Snowman slows train

Thats pretty smart.

Snowman on the rails ?…..you need this baby !
http://www.flixxy.com/snow-plowing-train.htm?a=1

The snowman vandals must come from a farflung clan. In Canada, southern Ontario was plagued by a series of such incidents in the 1990s. In one case, a cinderblock was suspended on a rope from a road bridge so that it dangled at the height of a locomotive windshield. Fortunately, the first train to encounter it was able to stop in time.

The worst such case happened on November 20, 1994, near Brighton when a diesel-powered Via Rail LRC high speed passenger train ran over a rail that had been placed on the tracks. The rail punctured the locomotive’s fuel tank and broke some electrical cables. The arcing ignited the fuel and the resulting fire destroyed the locomotive and two cars. No reported fatalties, but many injuries.

I plead guilty to putting (old) pennies on the rail, 50 years ago, on the shed tracks at the north end of Grantham station, but I was probably more a danger to myself than anyone else!

I feel guilty now, it was a very small snowman, we wouldn’t have wanted to hurt our pals on the footplate and Victorian designed 4F’s clonking along at 20mph weren’t likely to suffer much damage in comparison to a modern high speed Swedish train and we certainly didn’t fill it full of stones.
Has any body else got any terrible tales to tell, I witnessed some stupid acts by other people but apart from pennies on the level crossing and once a maggot ridden pheasant, not guilty m’lud, or do toilet rolls attached to carriage handles count, they didn’t half go back a long way, depending on the speed of the train.

😉

Something like 10,000 Megajoules, equivalent to 2,800 kWh, I think! (assuming 500 tonnes of train travelling at 200 km/h)

moving at speed v, KE = (1/2)mv^2 (in consistent units.) :p

Normal speed for the X2000 is 200 km/h (120 mph), as there is no special track for it, so the tilting feature comes into a lot of use! Otherwise I guess it could go up to 300 km/h, like the one in Italy that I travelled on many years ago. That’s a lot of kinetic energy!

After that, the footplate crew used to build up a pile of snowballs in the cab, reduce speed and give us a bloody good battle, can you imagine that happening now without either side being arrested.
Good fun, weren’t the old days full of real pleasure.

Having been on the footplate of a good few steam locos in service (on preserved lines, of course) I know where I’d rather be if I’m having a snowball fight, and it isn’t the place that doesn’t have a nice roaring white hot fire to dry yourself out!

The front of the train in Sweden must have been in a mess. I caught the train from Copenhagen through Malmo and up to Halmstad a couple of months ago and they don’t hang around!

Paul

Well…..
In the old days, and I mean the 60’s here, we used to have a freight come past our bridge every day, for those of you keen types, it was always pulled by an ex LMS 4 Freight steam loco with a nutty crew who used to spray us with hot water from the boiler.
One day we decided to get even and built a snowman on the bridge, when the train arrived we pushed it off the bridge and by coincidence, it went straight down the funnel, must have been during the winter of 63.
After that, the footplate crew used to build up a pile of snowballs in the cab, reduce speed and give us a bloody good battle, can you imagine that happening now without either side being arrested.
Good fun, weren’t the old days full of real pleasure.

I must admit, when I saw the title of the thread I wondered if he did it by waving his arms or just by shouting ” I DEMAND THAT YOU SLOW DOWN!”

Of course once I read PL’s post I realised none of the above were the case.

Right that’s enough of the bad jokes from me too…