[PRCo] Re: Ramped__Frogs-__-Mates

[Fred Schneider]

A lot of this depends too on what standards you are willing to live  
with.   Americans don't like to hear me bad mouthing American  
practice but I've also spent about three and a half years of my life  
looking at how the Europeans do it.    Hey guys, there is a  
difference.   I've seen the Swiss in Zurich tear up the same special  
work in an intersection within five years because the rail had worn  
beyond their standards ... it was no longer good enough to go  
thrashing through switches at 40 km/h!    Here in this country we  
simply run a little more slowly year after year and argue over who  
should fund rebuilding the tracks or who should fund the buses  
because we can't fix the tracks.
When my friend Frits van Dam, who worked for the Dutch Ministry of  
Transport, told me that the people from Tri Met in Portland, Oregon  
were in the Hague looking at how trams were operated there before Tri- 
Met opened their first East Side route, my reaction was, "These  
people are doing it right."   Frankly, I've never had anything but  
respect for the people in Portland.   And some of you guys also need  
to go to the Hague and find out what it's like to sit in the last  
seat of a PCC articulated car as it comes out of a curve in an  
intersection ... you would think you are cracking the whip in  
Kennywood Park.

And you need to see some of the German systems which run on low- 
voltage DC, medium voltage DC and high voltage AC.   Those 6600 volt  
AC interurbans that we had in the U. S. in 1907 weighed to much to be  
practical but the newer solid state devices are practical.   Go look  
at how they can run a 600 volt DC trolley through the streets of  
Karlsruhe or Saarbrucken and then have it run over 15,000 volts AC  
over the German Rail mainlines into the suburbs.
The astonishing thing was when Saarbrucken bought new streetcars,  
then simply put mainline engineers on them at the factory and simply  
ran them across the national railroad network to their destination!

But there are still some weird little operations ... my friend Bruce  
Bente wants to look at the Stern and Hafferl operation in Gmunden,  
Austria in May.   So we'll go there.   It is sort of the Austrian  
example of the Holy Grail.   A single used Duewag car from North  
Germany running on a line in the mountains no longer than the  
Queensboro Bridge Railway used to be ... about a mile and a half from  
the train station to the town.   And it still runs.  S&H still runs  
some random interurbans here and there in Austria too.   Why?  Beats  
me.   Beat's some of my German railfan friends too.   Christof  
Grimm's comment was, "We got rid of those kind of lines in Germany 40  
years ago."

Bob Deitrich has been very quiet about what he things of the trams in  
Nottingham and London, which I think he saw a month ago....

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I suspect, but short of rummaging through years of AERA publications  
and trade magazines it is only a suspicion, that riding on the  
flanges had as much to do with noise reduction as anything else.   If  
you ramp the wheel up and ride through a frog or a crossing on the  
flange, not only do you not batter the wheel tread but you also don't  
produce hammering sounds that irritate the public and result in phone  
calls to the mayor.    Same reason we used rail grinders ... if you  
get the corrugations out of the rail head, then you reduce noise from  
the cars and noise from the public.   You will notice I put used in  
past tense.   Public agencies seem to have forgotten rail grinders.    
Even TTC sent theirs off to the Halton County museum.


On Dec 14, 2006, at 4:52 PM, Jim Holland wrote:

