Chapter Notes: Hobo (Destination Unknown) · 11:20pm Oct 7th, 2021
Some of y’all will be familiar with where Sweetsong finds herself, thanks to another story of mine you might have read.
Thanks to AlwaysDressesInStyle for pre-reading!
Guitars are sort of awkward to carry around, and so these days you can get a folding one! Basically, the neck folds down and then it only takes up as much space as the body of the guitar. I honestly don’t know how good they sound compared to a real guitar, although I would have to assume that they’re not as good. Still, if portability is a major issue, like if you’re jumping on trains, for example, the compact-er size might be worth it.
Most often, local trains collect and drop off cars at industries, starting and ending their day at a rail yard, where entire trains are made up. There are several kinds of yard; the two common types in the US are flat yards and hump yards, which roll the cars down onto the classification tracks by gravity and use a series of retarders and electronic switch-routing. Some yards have purposes beyond simply making up trains; for example, where two railroads meet there might be an interchange yard where Railroad X can leave cars destined to Railroad Y and vice versa.
They’ll typically have one or two tracks that just run through (for through trains) and if well-designed they’ll have what’s called a drill track or a yard lead that a switching locomotive can use to switch cars without going out onto the main. Some of them also have railcar repair facilities and locomotive servicing facilities of various sizes (from simply refueling to being able to replace major components).
The tracks that lead into and out of the classification tracks are the ‘yard ladder.’
That one’s really simple and for a model. Since it came up JZ1’s Night Train to New York, Sunnyside Yard is an example of a very complicated (and busy_ rail yard which offers all sorts of car and locomotive services. Here’s a link to a diagram of that yard.
The ‘prime mover’ is the locomotive engine, and AFAIK the term is only used with diesel-electric locomotives. Very few diesel locomotives have their engine mechanically coupled with the wheels (I can’t think of any, but I’m sure it was done), instead using a generator in lieu of a transmission, and then the some or all of the axles have their own electric drive motors. Some locomotives were diesel-hydraulic, where the prime mover runs a hydraulic pump instead and there are hydraulic motors driving the axles.
One big advantage of this arrangement, which is also used on some heavy construction equipment, is that ‘forward’ and ‘reverse’ are the same as far as the engine is concerned; it can go just as fast for just as long in either direction. The other huge advantage is electric motors can give you all your torque at startup, which is a big deal for a train. That was one of the main reasons that diesels took over from steam locomotives when they did; a 700hp diesel might have more startup torque than a 1500hp steam locomotive that doesn’t hit its full rated power until it’s doing 30mph.
Pure electric locomotives just take the juice from an overhead catenary or a third rail, and power the traction motors that way.
Slack action is the movement between cars as the train changes speed. While it’s undesirable in passenger cars, it’s my understanding that it makes long trains possible—a locomotive couldn’t possibly get a whole train moving at once, but it can pull the first car and get it moving, and then the slack between the first and second car gets taken out and now it gets the second car moving, etc.
Also, depending on the terrain, you’ll have different parts of the train having different dynamics, for example in hilly terrain you might have some cars being pulled up a hill and some cars going down a hill, so there’s always shifting and banging going on.
There are special couplers which damped in for sensitive loads, and of course too much and you’re going to pull the train apart.
Railroads run on divisions (usually a section of track from yard-to-yard, but not always) and they are under no obligation to respect state borders with where they put their division points. Historically, their mile markers would be from one division point/subdivision point to the next, so for example the Detroit, Toledo, and Ironton might have started counting miles at the end of the yard in Detroit, MI, and finished counting miles at the yard limits in Toledo, OH with no respect to the still-contentious Michigan/Ohio border. The track she’s on is CN’s South Bend Subdivision, which counts its miles to and from Chicago, IL; the Flint Subdivision terminates in Battle Creek. [CN It also has the Jackson Subdivision off the Flint Sub, which doesn’t go to Jackson, and if the map is to be believed, the Jackson Sub is counted in miles from Richmond (MI), where it also doesn’t go.]
Presumably, long before the CN came along, the GTW or one of its predecessors did, and they never changed the mileage signs.
Actually, things on a railroad being name for something long gone is a good topic y’all should remind me to bring up one day. If you want to sort out a sample map, I found one of CN in and around Michigan, but it’s cursed sideways. I could probably do more looking, but where’s the fun in that?
A lift bridge is a bridge which is designed to lift up to clear ship traffic (really, you could make them clear any traffic, I suppose, but it would be way cheaper to build a normal bridge where you only need a little clearance).
The two most common types of lift bridge for railroads are vertical lift bridges, where there’s a tower on each end and the deck goes straight up and down, and a bascule bridge, where one end is hinged and the other end lifts up. Whether they’re left in the up or down position normally depends on boat traffic and train traffic.
A third type of bridge that railroads sometimes use for clearance is a swing bridge, where the movable portion is balanced on a pivot in the middle, and it can turn away to open up the waterway. IIRC, if the terrain is favorable, that’s the cheapest kind to build and operate.
EDIT: also, for some reason the story isn’t showing up in the updated column, so if you haven’t got it tagged, you can click here to be linked directly to chapter 2.
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*Realistically, there are even smaller, more portable versions, but I don’t see Sweetsong wanting one of those.
I'm not sure if this is the reason for that, but it says chapter 2 was released September 14th (same day as the first chapter, when the story itself was only published on September 30th). You may have to create new chapters (and copy/paste) when releasing the rest if they also show as released on the 14th? I've never run into something like this.
