Train 808 Centre Avenue Fire

Ha, ha, ha! Thanks Clem; not a problem! As one who is getting well into middle age myself, I'm starting to face some of those same kinds of issues, especially when talking to my younger co-workers..............

BTW, what do you call female trainpersons, at least when speaking publicly?

As per Richie Harrison's book(retired LIRR engr.) they were referred to as "wheels." Don't know how well that would fly today.

As per Richie Harrison's book(retired LIRR engr.) they were referred to as "wheels." Don't know how well that would fly today.

<i>They are under the round boot at the wheel centers. So, the boot has to be looked under, and the bolts retorqued, on every PI.
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Cute. Of course, there's red locktite (biker's friend! or cotter pins. Then again, a properly torqued fastener shouldn't loosen, though I'm guessing wood compression's an issue here too.

That said, WTF is wrong with BBD that they can't keep their screws from going loose? This is like 2nd year ME stuff...

Head,

We call the ladies "trainmen." of course, both privately and technically. Some have been called other things, especially by the passengers.

BTW, where did the term "wheels" come from?

Clem

Phil,

...BBD that they can't keep their screws from going loose?

They do safety wire or put locking tabs under a lot of the bolts or nuts. Either overlooked those or felt they shouldn't be necessary for those bolts.
All part of bug shakeout process.

Tom

!st time, short time!

One thing on this ancient subject;
It was stated

This shows how a situation is handled by dedicated men who know their jobs.

The brake"man" was a female and she did a terrific job. Just wanted to give her her props.

Clem,
I don't know who you are but you find out lots of little facts. ie ex-manager, he turned down medical aid to move his train. Good detective work.

And lastly, kudos to the customers on this train. They took the delay well and and remained calm in a scary situation.

On or close!

Yes, the brakeman was a woman. The entire crew was great as were the M of E mechanics who responded.

And yes, I do know a lot of little facts.

Clemuel

Eric (de402),

The M-7 shoe beams are in fact a series of wood laminations.
The M-1 and M-3 beams are a solid piece of dense wood.

Tom

It'll be interesting to see if the laminations are a problem.

There's something going on with the beams or the fuse holders. We've had maybe a hlaf dozen fires when water's dripping on on them. Something behind the fuse holder where the crossover lead is attached seems to flash.

Remember that the M-1's had a problem when they first arrived. That's the reason the boots were placed around the shoe beams. Do you recall the new M-1's that were reduced to smoldering flatcars after they set fire to the Far Rockaway platform? Rain dripping down on the beams caused them to flash. That pair was replaced by Budd under warranty. Maybe 1972 or so?

Clem

I'll try to see what's going on. I haven't seen any M-7s with this problem at HMC yet. Maybe they're going to Arch Street?
I don't know if this is the problem at hand with the cars you are speaking of, but I know we had a couple of problems with the modified shoe fuse box arrangement. When BBD moved the shoe fuse box from centered over the shoe, to off to the side, they had to hurriedly make up some adapters and such.
Inside the red box near the shoe fuse holder is a connection plate. The plate is bent at a right angle. It fatigues at the bend, and separates, making an open circuit for that shoe. But then the cable connected to half the connection plate starts flopping around in the box. When it hits the other half, it will start arcing.
In HMC, they just started, within the past few days, having mechanics open all the red boxes and inspect. Venture your own guess, but I will bet it is because of these incidents. I didn't think to ask anyone...just figured that's what the inspection was for.
Long term, should not be too hard to fix. Yet another bug to be swatted.

Tom

The crazy thing about the M-1 and M-3 shoe beam boots is that they put them on to protect the mounting bolts and plate. Then people started cutting "inspection holes" into the boots. This was actually accepted and incorporated into the PI. To this day, the PI book says to check the tightness and integrity of the bolts via the inspection holes in the boots.
Well, you also were still getting flashing over to the bolts!!
During the rash of shoe beam fires a few years back, M of E ordered a boatload of boots, and all boots with holes had to be replaced with boots without holes.
Gotta love it!!

Tom

BTW The M-7 actually has circuitry to detect a missing contact shoe.
I don't know if it alerts the crew when it detects a missing shoe. If it does, or the reporting attribute is changed to do so, the crew could alert Central of this information. Then the "missing shoe" could be investigated ASAP to see if the shoe is missing, or if it is a problem in the red box.

Tom

P.S. There is even a truth table for the computers to change certain performance characteristics of the pair of cars with contact shoe(s) missing.

Tom,

We had one train that lost most of the shoes from one side. The thing slowed down and the screen told the engineer that shoes were missing.

By looking into the computer's history we could see the exact time the loss occurred. This helped the search for "the pile of shoes" that often takes down a whole ruch hour.

Pretty cool.

Clem

Pretty cool

It is just that.
What I'm saying is that if the system logs a particular shoe as "missing", and an inspection visually finds that the shoe, shoe fuse, shoe lead, shoe height, and everything else that can be seen looks fine, then a look inside the red box would be warranted. The computer simply sees there is no potential from that shoe circuit. It doesn't know where the circuit is open.
There is even circuitry and/or a time delay on reporting missing shoe to allow for gaps. The computers can follow the sequence of shoes going into and out of gaps. Otherwise, your CDP would light up like a Christmas tree with missing contact shoe reports around Jamaica and other interlockings. I think it figures out speed of train, and distance between contact shoes, and knows it's a third rail gap. It's real cool.

Tom