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OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
Rich Grise wrote: I tried to attach these, but apparently my newsclient or server choked on 2 MB of images. I got them from my brother, who lives in Minneapolis. http://mysite.verizon.net/richgrise/...e/image020.jpg One thing that struck me straight away is how flimsy the steelwork looks for the job it's supposed to do. Graham |
OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
"T. Rex" wrote:
In article , says... I tried to attach these, but apparently my newsclient or server choked on 2 MB of images. I got them from my brother, who lives in Minneapolis. Nothing to do with the size. This is a text-only newsgroup. You can't attach ANYthing. DOH! Look at the headers, Doh! It is crossposted to a binaries newsgroup, Doh! Doh! -- Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to prove it. Member of DAV #85. Michael A. Terrell Central Florida |
OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
According to Michael A. Terrell :
"T. Rex" wrote: In article , says... I tried to attach these, but apparently my newsclient or server choked on 2 MB of images. I got them from my brother, who lives in Minneapolis. Nothing to do with the size. This is a text-only newsgroup. You can't attach ANYthing. Look at the headers, Doh! It is crossposted to a binaries newsgroup, Doh! Doh! Just because it is cross-posted to a binaries newsgroup does not automatically give permission to post it in a discussion only (plain text) newsgroup. And I can't imagine these images being on-topic in alt.binaries.schematics.electronic anyway, so it is just as well that his newsreader prevented the posting of the images. I am much happier not being forced to download the images if don't want to look at them. The web site is the far better choice. (Though if it had an index, it would have been nicer to have a single link to the index, rather than pages of links to individual images. Of course -- even if he had managed to make it accept the binaries, many news servers now automatically drop any articles with binary attachments in a non-binaries newsgroup, so I likely would not have seen them anyway. :-) Enjoy, DoN. -- Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564 (too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html --- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero --- |
OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
"DoN. Nichols" wrote:
According to Michael A. Terrell : "T. Rex" wrote: In article , says... I tried to attach these, but apparently my newsclient or server choked on 2 MB of images. I got them from my brother, who lives in Minneapolis. Nothing to do with the size. This is a text-only newsgroup. You can't attach ANYthing. Look at the headers, Doh! It is crossposted to a binaries newsgroup, Doh! Doh! Just because it is cross-posted to a binaries newsgroup does not automatically give permission to post it in a discussion only (plain text) newsgroup. And I can't imagine these images being on-topic in alt.binaries.schematics.electronic anyway, so it is just as well that his newsreader prevented the posting of the images. I am much happier not being forced to download the images if don't want to look at them. The web site is the far better choice. (Though if it had an index, it would have been nicer to have a single link to the index, rather than pages of links to individual images. Of course -- even if he had managed to make it accept the binaries, many news servers now automatically drop any articles with binary attachments in a non-binaries newsgroup, so I likely would not have seen them anyway. :-) I don't like them crossposted, either, but I was pointing out that it was posted to at least one binaries newsgroup. Now that Earthlink has outsourced to Supernews I doubt that I could crosspost, with an image. They follow the rules a lot better than some of the other news server farms. -- Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to prove it. Member of DAV #85. Michael A. Terrell Central Florida |
OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
Rich Grise wrote:
I tried to attach these, but apparently my newsclient or server choked on 2 MB of images. I got them from my brother, who lives in Minneapolis. It just makes me wonder: If you survived such a disaster who is going to pay for your car which probably won't survive (unless it is a Toyota Hi-lux pickup truck)? -- Reply to nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.) Bedrijven en winkels vindt U op www.adresboekje.nl |
OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
On Sat, 18 Aug 2007 23:22:21 +0100, Eeyore
wrote: Rich Grise wrote: I tried to attach these, but apparently my newsclient or server choked on 2 MB of images. I got them from my brother, who lives in Minneapolis. http://mysite.verizon.net/richgrise/...e/image020.jpg One thing that struck me straight away is how flimsy the steelwork looks for the job it's supposed to do. --- Like you know something about it? -- JF |
OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
On Sat, 18 Aug 2007 23:22:21 +0100, Eeyore
wrote: Rich Grise wrote: I tried to attach these, but apparently my newsclient or server choked on 2 MB of images. I got them from my brother, who lives in Minneapolis. http://mysite.verizon.net/richgrise/...e/image020.jpg One thing that struck me straight away is how flimsy the steelwork looks for the job it's supposed to do. Graham I wouldn't say its flimsey. There is a bridge in the backround of one photo that looks to have similar size steelwork. I have also seen many bridges that look similar. The steel probably just looks flimisy cause of the failure mechanism. Has there been any real indications yet of how the failure may have occoured? |
OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
John Fields wrote: Eeyore wrote: Rich Grise wrote: I tried to attach these, but apparently my newsclient or server choked on 2 MB of images. I got them from my brother, who lives in Minneapolis. http://mysite.verizon.net/richgrise/...e/image020.jpg One thing that struck me straight away is how flimsy the steelwork looks for the job it's supposed to do. --- Like you know something about it? I'm comparing it with equivalent structures in the UK. Sure, we had the Tay Bridge disaster but that was at least in a howling storm, and in the mid-1800s very little was known about the performance of such structures under those conditions. Graham |
OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
In article , wrote:
"T. Rex" wrote: In article , says... I tried to attach these, but apparently my newsclient or server choked on 2 MB of images. I got them from my brother, who lives in Minneapolis. Nothing to do with the size. This is a text-only newsgroup. You can't attach ANYthing. DOH! Look at the headers, Doh! It is crossposted to a binaries newsgroup, Doh! Doh! Doesn't matter -- it's also crossposted to a text-only group, which means that the servers will strip attachments. -- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com) It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again. |
OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
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OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
Eeyore wrote:
John Fields wrote: Eeyore wrote: Rich Grise wrote: I tried to attach these, but apparently my newsclient or server choked on 2 MB of images. I got them from my brother, who lives in Minneapolis. http://mysite.verizon.net/richgrise/...e/image020.jpg One thing that struck me straight away is how flimsy the steelwork looks for the job it's supposed to do. --- Like you know something about it? I'm comparing it with equivalent structures in the UK. Sure, we had the Tay Bridge disaster but that was at least in a howling storm, and in the mid-1800s very little was known about the performance of such structures under those conditions. Graham Yawn. -- Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to prove it. Member of DAV #85. Michael A. Terrell Central Florida |
OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
Doug Miller wrote:
In article , wrote: "T. Rex" wrote: In article , says... I tried to attach these, but apparently my newsclient or server choked on 2 MB of images. I got them from my brother, who lives in Minneapolis. Nothing to do with the size. This is a text-only newsgroup. You can't attach ANYthing. DOH! Look at the headers, Doh! It is crossposted to a binaries newsgroup, Doh! Doh! Doesn't matter -- it's also crossposted to a text-only group, which means that the servers will strip attachments. Only if you're reading it in a text only newsgroup. -- Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to prove it. Member of DAV #85. Michael A. Terrell Central Florida |
OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
"ChairmanOfTheBored" wrote in message You obviously do not know what a hundred tons of concrete can do after a forty foot free fall. For that matter, I always thought railroad track to be rather stiff and immovable. I was watching the mainline tracks behind my office being changed. A crane picked up the loose rail that had been dropped off in 100 foot sections. Looked like a 100 ton piece of cooked spaghetti the way it bent. Go figure. |
OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
oppie wrote: "ChairmanOfTheBored" wrote in message You obviously do not know what a hundred tons of concrete can do after a forty foot free fall. For that matter, I always thought railroad track to be rather stiff and immovable. I was watching the mainline tracks behind my office being changed. A crane picked up the loose rail that had been dropped off in 100 foot sections. Looked like a 100 ton piece of cooked spaghetti the way it bent. Go figure. You don't use continuous welded rail over there ? Now that stuff really does look bendy. Graham |
OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
"Eeyore" wrote in message ... oppie wrote: "ChairmanOfTheBored" wrote in message You obviously do not know what a hundred tons of concrete can do after a forty foot free fall. For that matter, I always thought railroad track to be rather stiff and immovable. I was watching the mainline tracks behind my office being changed. A crane picked up the loose rail that had been dropped off in 100 foot sections. Looked like a 100 ton piece of cooked spaghetti the way it bent. Go figure. You don't use continuous welded rail over there ? Now that stuff really does look bendy. Graham Yes, the rail is thermite welded to a continuous rail except for insulated signaling joints. They ship it as 1000ft sections though. As nice as the tracks are now, the trains still sound like they have square wheels sometimes. I have to laugh at the railroad when they say how the damage to the wheels was caused by fall leaves on the tracks that caused a slip / stick when braking. Here it is, August in the Northeast of the USA and there are no leaves on the tracks, the wheel shops are supposedly all caught up in re-grinding the wheels on each truck and the trains still come back going 'clump clump clump'. When the new rails were first installed, the trains came by so silently it was amazing. Bad news for anybody walking along the tracks then as it was so quiet that by the time you heard a noise, the train was right by you. I found that out when walking along looking for the bits of track that they cut out when making the signal joints - a nice cross section about .75" long. They made nice book ends and the occasional dolly for bending other metal against. Oppie |
OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:05:35 GMT, "Oppie" wrote: Yes, the rail is thermite welded to a continuous rail except for insulated signaling joints. They ship it as 1000ft sections though. 1000ft? How? -- |
OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
ChairmanOfTheBored wrote:
On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 22:04:41 +0100, Mike wrote: On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:05:35 GMT, "Oppie" wrote: Yes, the rail is thermite welded to a continuous rail except for insulated signaling joints. They ship it as 1000ft sections though. 1000ft? How? Thermite? I think he pulled your leg. How so? I have seen write-ups of the thermite weld process for rail online. I saw some sections of rail cut-offs that had a joint that looked cast in place, and looked to me to have been done in such a manner. Lesse.... http://www.irfca.org/docs/thermit-welding.html First hit on a G-search for "thermite weld rail" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite_welding and the un-exiting video (probably because it was work, not play) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F1CWxryppw Cheers Trevor Jones |
OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
"ChairmanOfTheBored" wrote in message ... On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 22:04:41 +0100, Mike wrote: On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:05:35 GMT, "Oppie" wrote: Yes, the rail is thermite welded to a continuous rail except for insulated signaling joints. They ship it as 1000ft sections though. 1000ft? How? Thermite? I think he pulled your leg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite |
OT rail/thermite
"Mike" wrote in message ... On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:05:35 GMT, "Oppie" wrote: Yes, the rail is thermite welded to a continuous rail except for insulated signaling joints. They ship it as 1000ft sections though. 1000ft? How? It rather amazed the crud out of me to see these long flatbed cars - about ten altogether, with the rails laid in grooves on the deck. I guess there is a limit on how many rails they can cary and still make it around a curve... The rail is laid along-side the existing rail until it is ready to be put in place and is dragged off the rear of the flatbed cars carying the new rails. Pretty amazing process how they place and install the new rails. For welding, they use a series of Oxy/Acet torches to preheat the rails to a dull red for about two feet either side of the joint. A single use ceramic form is clamped over the joint. The form has a hopper up top that is loaded with the thermite mix and when the preheat is ready, lit off with a magnesium strip. As the thermite burns, slag floats to the top while pure iron drips to the bottom and fills the joint. Takes a few minutes to burn out and then sits for about a half hour before they knock off the forms. I don't recall any quenching so I assume that the rail is left soft, annealed. Next day, they do a rough grind and then a special rail dresser comes by and does the final surface grinding. Evidentaly there are a few methods other than the one I watched as show in these links. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR6K90cR8Lg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F1CWxryppw http://www.northeast.railfan.net/mow15.html Found this one on classic hacks - http://www.skepticfiles.org/cowtext/...1/realhack.htm Some MIT students once illicitly used a quantity of thermite to weld a trolley car to its tracks. The hack was actually not dangerous, as they did this at night to a parked trolley. It took the transit people quite a while to figure out what was wrong with the trolley, and even longer to figure out how to fix it. They ended up putting jacks under the trolley and cutting the section of track on either side of the wheel with oxyacetylene torches. Then they unbolted the wheel, welded in a new piece of track, bolted on a new wheel, and removed the jacks. The hackers sneaked in the next night and stole the piece of track and wheel! The piece of trolley track with the wheel still welded to it was later used as the trophy at the First Annual All-Tech Sing. They carted it in on a very heavy duty dolly up the freight elevator of the Student Center. Six feet of rail and a trolley wheel is a *lot* of steel. JT could probably give more info on this. Oppie |
OT rail/thermite
Oppie wrote: It rather amazed the crud out of me to see these long flatbed cars - about ten altogether, with the rails laid in grooves on the deck. I guess there is a limit on how many rails they can cary and still make it around a curve... The rail bends of course, just the same as the rails the train is running on. Graham |
OT Minneapolis Collapsed Bridge Pix
On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:05:35 +0000, Oppie wrote:
