Torpedoes

Around 2004 or '05 there was an incident - on NS, I believe - in which a crew in a North American cab unit with windows closed failed to hear torpedoes and tests showed that they were no longer reliable. BNSF discontinued use around 2005 (after the tests). Can't say who else did, or when.

Torpedoes were the last device to signal by ear the necessity to stop.

 

Today's engines, when closed up will not hear them.

I found this on Youtube, I heard of torpedo's but this is the first time I've seen one.

 

http://youtu.be/ToayYFfPDHw

 

franktrain

Thanks Frank,
I found this one as well . It appears there are several on youtube .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...&feature=related

David

To me I thought it was an antiquated way of track gangs signaling trains. I didn't have any idea they were still using them as late as 1995. I figured with all the two way communications they wouldn't be needed. Coarse it shows what I know about real railroading. I was amazed the other day when I read a post about a train wreck and found out they had train stop in the 30's ? I thought that was new technology .
Thanks guys for your answers.

David

Durango & Silverton in Colorado still uses torpedoes.  Was out there last September, and heard a couple.  Sounds like a shotgun blast when they go off.

It just amazes me that major railroads still used them instead of reliable communications that late in the 20th century . We used 800 Mhz with repeaters in what they call a trunked system . Although my radio didn't have the range I could enter the desired unit's I.D. number and talk to someone in Tulsa Oklahoma or Corpus-Christi Texas from my truck in the Roanoke VA area. Our distribution dispatch center or DDC covered all our Virginia operating area which takes in a little over half of NS's Va operating area and with the GPS tag they know where every unit is.
I've worked with NS signalmen and I know they have a system similar to ours now.

We have dispatch centers that cover from Virginia to Oklahoma and from Oceana, Michigan to Corpus-Christi,Texas so it amazes me with all the mountains BNSF has in their region they haven't been doing this for some time.

Our system was put in in the early 90's and has proved to be very reliable in even the most severe weather. I can't ever remember when the system was down even during hurricanes or ice storms.
Funny how a company gets used to doing things a certain way. I know It would  be to expensive for a short line but BNSF isn't hurting for money that's for sure.

I saw Whyhog you said there's no way you could safely rely on radio communication to route trains? Why is that? . If they're dispatched by a common center and monitored by a common center really they don't need to communicate at all? With GPS tracking the center should know where they are at all times. The radio system I'm talking about is not like a CB blab school . You can actually select a certain engine and the only one that will receive  a ring signal is that engine and the conversation between the dispatcher and engineer will be private or you can transmit on the area frequency and all radio's will hear the conversation.
Radios have come a very long way since the old VHF radios that only worked half the time.

David

David,

I've never seen anything like what you describe used around here. At this point in time I do not agree that the dispatcher being able to have a private conversation with one train is a very safe way to operate either. Crews need to use their ears and be aware of EVERYTHING going on around them!

Speaking of torpedos

 

 

Well, GPS didn't exist until the early 1990s, and wasn't made available for civilian use until well after 2000.

 

As Wyhog implied without saying outright, torpedos were associated with 'timetable and train order' operating rules.  Those rules were developed at the beginning of the early 20th century to ensure safe movement of trains, even on unsignaled track, in the absence of any communications between train crews and the dispatcher.

 

Even after block signaling, CTC, and radio came along, there was still a lot of 'dark territory' out there.  Any time a train stopped in dark territory, as Wyhog said it had to protect against other movements (unless instructed not to by train order).

 

Eventually railroads started converting to track warrants instead of timetable and train order.  A track warrant is a lot like an absolute block - no other train can enter the space, so flagging and torpedos became less important.

 

But a few railroads still confer train authority via timetable (like the D&S mentioned above, which uses what I call a 'timetable and track warrant' rulebook), which means flag protection (and torpedos).

Jim this is the same system used by the Va state police . You have an area frequency that when transmitted on everyone can hear and is the normal operating frequency. so all engineers would hear it but if say dispatch needed to talk to a particular engine  They would select the engine number and the engineer would hear a ring like a telephone  and that conversation would be private.

I talked to the signal guys .We were working together on the new signals they were replacing south towards Rocky Mount. I had to cross the tracks with my wire so he had to get clearance . They said their system was something like ours and was expanding.
The supervisor I talked to understood a trunked system . I know because he answered specific questions.

Whyhog I didn't mean for you to get tore up about this . That's why I put a question mark at the end of my sentences . I was asking about the railroad communications.
What amazes me is guys like you that turn it into something it's not.

I don't think a radio knows weather it's in a truck or a train and if you think we just chat your wrong. Our radios coordinate operations so the people don't die. We switch lines up to and including 345,000 volts which has to be done by different crews at different locations some over a hundred miles away from each other. My point was that there is reliable communications out there .
Take your blood pressure meds and next time you see my name in a post move on down the line. Please.

David

Were they not used in the movie DIE HARD, DARK TERRITORY,  when the train left the CTC mainline and entered a track with no signals, that is, dark territory.

