SAND ON RAILS and SIGNAL PROBLEMS

[Fred W. Schneider III]

BECAUSE THE SUBJECT LINE WAS NEVER CHANGED FROM PHILADELPHIA PCC RETRIEVER ON
SALE ON EBAY, I PROBABLY DELETED THE INITIAL MESSAGE IN THIS SEQUENCE.  I'VE
ELIMINATED A LOT OF MESSAGES LATELY ABOUT E-BAY AND ILLINOIS TERMINAL ENGINES
WITHOUT EVEN OPENING THEM.

SO WHAT I AM ABOUT TO ADD MAY HAVE ALREADY BEEN SAID.

Pittsburgh Railways instructors told their interurban motorman that if they
dropped sand, they were to stop, go back, and sweep all the sand from the
rails.  The "Railways" had repeated problems with the color light track circuit
signals on the interurbans, and one rather nasty accident as a result of sand.
If I recall the incident correctly, a car on sand was isolated and the same time
that a car entered the other end of the block ... thus the opposing car got a
green block instead of red.

Remember that sand is silicon dioxide, the same stuff we melt down to make glass
insulators for power lines.

Ed Lybarger provided me several years back with a study of signal defect reports
on the interurbans.  It was downright scary.  After seeing it, if I were running
the interurban lines, I'm damn sure I would call the dispatcher for clearance if
an opposing car didn't show up where I normally would pass it.  And maybe that
is just what the motormen did.

A PRC motorman also told me of an incident in which garter snakes got into the
signal relay case and allowed a motorman a green block when it should have been
red.  I cannot confirm.

In the 1970s the Reading Company (in this case the railroad) installed wheel
tread scrubbers on several Budd RDC cars that worked between Reading and
Pottsville.  They apparently had limited if any signal problems east of Reading
because most trains consisted of three or more RDC cars or a long push pull
train with diesels on each end and a healthy string of steel coaches in the
middle.  But north of Reading only single cars were used and they did have
problems with track circuit signals.  Let me point out that freights caused no
problems ... there is no such thing as a one car freight train.

Pittsburgh Railways Co. didn't have the same problems with Natchod signals
actuated by trolley wire contactors, but our experience at PTM indicates a
totally different range of problems.  Natchods are most sensitive to trolley
pole spring tension, car speed, and the width of the wheel or shoe.  They don't
like weak poles.  They despise cars going faster than five miles an hour through
contactors.  Certain cars with shoes won't work consistently because our
contactor width is designed for wheels .

Let me sign off with one final story of leaves.  This relates to the diminutive
Lancaster and York Furnace Street Railway which ran from 1903 until 1929 from no
where to no place through a part of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania,
characterized by an almost total lack of population.  The system ran hourly in
the summer for fisherman and every other hour in the winter.  Harry Bortzfield,
probably the last full time motorman (for two hour service, you only need one
man), described to me a fall trip when he came over the top of a hill on leaves
and found a bull standing on the rails in front of him.  The car wasn't about to
stop and the bull had no intention of moving.  Harry said, "We had shit all
over."  He didn't describe how long it took the shop staff to rebuild the end
platform.



Greg King wrote:

> Hi Jim,
>
> You were (if I'm correct) talking about sanding rails etc., how you were
> surprised by the motorman sanding the rails on the Muni. I'm very familiar
> with the Muni (having been over it a FEW times when I was there) but not so
> with Pgh. You were concerned about track circuitry and switch changing etc.
>
> We, I operate modern cars, not unlike Muni and current Pgh in principle
> (except ours are foot control like a PCC) and was for many years, an
> Instructor on these and our older "conventional" (controllers, air brakes,
> the way God intended!) cars when we had them. Can I relate a few things.
>
> As far as track circuitry is concerned, I'm no expert, we don't have that on
> the trolleys but, in NSW, on the railroad there, they had a nasty acciden a
> few years back when an Interurban rammed the rear of a stalled Steam
> passenger fan trip that were using old wood cariages, there was substantial
> loss of life and the steam loco, sanding the wet rail was blamed for
> interupting the circuit (funny, they never did that when they had steam in
> the past and the diesels don't do it either) so all locos (of all types)
> that run on the NSW railroads have an extra pipe at the back to blow off
> excess sand!!!!
>
> As for trolleys, modern streetcars have "anti-slip/skid" control that
> identifies when the car is going to slip and automatically breake
> acceleration or braking, drops sand and reinstates same, the motorman on the
> Muni, may not have had a say in it!, at any rate, when I trained motorman, I
> encouraged the use of sand and still do, when the track is wet, especially
> at the start or end of a rain, it is very slippery and those rubber tired
> loonies won't give you a break. All our switch contactors are in the track
> now but are an Inductor loop and not effected by sand.
>
> One little story I would like to relate, many years ago, I was crossing an
> intesection in the city next to a park (this was Autumn, Fall, as you call
> it) and a tram going the other way indicated (by punching his fist into his
> hand) that an accident had happended down the next stop, as I came over the
> top of the intersection (crosses another route and is the top of a hill) I
> could see a tram at the next stop, I gentle applied the brakes to go down
> hil slowly and the tram took off, I looked at the rails and they were black.
> I released the brakes, applied sand and it still skidded, the sand wash
> being pushed into the goo! Again I released the brakes (as the rear of the
> next car was getting uncomfortably close) and pulled the reverser key and
> cut three or four notches, eventual the car slowed to a stop, I then applied
> the brakes again and the car held (then I cut the power), I went to look at
> the car in front, it was neatly buried into the car infront of it, the
> "aggressor" had been out of the shops a week after overhaul! The black rail
> of course was, the squashed leaves from the trees in the park, after the
> mess was cleared up, the Scrubber spent a couple of happy hours cleaning the
> rails, my testimony at the inquiry, saved the motorman his job, he had
> already received two broken ankles in the smash!
>
> Boy that was long,
> See Ya
> Greg