"Eeyore" wrote in message oppie wrote: "ChairmanOfTheBored" wrote in message You obviously do not know what a hundred tons of concrete can do after a forty foot free fall. For that matter, I always thought railroad track to be rather stiff and immovable. I was watching the mainline tracks behind my office being changed. A crane picked up the loose rail that had been dropped off in 100 foot sections. Looked like a 100 ton piece of cooked spaghetti the way it bent. Go figure. You don't use continuous welded rail over there ? Now that stuff really does look bendy. Yes, the rail is thermite welded to a continuous rail except for insulated signaling joints. They ship it as 1000ft sections though. As nice as the tracks are now, the trains still sound like they have square wheels sometimes. I have to laugh at the railroad when they say how the damage to the wheels was caused by fall leaves on the tracks that caused a slip / stick when braking. Here it is, August in the Northeast of the USA and there are no leaves on the tracks, the wheel shops are supposedly all caught up in re-grinding the wheels on each truck and the trains still come back going 'clump clump clump'. When the new rails were first installed, the trains came by so silently it was amazing. Bad news for anybody walking along the tracks then as it was so quiet that by the time you heard a noise, the train was right by you. I found that out when walking along looking for the bits of track that they cut out when making the signal joints - a nice cross section about .75" long. They made nice book ends and the occasional dolly for bending other metal against. That clack-clack, clack-clack is the wheels going over the expansion joints. In fact, you can hear it coming first from the front of the car, then from the rear and so on. I was in a train once that transitioned from ordinary track to continuous track, and the slience was almost eerie. Thanks, Rich |
OT rail/thermite
On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:43:16 +0100, Eeyore wrote:
Oppie wrote: It rather amazed the crud out of me to see these long flatbed cars - about ten altogether, with the rails laid in grooves on the deck. I guess there is a limit on how many rails they can cary and still make it around a curve... The rail bends of course, just the same as the rails the train is running on. With such long pieces of rail, how do they account for expansion? Thanks, Rich |
OT rail/thermite
On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:59:22 GMT, "Oppie" wrote:
Found this one on classic hacks - http://www.skepticfiles.org/cowtext/...1/realhack.htm Some MIT students once illicitly used a quantity of thermite to weld a trolley car to its tracks. The link and some others from google also mention CMU. I was at Carnegie Tech (now CMU) in the last half of the 60's. My fraternity was next door to another fraternity with a nice big old house but it had very few members and they tended to be extreme geeks. The reason, as I heard it, was that the fraternity was on long-term social probation. They had no parties and (I think) did not participate in events like homecoming. The reason, related to me in about 1965, was that some years earlier the fraternity had welded a street car to the tracks. The googling I did has references to both MIT and CMU (actually CIT back then) but no details. Here is the second-hand story as I remember it. Several of the fraternities were on Forbes Ave facing the campus; at least 4 as I remember it. Mine was one, and the perpetrators next door. I'm not sure when this happened but I would guess late 50's to about 61. The street car tracks ran on Forbes Ave and there was an island in the middle of the street, right in front of our fraternities, that was the stop for the street cars. They looked something like this http://www.kenoshawis.com/KWPix/Pix071001/dsc00013.jpg This 'X' fraternity was, at the time, one of the major fun fraternities. So they got this idea. I think two thermite bombs were involved. A few guys were waiting on the island for the street car. When it arrived, one guy got on with a hundred dollar bill to start an argument with the conductor about paying. The other guys immediately set the bombs at the wheels/track and ignited them. When the argument died down and the first guy exited the car, it was already welded to the tracks. I imagine it blocked the line for several days, because I heard that they had to come out, lift the car off of its carriage and then cut up sections of track with wheels attached and then replace the track. The fraternity was nailed, I'm sure some people were expelled if not more, and the fraternity became a ghost of its former glory for at least 10 yrs or so. My fraternity was bad enough. When I saw "Animal House" I thought it might have been based on us. We had a streetcar encounter too. We chartered one, and our fraternity got on with a sorority and two kegs of beer on ice in garbage cans. We cruised around the city for several hours. The transit company was not happy with us. They sent us an invoice for something like $20,000 damages. Apparently there were several things that were broken or missing. There was a small tidal wave of spilled beer that would flow forward and back in the car as we went up and down hills, and apparently some of that got into the electrics of the car and caused problems. Well there are no more street cars in Pittsburgh. No more fraternities can abuse them. Ah the joys of misspent youth. We got away, for the most part, with stupid stuff back then that would land people in jail today. |
OT rail/thermite
On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:59:22 GMT, "Oppie" wrote:
Found this one on classic hacks - http://www.skepticfiles.org/cowtext/...1/realhack.htm Some MIT students once illicitly used a quantity of thermite to weld a trolley car to its tracks. The link and some others from google also mention CMU. I was at Carnegie Tech (now CMU) in the last half of the 60's. My fraternity was next door to another fraternity with a nice big old house but it had very few members and they tended to be extreme geeks. The reason, as I heard it, was that the fraternity was on long-term social probation. They had no parties and (I think) did not participate in events like homecoming. The reason, related to me in about 1965, was that some years earlier the fraternity had welded a street car to the tracks. The googling I did has references to both MIT and CMU (actually CIT back then) but no details. Here is the second-hand story as I remember it. Several of the