 

Technically, that would be Under Siege, not Die Hard.  Been a long time since I've seen that one and it's probably better that way as it was a disaster from a railroad point of view (and not much better from a film perspective either!).  Dark territory doesn't mean you can't communicate with the train--it just means unsignalled.

quote:

but if say dispatch needed to talk to a particular engine  They would select the engine number and the engineer would hear a ring like a telephone  and that conversation would be private.

Then somebody better daggone good and well better educate the crews about then!

Whoa,
I said he said NS was expanding the system . You guys may not even have that yet and I assume by your response you don't LOL But I'd say in the future you will.
It takes a lot of getting used to but once you get the hang of it I loved it.
My radio could send and receive data so my lap top was paralleled with the radio.
All my orders came to my PC and finished orders were sent back to dispatch.
Even though the orders were sent via the PC we still confirmed sent and received orders verbally. I very rarely went to the office and my area alone was 130 miles one way from one end to the other. The system uses repeaters and it's a smart system .Each radio has a particular I.D. like your home PC does . That's why dispatch can select that particular radio. If your 200 miles away it'll go thru one repeater and if the signal strength isn't good enough it'll go to the next . This happens in seconds. It's like DCS
The radio talks to itself ,it's constantly checking for the closest repeater ,checking data and updating the GPS. That's both good and bad good because if you have a problem like the train just went full emergency you can tell them and they'll know exactly where your at.
Bad for me . One of my buddies called on the radio from dispatch and said "As soon as you finish that Whopper,I've got a 911 call I need you to go on. He could see my truck was sitting at Berger King.

  Anyway when you get the system you'll love it and it'll make things  safer.

I saw a crew on the CN-GTW use up the torpedos one day when they were stopped for a signal. The motive power was a CNW DASH 9. It was back around 2000.

 

 

The movie Under Siege 2 had too many contradictions in motivation and concepts. It came across as thought the script was never finalized. They shot many scenes and had to edit what they had at the deadline for release. The visual effects were spectacular.

 

Andrew

 

Falcon Service

I kinda of got the same impression about unstoppable. I'm sure to real railroad men the movie was laughable but even to grown ups it was "pushing it"
I mean if your going to derail a train why would you park 20 police cars 5 feet from the tracks? and have a crowd of people standing around?
And 20 Barny Fife's shooting at the fuel tank?
not to mention the helicopter guy?
I liked the suspense of the movie but I'm glad real railroads aren't run like that.
I wonder if they'll ever have an engineer less train ? I wonder if someday they won't need someone in the cab?

David

The people mover used to go from the parking lots to the terminals at Chicago's O'Hare Airport are automated. Same thing with DFW, I believe.

 

So, on a larger scale, it's possible.  Probable? Unlikely.  Desireable? No.

 

Rusty

Well....they did shoot at one....

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apsKBo8-zak

Narcoa has banned them. Our RR has banned them. Most RR's we run have banned them. I thought they were dropped in the mid 90's. 

 

I have a bag of them, I still find them in speeders that I bought. Do want to set one off one of these days.

 

Jamie

 

 

 

Well, I think torpedoes (and fusees) weren't really meant to be a signalling system per se, they were more something to be used in an unusual / emergency situation. If your train was stalled on the mainline for a time, and there's a train coming behind you, you might put down a torpedo when you start up again. Just kind of insurance that if the train behind you doesn't know you were delayed (radio is out / signal malfunction etc.) they may hear the bang and stop in time to avert an accident. 

Dad said track gangs used them to let an oncoming train know they were working.
Coarse neither one of us being railroad men, we didn't know if they had any other uses or not. He was going by more or less what he'd learned as a kid living beside the B&O tracks.
There was a long siding right by their house. Dad said before the war when traffic was light , a train would pull into the siding and await another train. One night about 3 in the mourning they started hearing toot,toot toot, Then in the distance toot,toot. This went on for about 30 minutes.

He guessed it was the engineer talking to the brakeman in the caboose.
Grand dad got up,grabbed his shotgun and out the door in his pajamas he went .
He told the engineer he had to be up for work in about 3 hours and if he knew what was good for him he'd lay off that dam whistle.

It must have put the fear of God in him and he put the word out because he said none of the trains used the whistle at that siding at night after that. I always loved hearing that story.
My grand dad was a very colorful character.

David

I agree with Wyhog's posts also. Apparently you were/are not a professional railroader.

 

I remember on the eastbound New Orleans Worlds Fail Daylight trip, we were eastbound out of Tuscon, AZ, and just before the beginning of the ascending grade up "Big Stormy", we hit two torpedoes with 4449. I couldn't hear them, but sure SMELLED the sulphur/smoke! We immediately had to slow down for one mile. Although nothing was ahead of us, we thus assumed that some "chasers" put the torpedoes out to slow us down in order to get more photos. THAT was 1984!!!