ac6000cw
Established Member
I thought I'd start off with some modern motive power from a trip in 2013:
[youtube]?v=lyBWoOZg0cI[/youtube]
(or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyBWoOZg0cI )
I picked this one because the first train has a matched set of EMD SD70ACe's on the front and a matched set of GE ES44AC's pushing on the rear, so it's a contrast of design and noise. The squealing noises at the start are not because it's a sharp curve, it's the sound of state-of-the-art traction control laying down serious tractive effort on wet rails climbing a 1.4% gradient plus curvature (it's dropping into carefully controlled wheelslip/wheelcreep).
This train should be 115 wagons long, which if they are fully loaded at 130 tonnes (gross) each gives about 14,900 tonnes train weight, plus 800 tonnes of locomotives - a typical US coal train. Total length about 1.2 miles, and it took about 5 1/2 minutes to go by....(I did film all of it, but you'd get bored ). Each loco is rated at 4400 hp, and can produce over 800kN of tractive effort at very low speeds - the 33 tonne axle load helps here
The line is the Norfolk Southern (ex-Norfolk & Western) mainline between Bluefield and Iaeger, West Virginia, in the vicinity of Elkhorn Tunnel.
Trivia question - if you went back to the 1930s in this area, what infrastructure would be very obvious here which has now gone without trace ?
[youtube]?v=lyBWoOZg0cI[/youtube]
(or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyBWoOZg0cI )
I picked this one because the first train has a matched set of EMD SD70ACe's on the front and a matched set of GE ES44AC's pushing on the rear, so it's a contrast of design and noise. The squealing noises at the start are not because it's a sharp curve, it's the sound of state-of-the-art traction control laying down serious tractive effort on wet rails climbing a 1.4% gradient plus curvature (it's dropping into carefully controlled wheelslip/wheelcreep).
This train should be 115 wagons long, which if they are fully loaded at 130 tonnes (gross) each gives about 14,900 tonnes train weight, plus 800 tonnes of locomotives - a typical US coal train. Total length about 1.2 miles, and it took about 5 1/2 minutes to go by....(I did film all of it, but you'd get bored ). Each loco is rated at 4400 hp, and can produce over 800kN of tractive effort at very low speeds - the 33 tonne axle load helps here
The line is the Norfolk Southern (ex-Norfolk & Western) mainline between Bluefield and Iaeger, West Virginia, in the vicinity of Elkhorn Tunnel.
Trivia question - if you went back to the 1930s in this area, what infrastructure would be very obvious here which has now gone without trace ?
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