On 13/11/2013 15:23, Gefreiter Krueger wrote:
On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 15:17:10 -0000, SteveW
wrote:

On 13/11/2013 12:07, Gefreiter Krueger wrote:
On Tue, 12 Nov 2013 23:26:42 -0000, SteveW
wrote:

On 05/11/2013 11:42, tony sayer wrote:
In article o.uk,
Dave
Liquorice scribeth thus
On Sun, 03 Nov 2013 12:05:34 -0000, Gefreiter Krueger wrote:


lower


Can't think of any around here either.



Who will come of worse between a tractor and a car?

A large rabbit or even a pheasant can take out a headlight or smash a
radiator grill. A sheep would probably cause serious damage, roe deer
have long thin legs so will tend to get scooped up and have a good go
at coming through the windscreen. A red deer, probably will come
through the windscreen, you might survive...



Mate of mine had a new "ish" BMW written off by a wayward horse!..


A cow derailed a train once;!... 13 dead and 61 injured..

I remember that. I think that there was a bit of a fuss at the time as
the train was being run push-pull - pulled as normal to one end of the
line and pushed back to save moving the loco to the other end. I don't
know if that was to save time, effort or of there were no facilities
for
running round the train at one or both ends of the line.

You mean it was being driven with no forward view?

Locomotives normally have the facility to be coupled together and
controlled from the cab of the leading one (multiple working) allowing
one driver to control multiple locomotives. In push-pull working, the
leading carriage has a cab built into it and the train is driven from
there when in push mode. Similar to the old 1950s Diesel Multiple Units
(DMUs) where one carriage had a pair of diesels under the floor and a
cab at one end and the other just had the cab and no engines.

So why was a fuss made?

It was considered that the much lower axle weight of a carriage compared
to a locomotive made it more likely to derail when hitting an
obstruction and hence always leading with the locomotive is safer -
basically something getting jammed between the sleepers and the bottom
of the carriage or between wheel and track is less likely to lift a
heavy locomotive high enough for the wheel flanges to slip over the top
of the rail.

Having just read the report referred to by another poster, it was
considered too expensive to increase the axle loading of the leading
carriage and that to get it to a similar level as a locomotive, it'd
require entirely new driving carriages for each train. A much cheaper
alternative of adding a guard to try and prevent obstructions getting
under the carriage or wheels and lifting it was added instead although
its effects are far mor limited.

SteveW