fraternities were on Forbes Ave facing the campus; at least 4 as I remember it. Mine was one, and the perpetrators next door. I'm not sure when this happened but I would guess late 50's to about 61. The street car tracks ran on Forbes Ave and there was an island in the middle of the street, right in front of our fraternities, that was the stop for the street cars. They looked something like this http://www.kenoshawis.com/KWPix/Pix071001/dsc00013.jpg This 'X' fraternity was, at the time, one of the major fun fraternities. So they got this idea. I think two thermite bombs were involved. A few guys were waiting on the island for the street car. When it arrived, one guy got on with a hundred dollar bill to start an argument with the conductor about paying. The other guys immediately set the bombs at the wheels/track and ignited them. When the argument died down and the first guy exited the car, it was already welded to the tracks. I imagine it blocked the line for several days, because I heard that they had to come out, lift the car off of its carriage and then cut up sections of track with wheels attached and then replace the track. The fraternity was nailed, I'm sure some people were expelled if not more, and the fraternity became a ghost of its former glory for at least 10 yrs or so. My fraternity was bad enough. When I saw "Animal House" I thought it might have been based on us. We had a streetcar encounter too. We chartered one, and our fraternity got on with a sorority and two kegs of beer on ice in garbage cans. We cruised around the city for several hours. The transit company was not happy with us. They sent us an invoice for something like $20,000 damages. Apparently there were several things that were broken or missing. There was a small tidal wave of spilled beer that would flow forward and back in the car as we went up and down hills, and apparently some of that got into the electrics of the car and caused problems. Well there are no more street cars in Pittsburgh. No more fraternities can abuse them. Ah the joys of misspent youth. We got away, for the most part, with stupid stuff back then that would land people in jail today. |
OT more track stuff
"Rich Grise" wrote in message ... On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:05:35 +0000, Oppie wrote: As nice as the tracks are now, the trains still sound like they have square wheels sometimes. I have to laugh at the railroad when they say how the damage to the wheels was caused by fall leaves on the tracks that caused a slip / stick when braking. Here it is, August in the Northeast of the USA and there are no leaves on the tracks, the wheel shops are supposedly all caught up in re-grinding the wheels on each truck and the trains still come back going 'clump clump clump'. When the new rails were first installed, the trains came by so silently it was amazing. Bad news for anybody walking along the tracks then as it was so quiet that by the time you heard a noise, the train was right by you. I found that out when walking along looking for the bits of track that they cut out when making the signal joints - a nice cross section about .75" long. They made nice book ends and the occasional dolly for bending other metal against. That clack-clack, clack-clack is the wheels going over the expansion joints. In fact, you can hear it coming first from the front of the car, then from the rear and so on. I was in a train once that transitioned from ordinary track to continuous track, and the slience was almost eerie. Thanks, Rich Not in this particular case. The MTA Metro North division that runs past my office (Hawthorne, NY USA) has been dodging all sorts of bad publicity about the noise the trains make and blaming it on wet leaves on the tracks. They claimed last year in the fall that the wet leaves caused the wheels to lock up when the brakes were applied... and then skid when they hit a dry section of track. That has not been happening over the dry summer so something else is denting or flatting the wheel surfaces that accounts for the noise. When a train with good wheels comes by, you only hear the noise of the variable speed AC drives and a little whine. As you said, almost eerie. Oppie |
OT more track stuff
"Rich Grise" wrote in message ... On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:05:35 +0000, Oppie wrote: As nice as the tracks are now, the trains still sound like they have square wheels sometimes. I have to laugh at the railroad when they say how the damage to the wheels was caused by fall leaves on the tracks that caused a slip / stick when braking. Here it is, August in the Northeast of the USA and there are no leaves on the tracks, the wheel shops are supposedly all caught up in re-grinding the wheels on each truck and the trains still come back going 'clump clump clump'. When the new rails were first installed, the trains came by so silently it was amazing. Bad news for anybody walking along the tracks then as it was so quiet that by the time you heard a noise, the train was right by you. I found that out when walking along looking for the bits of track that they cut out when making the signal joints - a nice cross section about .75" long. They made nice book ends and the occasional dolly for bending other metal against. That clack-clack, clack-clack is the wheels going over the expansion joints. In fact, you can hear it coming first from the front of the car, then from the rear and so on. I was in a train once that transitioned from ordinary track to continuous track, and the slience was almost eerie. Thanks, Rich Not in this particular case. The MTA Metro North division that runs past my office (Hawthorne, NY USA) has been dodging all sorts of bad publicity about the noise the trains make and blaming it on wet leaves on the tracks. They claimed last year in the fall that the wet leaves caused the wheels to lock up when the brakes were applied... and then skid when they hit a dry section of track. That has not been happening over the dry summer so something else is denting or flatting the wheel surfaces that accounts for the noise. When a train with good wheels comes by, you only hear the noise of the variable speed AC drives and a little whine. As you said, almost eerie. Oppie |
