by some Japanese railfan on his channel. It's a composition of footages of trains running in and connecting to the Akita Shinkansen Komachi Service with some pop song in the background. Of course the lyrics are all in Japanese and I haven't got the slightest idea of what it's about. The name of the video, however, is Komachi Love Story. Yeah pretty uncomfortable sounding name at first glance isn't it. I'm not sure if this is a mere cultural reference or maybe, hey, people's love for trains can reach substantial levels. Akita is a prefecture in northern Japan and home of (apparently, very) famous poet Ono no Komachi from way back in the days. It is said that she also happens to have been an exotic hottie. The word Komachi is synonymous with belles in the Japanese language. N...