03-08-2011, 12:34 PM
Green_Elite_Cab Wrote:The part that frustrates me is that electric railroads and commuter trains really ARE a small niche. I have only met a handful of modelers who actually will follow through with that sort of prototype, and a few more who at the very least, know what I'm talking about when i say the word "Silverliner". Most Modeling I encounter appears to either Transition Era or relatively recent, and that's great, I'm familiar with it all. People can discuss such stuff ad nauseum. However, whenever I'm just looking to talk about an MU car or an E33 electric or whatever, I encounter glossy eyes and blank stares.
Not from me, you don't :-)
I have grown up with electrical trains - both electrical motor units and electrical locomotives pulling coaches, and I am still surrounded by them every single work day.
Today I took a Swedish Regina two car EMU into town (Oslo). Then walked across the platform to board a Type 69 G EMU for the short hop up to the RR station closest to my place of work, at the northern edge of Oslo.
On my way home, I took an double three-car X2000 subway set down to Oslo Central station. Got a long red at Majorstuen junction (where all the western subways meet), and arrived at Oslo Central RR station about 90 seconds late to catch the 5:09 pm back home.
I went and did some shopping for my wife, but ended up with about 15 minutes to kill at Oslo Central, waiting for the 6:09 pm train home.
Too bad I didn't have a camera. Tail end of afternoon rush hour traffic - trains were arriving and departing from all 17 tracks on Oslo Central - most of them electrics.
I saw one single diesel engine - a center cab Di 8 switcher pulling about 20 empty stakebed cars heading NE to get a new load of logs for the paper factories to the west of Oslo.
An El 14 electric engine took about 20 loaded container cars into the Oslo tunnel, heading west - probably bound for some southwestern or western city.
An El 16 electric engine took a train of B7 passenger cars southeastwards - probably bound for somewhere in Sweden.
Sleek grey futuristic looking Italian styled Type 71 four car airport express motor units were arriving or departing every 10 minutes four tracks over. When they left the station, they accelerated fast out of the with that special low pitched hum they have.
A similar looking (but in a different color) type 73 tilting regional express train was standing at the far platform - it was scheduled to leave for a city to the SE a few minutes after my train.
A number of dark red type 69 EMU commuter trains were arriving and departing in all directions - I spotted an older type 69B two car EMU coupled to a newly refurbished type 69C2 three car set, with it's new oddly bulging forehead. Many sets of type 69D flat faced three car EMU sets. A type 69G set - same type as I took in the morning on the G line northwards.
A couple of newer gray and green type 72 four car EMU sets, with their exterior shell designed by the Italian design bureau of Pininfarina, who also designed Italian racing cars.
My train arrived - another type 72 - with it's huge windows, and I boarded, sat down and looked out the window as we accelerated out of Oslo Central, and went up the hill towards the mouth of the Romerike tunnel (about 12 miles long). Nine minutes later we emerged from the tunnel at Lillestrom, and rolled in along platform 5 to take on more passengers.
The sky was turning dark blue as night was falling. The forest of catenary poles and wires were just dark shadows against the sky as we pulled out of Lillestrom and headed down the Kongsvinger branch, homewards bound.
Electric commuter ops seems just plain fun.
But for me the fun is not so much each and every train - although find those fascinating those too. But the main game is "the flow" - keeping it all running, while dealing with all kinds of problems - a train set breaking down here, maintenance there, signal problems causing reduced speed over there, handling delays, juggling buses and taxis when things go to heck in a hand basket, trying to keep running hours balanced - so you wear the trains down in a controlled way, and don't end up with too many units down for maintenance at the same time, trying to dispatch personnel so you cover all trains and won't have to cancel trains due to lack of staff, getting equipment repositioned between morning rush hour and afternoon rush hour.
It seems like a complex (and interesting) puzzle. Even for a small country where there is only a couple of million people living in the capital region. The mind boggles at the thought of handling commuter traffic into New York or Chicago :-)
Grin,
Stein