OT rail/thermite
"rex" wrote in message ... On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:59:22 GMT, "Oppie" wrote: Found this one on classic hacks - http://www.skepticfiles.org/cowtext/...1/realhack.htm Some MIT students once illicitly used a quantity of thermite to weld a trolley car to its tracks. The link and some others from google also mention CMU. I was at Carnegie Tech (now CMU) in the last half of the 60's. My fraternity was next door to another fraternity with a nice big old house but it had very few members and they tended to be extreme geeks. The reason, as I heard it, was that the fraternity was on long-term social probation. They had no parties and (I think) did not participate in events like homecoming. snip Well there are no more street cars in Pittsburgh. No more fraternities can abuse them. Ah the joys of misspent youth. We got away, for the most part, with stupid stuff back then that would land people in jail today. Thanks for that. I never pledged a Frat. I was with the Inter-College-TV/Radio Network at Clarkson back in the early 70's and we had our own non-fraternity fraternity: Zeta Omicron Omicron (ZOO). I think you get the idea... |
OT rail/thermite
"rex" wrote in message ... On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:59:22 GMT, "Oppie" wrote: Found this one on classic hacks - http://www.skepticfiles.org/cowtext/...1/realhack.htm Some MIT students once illicitly used a quantity of thermite to weld a trolley car to its tracks. The link and some others from google also mention CMU. I was at Carnegie Tech (now CMU) in the last half of the 60's. My fraternity was next door to another fraternity with a nice big old house but it had very few members and they tended to be extreme geeks. The reason, as I heard it, was that the fraternity was on long-term social probation. They had no parties and (I think) did not participate in events like homecoming. snip Well there are no more street cars in Pittsburgh. No more fraternities can abuse them. Ah the joys of misspent youth. We got away, for the most part, with stupid stuff back then that would land people in jail today. Thanks for that. I never pledged a Frat. I was with the Inter-College-TV/Radio Network at Clarkson back in the early 70's and we had our own non-fraternity fraternity: Zeta Omicron Omicron (ZOO). I think you get the idea... |
OT rail/thermite
Oppie wrote:
For welding, they use a series of Oxy/Acet torches to preheat the rails to a dull red for about two feet either side of the joint. Only one torch was used on the job I took probably a hundred pix (no movies) of. A single use ceramic form is clamped over the joint. The form has a hopper up top that is loaded with the thermite mix and when the preheat is ready, lit off with a magnesium strip. As the thermite burns, slag floats to the top while pure iron drips to the bottom and fills the joint. Takes a few minutes to burn out and then sits for about a half hour before they knock off the forms. Not even, about 5 or 10 min. I don't recall any quenching so I assume that the rail is left soft, annealed. Next day, they do a rough grind and then a special rail dresser comes by and does the final surface grinding. Next day my foot, by the time the next joint was set up and lit they came back and nocked of the form and not much later did the dressing grind. Slick grinder guided on the rail on either side of the joint. Evidentaly there are a few methods other than the one I watched as show in these links. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR6K90cR8Lg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F1CWxryppw http://www.northeast.railfan.net/mow15.html Oppie The materials I watched were like the second link above. This was building two swithhes for a siding on the line from Albuquerque to Belen on the Isleta res. (for the "RailRunner") It was even more intresting to watch the cutting of the main line and sliding the pre-fabed switches over and connecting to the line. Gad but it was cold and done late at night, way beyond my bed time. :-) If anyone is realy intrested in the pix I could send a few. ...lew... |
OT rail/thermite
On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 17:29:18 GMT, Rich Grise wrote:
On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:43:16 +0100, Eeyore wrote: Oppie wrote: It rather amazed the crud out of me to see these long flatbed cars - about ten altogether, with the rails laid in grooves on the deck. I guess there is a limit on how many rails they can cary and still make it around a curve... The rail bends of course, just the same as the rails the train is running on. With such long pieces of rail, how do they account for expansion? Thanks, Rich There is a facility about 3 suburbs away from me that welds together the short segments of tracks as described. I catch the train past the place everyday and often see the trains loaded up with the large sections. The track is placed on a greased up pad, then another is placed on top and soforth. The track itself can move freely back and foward. I have not really noticed how it is secured at each end but I will take a look next time I pass one. The facility is visible from the road, so I make take a drive up and snap a few pics if anyone is interested. Not sure if i can see the rolling stock, but you can definately get a look at the welding facility. |
