03-27-2010, 11:05 AM
boppa Wrote:what kind of brakes do these cars have??
I worked for the SRA in NSW (government railways) and uncoupling a cars airlines automatically put the brakes on full bore
Normally the cars have both air brakes and manual brakes. Air brake pressure lines are charged when a train is running out on the road, and the air brakes go if the brake line pressure drops. Brake usage on the road is mandated by the "rules on train movement" (public regulation FOR 2008-02-29 nr 240: http://www.lovdata.no/cgi-wift/ldles?doc...-0240.html)
Air brakes are not used during switching in yards. The presence of parking brakes capable of holding the car when parked is mandated by rule 13.3 in the national train safety regulations (FOR 2005-12-19 nr 1621, http://www.lovdata.no/cgi-wift/ldles?doc...-1621.html)
In this case, it seems like the manual brakes were not used - the switching crew seemingly trusted the track brakes along the side of the track to hold the cars.
Rechecking the comments on the regulations, the following is said about parking brakes:
" Rullende materiell som parkeres skal alltid være sikret mot å komme i bevegelse uavhengig av hvor materiellet skal parkeres. Parkeringsbremsen skal være dimensjonert slik at den kan holde materiellet med maksimal last sikkert fast inntil den bevisst frigjøres.
Også andre hensiktsmessige måter å sikre at materiellet ikke kommer i bevegelse på kan benyttes. "
Rough translation: "Rolling stock being parked must be secured so they cannot move, no matter where the rolling stock is parked. Parking brakes must be dimensioned to hold rolling stock with maximum load until it is deliberately released. Other suitable ways of preventing movement may also be used".
I suspect that using track brakes only until now has been consider "a suitable way of holding rolling stock". I also suspect that this interpretation of the rules no longer will be allowed.
Quote:we dont have these `hump yards' either- for a carriage to move it has to be coupled to a diesel shunter
seems to me that any system that gives a carriage a shove and lets it roll till it bangs into something is bound by its nature to go horribly wrong sooner or later.....
Well - hump yards are used many places in the world - it wasn't the hump yard as such that was the main problem. The main problem was that the cars got out of the hump yard.
Quote:(all shunting done now has the loco with a horn blast that its moving the carriage and the loco itself has one of those annoying `beep beep' style beepers whenever its in motion)
Of course, with people being what they are, you still will have someone get run over who ignored or didn't hear the sounds, maybe listening to an ipod or wearing new and improved ear protectors or some such thing.
No system or procedure can totally remove all risk from life. As Mark Twain observed: "it is hard to make things fool proof, because fools are so damned ingenious".
The only thing you can do is to make it harder to make mistakes that have critical consequences. And clearly something should be done to ensure that runaway cars cannot so easily get out of the yard and onto the main.
Stein