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They will probably have a similar life span over there but class A roads usually trade them in and the smaller roads buy them and keep them running.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tote
48 class were probably one the most vestal branch line locos ever built. I put in a few thousand hours working in them.
Drivesafe,where do you find this stuff?,it interest the hell out of me. Pat
Drivesafe - do you know if any railways are running AC locos over here. I know that BHP has the AC 6000's and the newer SD70ACe's in the Pilbara, but haven't heard of anyone else running them in Aus.
It was amazing when they first got the 6000's - two of these could easily pull a fully loaded 330 car iron ore train from a standing start up the hill out of Yandi, where three Dash 8's often had to back up through the loadout to get a running start at the hill.
They are the only AC units I know of, not saying there aren’t others but I haven’t heard of any.Quote:
Originally Posted by BMKal
After 17 years on the job, I’ve got quite a few mates still driving and we tend to keep one another up to date on stuff ups and other goings on.Quote:
Originally Posted by PAT303
I had this BNSF video sent to me a year or so back and had a link to it on my web site but I see it’s now on YouTube, might interest you Pat.
It's a great view from the cab of an AC loco
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XkWuib8pIY"]YouTube - BNSF head on crash in Kismet california[/ame]
Pat - check out Pilbara Railways, photos of current iron ore operations in NW Western AustraliaQuote:
Originally Posted by PAT303
"Toad" is a mate of mine. We used to work together at Yandi for a few years.
Here’s a couple of pictures from up the NW WA.
This has to be my favourite pics of any toyota
Train!
TRAIN!
WHAT TRAIN?
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...009/06/661.jpg
OH WHAT A FEELING
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...009/06/662.jpg
That's not funny.
I was driving a Toyota Troopy hi-rail one night taking a mining crew out from the camp to Yandi II. Because I was lazy and didn't want to get off and turn round at the points up in the cutting, I used to reverse the first km or so up through the cutting and through the points, then call up control in Hedland to switch the points over so that I could drive forward through them an out to the Yandi II loop about 10 km or so away. At that end, I'd either turn round or simply run around the loop before the return trip.
Anyway, as I was reversing up through the cutting at a fair rate of knots, pitch black & raining, and just looking in the rear vision mirrors occasionally but seeing nothing but blackness, somebody in the back decided to turn on the overhead light, which is immediately above the centre of the barn doors in the back of a troopy. Well - the last thing that you want to see when you are doing what I was doing at the time is a light behind you.
Once I realized what the light really was - the air was blue ..................
US railways give amazing service compared with ours. We could order a Fiat-Allis 41B dozer (76 tons) and it would go on rail in Chicago, no dismantling other than blade and push beams off and under the belly pan, and have it at wharf in Long Beach in seven days. No Australian railway can carry one without removing tracks and cab, and then you may have to wait weeks for a suitable wagon to be found and delivered.
Yep, USA clearance gauge is a tad bigger than ours, we are about halfway between the UK train clearance gauge and the North American clearance gauge.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm
But gauge does not impede size, we operate the heaviest regular run trains in the world, in NW WA.
We apparently have some strange crew cab requirements too. I saw a doco on AC engines being made, to order, at GE in the USA and the guy giving the tour was going on about how each company has it’s own crew cab requirements and he went on to say that the Australian crew cabs required DVD players and he found that some what strange.
WHY? how uncool must the yank locos be?