OT rail/thermite
On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 17:29:18 GMT, Rich Grise wrote:
On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:43:16 +0100, Eeyore wrote: Oppie wrote: It rather amazed the crud out of me to see these long flatbed cars - about ten altogether, with the rails laid in grooves on the deck. I guess there is a limit on how many rails they can cary and still make it around a curve... The rail bends of course, just the same as the rails the train is running on. With such long pieces of rail, how do they account for expansion? Thanks, Rich There is a facility about 3 suburbs away from me that welds together the short segments of tracks as described. I catch the train past the place everyday and often see the trains loaded up with the large sections. The track is placed on a greased up pad, then another is placed on top and soforth. The track itself can move freely back and foward. I have not really noticed how it is secured at each end but I will take a look next time I pass one. The facility is visible from the road, so I make take a drive up and snap a few pics if anyone is interested. Not sure if i can see the rolling stock, but you can definately get a look at the welding facility. |
OT rail/thermite
Keywords:
In article KkByi.2771$nB3.775@trndny02, "Oppie" wrote: "Mike" wrote in message ... snip Found this one on classic hacks - http://www.skepticfiles.org/cowtext/...1/realhack.htm Some MIT students once illicitly used a quantity of thermite to weld a trolley car to its tracks. The hack was actually not dangerous, as they did this at night to a parked trolley. It took the transit people quite a while to figure out what was wrong with the trolley, and even longer to figure out how to fix it. They ended up putting jacks under the trolley and cutting the section of track on either side of the wheel with oxyacetylene torches. Then they unbolted the wheel, welded in a new piece of track, bolted on a new wheel, and removed the jacks. The hackers sneaked in the next night and stole the piece of track and wheel! The piece of trolley track with the wheel still welded to it was later used as the trophy at the First Annual All-Tech Sing. They carted it in on a very heavy duty dolly up the freight elevator of the Student Center. Six feet of rail and a trolley wheel is a *lot* of steel. Well, not exactly... It was a resurrection of the All Tech Sing (they stopped for a few years in the early 70's), and the track & wheel were not from the original hack. My dorm floor (3rd East) won it. The prize was always called "The Egbert" (for no known reason), and was traditionally massive and unwieldy. We won again the next year, and the prize was a stuffed Muppet dog, which we found very suspicious. After we'd had time to point out that it was neither massive nor unwieldy, they mentioned that they had a "little something" to make the dog feel at home. That's when they wheeled out a 3' square by 6" thick slab of concrete with a fire hydrant on it. After various adventures & renovations, both of them seem to have vanished from the dorm in the intervening years. I know the wheel broke off the rail at some point when it fell over. Doug White |
OT rail/thermite
The Real Andy wrote:
On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 17:29:18 GMT, Rich Grise wrote: On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:43:16 +0100, Eeyore wrote: Oppie wrote: It rather amazed the crud out of me to see these long flatbed cars - about ten altogether, with the rails laid in grooves on the deck. I guess there is a limit on how many rails they can cary and still make it around a curve... The rail bends of course, just the same as the rails the train is running on. With such long pieces of rail, how do they account for expansion? Thanks, Rich There is a facility about 3 suburbs away from me that welds together the short segments of tracks as described. I catch the train past the place everyday and often see the trains loaded up with the large sections. The track is placed on a greased up pad, then another is placed on top and soforth. The track itself can move freely back and foward. I have not really noticed how it is secured at each end but I will take a look next time I pass one. The track is secured to a center car so both ends move when it goes around the curves. Howard Garner from a family of railroaders |
OT rail/thermite
Rich Grise wrote: On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:43:16 +0100, Eeyore wrote: Oppie wrote: It rather amazed the crud out of me to see these long flatbed cars - about ten altogether, with the rails laid in grooves on the deck. I guess there is a limit on how many rails they can cary and still make it around a curve... The rail bends of course, just the same as the rails the train is running on. With such long pieces of rail, how do they account for expansion? It's apparently stretched slightly when it's laid. That reduces the problem at least. Maybe tension is less problematical ? Graham |
OT rail/thermite
Rich Grise wrote: On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:43:16 +0100, Eeyore wrote: Oppie wrote: It rather amazed the crud out of me to see these long flatbed cars - about ten altogether, with the rails laid in grooves on the deck. I guess there is a limit on how many rails they can cary and still make it around a curve... The rail bends of course, just the same as the rails the train is running on. With such long pieces of rail, how do they account for expansion? It's apparently stretched slightly when it's laid. That reduces the problem at least. Maybe tension is less problematical ? Graham |
OT more track stuff
