The Y Files

In more intensely-engineered infrastructures in European countries, trackside hot-box detectors are used to sense any overheated bearing in all trains passing it. The hot-box detector can be connected into the signalling system to alert the driver/engineer by bringing the train to a stand.

Ignoring a hot-box gives a spectacular outcome.....

"Three wheels on my wagon, and I keep rolling along....."

Yesterday, I decided to try out my new DV camera - and make my first YouTube video. It's a companion piece to this story. As always, I would appreciate what you liked, and hearing how my presentation could have been better. Click here to watch the movie. It's about 3 minutes long.

P.S. No, it's not as cool as Del's archery video!

Interesting stuff, Moose. The North American term "caboose" is interchangeable with the British term "brake van". Here is a model of a British one:

The principle of use is the same. Note that the North American loading gauge is much larger than the British one, so for the UK, instead of a viewing gallery on the top of the vehicle what were usually called "duckets" are attached to the sides. The guard can look forwards and backwards through windows while seated inside the ducket to review the train's progress.

British brake vans were timber-bodied until the end.

The van above has a telegraph code "Toad D", and is a model of one from the London & North Eastern Railway, which existed from 1923 to 1948. It's a long wheelbase design (16ft), brought into use initially for express goods trains running along the East Coast Main Line; look at a map of the lines leaving London Kings Cross towards the Scottish city of Edinburgh. This particular design of van was developed into the post-1948 British Railways standard brake van, which differed only in minor details and were virtually identical inside.

The Southern Railway developed a type of van, larger than the above, running on 2 bogie trucks instead with a tare weight of around 25T, and these are the closest British equivalent to the North American caboose. The Southern bogie ones were so smooth-riding in comparison with their shorter 4-wheeled counterparts that they soon aquired the nickname of "Queen Mary" in deference to the contemporary ocean-going liner of the same name. A handful survive in engineering use.

The above example is single-pipe automatic vacuum-braked. Many were not automatically-braked at all, the thinking being that were a guard to be present then that individual could apply the handbrake! Later examples were sometimes through-piped, enabling the guard to apply the brakes on the train if need be, while retaining the manual handbrake standard in about the centre of the van. Some recent changes to the remaining few include the fitting of single-pipe air-brake for use with modern goods trains.

The brake van is almost extinct on the national network today, the few remaining examples being in engineering train use. With continuous automatic air brake being applied to all service goods trains now, they have become superfluous.

Several of many types survive in museums and heritage railways across the country, many fulfilling their original role in a demonstration capacity.

Thanks for your comments and the pictures, PWSlack. You've added a great deal to my knowledge of this subject.

It's nice to know, too, that there are other railroad fans out there. It's a subject which has long interested me, but one that I've not written much about. Perhaps we'll have to start a Railroading user group on CR4?

I too am a big fan of everything to do with railroads. Been a model railroader for over 60 years. My main activity, now that I'm retired is building large scale railway equipment. I build to a scale of 1-1/2" to the foot. My models are made of various materials, mostly wood, but they are powered with electric motors and batteries and run on 7-1/2" gauge track. I used to build live steam engines, but that got to be too expensive. I try to select prototypes that were made of wood to keep my models as authentic as possible. A railroading user group sounds like a good idea.

Very good job on your part, as far as your camera presence.

Brian did a fine job as well.

Close-ups and medium shots are good. I mean that in a general way across the board when making any suggestions as far as TV and Video are concerned.

Only technical suggestion as far as that video is concerned, and production value, is I suspect that the lens had some smudges on it, and you might want to get a safe lens cleaning set from your photo store.

Often it is wise to have a lens shade, and filter holder, both for protection of the lens, as well as allowing for the use of "Gradient" filters, or Pola, or the array of filters available to enable more control of the final image in either contrast, or color.

I think well of GAM filters.

Lee used to give away swatch books of filters that were coveted by cinematographers because though they were designed for Lighting Directors, and you could use them over the lens in your lens shade because of their generous size.

As far as Trains and Railways are concerned, I sometimes wonder, and have postulated that the US has benefited from a wider gauge track, and bigger pallets that increased efficency, over smaller gauges, and smaller cars and pallets typically used in Europe.

The gauge, or rail distances for the railroads in Europe are based on the distance between wheels of the Roman Chariots, whereas in the Northern US States designers and engineers made the stuff a little bigger.

You may check my figures out, for I am writing now off rememberences of studies done years ago. P.S. Del likes trains, and I am sure he will like your video.

Thank you for your kind words and good advice, Transcendian. I'll shop around for a a lens cleaning kit and accessories. Making this video was fun, so I suspect there will be a "sequel".

Thanks for a good discussion Moose. A question though, didnt a caboose serve the additional purpose of providing quarters for engineers and firmen on locomotives used for long haul train travel?

Hey Moose - Your son did a great job producing your video - enjoyed it very much! You must be a proud dad. Odd(?) co-incidence - considering what U.K. person PWSlack shared here - it was a British tribology-expert/professor - in his 50's or so at the time - who taught me about journal bearings, at RPI, in 1992 - in a graduate M.E. class. I'm confident we Americans learned/imported much of the technology we've used over the years, in the U.S./North American rail system, from our friends across the pond. Journal bearing technology in general - used in the old-school cabooses you talked about - definitely did get refined beyond the railroad type stuffed with rags, as I recall from my class, as we were using software to generate modern, optimal journal bearing designs back in 1992. Thanks again for the great blog piece and video. - Larry

If you like odd and downright strange trains, check out this site:

http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/locoloco.htm

Oh, yes. That's a good one, and a firm favourite here.

Regarding the hotbox/bearing failure,

thirty years ago I lived in rural Okeechobee County, FL, within a hundred yards of the Seaboard Coast Line track. Happened to look out the window in the early a.m. pitch blackness as freight train passed. The image is one of those filed in my brain as " WOW, that's spectacular", the wheel of one of the cars was glowing cherry red and throwing a rooster tail of sparks hundreds of feet in the slipstream. So i called the sheriff as the train was headed towards town and i figured they could maybe flag it down at the next crossing. What was interesting was even though this was happening in the midst of dry pine/palmetto forest there were no brushfires. Never heard what the outcome was, ( didn't get a 'Lassie' saves Timmy from the well medal).

Packrat