> Bob Dietrich wrote:
> .
>
>> Fred and Jim, your explanations are very good, but they raise a
>> question in my mind.       You both say that the right wheel must  
>> ride
>> on the flange in the flangeway.       I was under the impression that
>> the tread spanned the gap between the rail and the point, much like a
>> standard railroad frog.       If the flange rode on the casting it
>> would quickly wear a grove in the casting and cause some nasty  
>> bumping
>> and deterioration.
>>
>> Am I misinformed on this?       Is the flange-way plus the width of
>> the point in the right-wheel casting really wider than the wheel
>> tread?       I know models span that gap but model wheels tend to be
>> wider than prototype - but then so do clearances.
>>
>> Bob .
>
> .
> Very  Standard  Practice  on Street Railways for the flange to ride in
> the gutter through frogs and through mates.       Once grooves are  
> worn
> into the gutter then the wheel is riding on the railhead but the  
> ride is
> far smoother with greatly reduced chance for chipping the  
> tire.       If
> the turnout is used in primarily only one direction then the wear  
> is in
> that direction.       Pittsburgh would send out the welder to fill the
> frogs with welding rod  --  That  Is   A-L-L   the welder did    
> ---   it
> left Multiples of Hills, Valleys, Peaks, indentures, etc. etc. etc.  
> and
> was  Extremely Rough to Navigate and Horriffically Noisy until worn in
> --  probably chipped the flanges!!!
> .
> The Primary Reason for riding on the flanges is to prevent chipping  
> the
> tire  --  every other reason is secondary.       Passing through
> 90-degree frogs is most problematic for chipping as the whole wheel at
> the same time Theoretically Bangs across the gutter;  with so many  
> such
> crossings on a TrolleyCar system the propensity for chipping tires  
> would
> be Extremely High thus all frogs and mates were Built with a gentle  
> rise
> in the gutter through the gap.       The problem of chipping is  
> greatly
> reduced as the angle of the frog drops below the 90 figger and is much
> less problematic with a mate.
> .
> I have mentioned right here before that Each Truck on a TrolleyCar  
> acts
> like a 4-wheel rubber tired vehicle when rounding a turn  --  the back
> axle does Not want to follow the path of the front axle;  the rear  
> axle
> of a truck tries to follow inside the circle circumscribed by the  
> front
> axle but on a trolleycar, the rails restrain but also Record this
> action.       There are obviously other forces which come into play  
> on a
> railcar but the principle is still the same.       The turn into the
> 42-Dormont wye was used by Multiples of Trolleycars all day and the
> straight through direction for the 42/38 owl was used only hourly and
> only 5 times a day.         There were Dual Grooves in the Mate of the
> turn on the Straight Through Rail  HEAD  (so obviously the grooves in
> the gutter were well worn as well!!!)  with the outside groove for the
> wheel on the front axle and the inside groove for the wheel on the  
> rear
> axle Of  Each Truck!!!       We had such a situation here in SF as  
> well
> that caused a Derailment  --  grooves in the railhead were so deep in
> the mate that it acted like a Self-Guarding Mate  --  resulted in  
> split
> switch with front truck going the correct way and back truck taking  
> the
> other direction which means that the rear truck climbed up and over  
> the
> point!!
> .
> Railheads in simple turns at intersections  (without turnouts and
> without frogs and crossings)  reflect the same  --  dual grooves in  
> the
> railhead.       Within the last decade it was so pronounced on several
> curves on the Judah line  (where I live)  that the rail had to be
> replaced, thus giving about 25-years life to the rail that PCCs and
> older cars had used for 50-years without replacement!!!!!!!
> .
> Trolley Wire frogs do the same  --  Ramp Down so that the wheel / shoe
> is riding on its flanges rather than bumping across the gap to  
> allow the
> flange to pass.       Without the ramping the dewirement quotient  
> would
> be severely high  (ramping needed much more for Wheels than for
> Shoes!!!!!!!)       And thus frogs can wear in one direction as  
> well and
> here we see the example at the 42-Dormont wye  --  Again!!!!!!!
> Only 5 trips straight through so the points in the overhead frog were
> almost closed toward the diverge move into the wye.       One summer
> night the owl went through and dewired  --  I could hear it at my  
> house
> and see the arcing as the pole struck the wire.        Next morning  
> when
> I went up to the wye there was a new overhead frog!!!!!!!
> .
> .
> .
> http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/RR%20Double% 
> 20Point%20Turnout%20096.jpg
> .
> http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/03-Tylerdale% 
> 200096%20195xxxxx%20RSchramm.jpg
> .
> http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/03-Track%20Drake 
> %20Loop%20Construct%201953xxxx%2001.jpg
> .
> http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/Smithfield%206th 
> %20Aerial%201951xxxx.jpeg
> .
> .
> .
> Jim___Holland
>
>
>