Oppie wrote: The MTA Metro North division that runs past my office (Hawthorne, NY USA) has been dodging all sorts of bad publicity about the noise the trains make and blaming it on wet leaves on the tracks. They claimed last year in the fall that the wet leaves caused the wheels to lock up when the brakes were applied... How long have they been making this claim ? I'm sure British Rail originated it easily 20 years ago. The power cars that were used on the local line also had a problem one winter because we had the 'wrong kind of snow' that was so fine that it got into the electrics and caused them to fail. BR had a wealth of excuses including on one occasion a llama on the line yet never ever used the excuse that delays etc were down to incompetent management ! Graham |
OT more track stuff
Oppie wrote: The MTA Metro North division that runs past my office (Hawthorne, NY USA) has been dodging all sorts of bad publicity about the noise the trains make and blaming it on wet leaves on the tracks. They claimed last year in the fall that the wet leaves caused the wheels to lock up when the brakes were applied... How long have they been making this claim ? I'm sure British Rail originated it easily 20 years ago. The power cars that were used on the local line also had a problem one winter because we had the 'wrong kind of snow' that was so fine that it got into the electrics and caused them to fail. BR had a wealth of excuses including on one occasion a llama on the line yet never ever used the excuse that delays etc were down to incompetent management ! Graham |
OT rail/thermite
According to rex :
On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:59:22 GMT, "Oppie" wrote: Found this one on classic hacks - http://www.skepticfiles.org/cowtext/...1/realhack.htm Some MIT students once illicitly used a quantity of thermite to weld a trolley car to its tracks. The link and some others from google also mention CMU. I was at Carnegie Tech (now CMU) in the last half of the 60's. My [ ... ] The reason, related to me in about 1965, was that some years earlier the fraternity had welded a street car to the tracks. The googling I did has references to both MIT and CMU (actually CIT back then) but no details. Here is the second-hand story as I remember it. O.K. When I first heard about it, it was at MIT in 1960, and already spoken of as a part of history. The MTA car which was welded was not on MIT property. Instead, it was just outside the Harvard football stadium, just before the end of the Harvard-Yale football game. :-) A student half entered the car, and standing in the door was asking questions and being very stupid about understanding the answers. (The car could not be moved while the door was open.) Four other students came up to four of the wheel pairs, placed a paper bag of thermite at the join of the wheels to the rails, and lit them. Again, by the time that the student got clear of the door, the car was firmly welded to the rails. They had to cut the rails, lift the car with a crane, cut the steel tires off the cast-iron wheels, and heat-shrink new tires in place while the cut out sections of rail were replaced. I never heard anything about steeling the wheels and track sections, however. That sounds like something which was added later in the telling. :-) (There were quite a few other stories of things of the sort, including the barber pole escapade and the "spy" escapade (during the height of the cold war). :-) Enjoy, DoN. -- Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564 (too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html --- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero --- |
OT rail/thermite
According to rex :
On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:59:22 GMT, "Oppie" wrote: Found this one on classic hacks - http://www.skepticfiles.org/cowtext/...1/realhack.htm Some MIT students once illicitly used a quantity of thermite to weld a trolley car to its tracks. The link and some others from google also mention CMU. I was at Carnegie Tech (now CMU) in the last half of the 60's. My [ ... ] The reason, related to me in about 1965, was that some years earlier the fraternity had welded a street car to the tracks. The googling I did has references to both MIT and CMU (actually CIT back then) but no details. Here is the second-hand story as I remember it. O.K. When I first heard about it, it was at MIT in 1960, and already spoken of as a part of history. The MTA car which was welded was not on MIT property. Instead, it was just outside the Harvard football stadium, just before the end of the Harvard-Yale football game. :-) A student half entered the car, and standing in the door was asking questions and being very stupid about understanding the answers. (The car could not be moved while the door was open.) Four other students came up to four of the wheel pairs, placed a paper bag of thermite at the join of the wheels to the rails, and lit them. Again, by the time that the student got clear of the door, the car was firmly welded to the rails. They had to cut the rails, lift the car with a crane, cut the steel tires off the cast-iron wheels, and heat-shrink new tires in place while the cut out sections of rail were replaced. I never heard anything about steeling the wheels and track sections, however. That sounds like something which was added later in the telling. :-) (There were quite a few other stories of things of the sort, including the barber pole escapade and the "spy" escapade (during the height of the cold war). :-) Enjoy, DoN. -- Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564 (too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html --- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero --- |
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