Boy, I could tell right away who drew that first picture, even without the graffiti.
SmellsLikeBeer has been gone for so long... loved his stuff.
Direct drive systems are deeply uncommon in modern railroading, and even more so in the United States. Small shunting engines from the early days of diesel traction (see the British Rail class 03 as an example) along with early railcars like the legendary Budd RDC used some kind of direct drive connection via a torque converter.
Outside of that, Diesel Hydraulic transmissions were the most common kind of Direct Drive transmissions. The Germans pioneered the system, and some examples of D-H locomotives like the V200 are still in active service with private operators to this day.
British Rail introduced several different examples, all featuring the licensed German design, into their Western Region during the modernization plan, but scrapped them after deeming them "non standard". The diesel hydraulic railcars they introduced around the same time were somewhat more successful, although attempts at multiple unit operations did reveal that the railcars couldn't accurately shift in unison, resulting in a lot of ground gears.
DH systems have... not been successful in the United States, with the only attempt being by the Southern Pacific, which trialed Krauss-Maffei units in the 60's. To give you an idea of how well it went, during the initial delivery, a KM rep doing a cab ride asked his SP counterpart when the train would crest the mountain it was climbing, as it was starting to overheat and struggle. The SP man laughed and pointed out the window to the distant Sierra Nevada mountains, which they hadn't even reached yet.
Interestingly, direct drive electric locomotives exist: The PRR's DD1 and FF1 electric locomotives are both examples of electric motors powering wheels via a jackshaft, instead of a motorized bogie truck.
Some fully electric passenger trains "cheat" by making every single car its own powered locomotive; every car has its own motors and is responsible for moving itself and drawing its own power. The lead car is just another passenger car except with a driver at one end, who controls the entire train by wire as if it was a single massive locomotive with very little slack action.
More hybrid racing notes:
Toyota has been making a series of hybrid cars for Le Mans for the past couple decades (ts010, ts020, ts030, ts040, ts050, gr010). Like the F1 cars mentioned previously, both the engine and the motors are coupled to the axles. Unlike them however, the v6/v8 petrol engines don't actually start until the car is halfway out of the pit stop. It appears that the motor that's used for initial acceleration is also used as the starter for the engine. The car doesn't even have to wait for it's engine to start before it gets going.
Southern Pacific operated some Diesel-Hydraulic locos for awhile and apparently Germany uses or at least used several Diesel-Hydraulic locos.
‘Eres a good video on the SP Diesel-Hydraulic: https://youtu.be/HpYNkHXu53k
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If you look carefully you can see the orange counter-weights in the towers that enable bridges like these to be lifted with motors about as powerful as the one in a washing machine. If my memory serves me right that particular bridge runs (or ran I can't remember which) on a 5HP motor.
I'm firmly convinced that globetrotting would be mainstream, something absolutely normal to do for a gap year, if humans could eat grass.
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Yeah. That's the normal way with subways.
I took a train from California to Texas not long ago, and it's not an experience I care to repeat.
First, train travel is not for anyone in a hurry...since we were a passenger train, every time a freight train had to use the tracks we were shunted aside and had to wait. That happened a lot. A. LOT.
Second, they've done away with smoking on trains here in America, so if you're a smoker on a trip that will probably take days you're shit out of luck. On my trip, however, someone decided they couldn't wait, so they broke the smoke detector in one of the bathrooms and puffed away. The train steward had the engineer stop the train, and over the intercom spoke to us all like we were 12-year-olds: "Someone was smoking in the bathroom, and this train isn't moving until we find out who it was!" We sat there for TWO HOURS.
Third, and I realize this is my own fault, but I didn't buy a private cabin, so I was seated out in coach. Imagine a coach seat on an airplane. Now imagine that same seat, only instead of being in it a few hours, we're talking days. Granted, there was a bit more room, and we weren't confined to our seats, but it wasn't that much different.
If I ever do take another train, it will be with a private cabin when I don't care how long the trip takes.
Did you sketch out that first drawing?
Yeah, notification feature seems to be fubared. I only knew you'd posted a new chapter because of this blog post.
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You can eat dead cheap just about anywhere if you don't need variety or, y'know... taste.
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There's a source link in small print just below the picture
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I see it, but why was it set to ultra-tiny font?
(Just so you know, FIMFiction didn't inform me of the update -- though the delay in me getting to it was more because I was busy.
Glad I finally did get to it, though. :))
"Very few diesel locomotives have their engine mechanically coupled with the wheels (I can’t think of any, but I’m sure it was done)"
Yep!
"special couplers which damped in for sensitive"
"special couplers which dampen it for sensitive"?
Oh, and I see you're aware about the update notification issue.
...Wait, or possibly not, if by "tagged" you mean put in a library: I do have it in a library, and I didn't get a notification. Nor did the story appear to move up in the library sorted by update date.
Anyway, thanks for writing, chapter and blog post both. :)
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I suspect that that’s why. I don’t think it will be a problem on further chapters (although I’ll check); both chapters 1 and 2 were ‘published’ before the story was submitted so I could navigate with the ‘next chapter’ button, and I think that date stuck on them.
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I don’t know if I’d seen his art before, but probably did. There’s something great about that pic, it’s kind of simple and yet poignant and just felt like the right way to start the blog post off.
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I didn’t figure there were many, but then I’ve seen a few small industrial diesels that have side rods which is hardly a normal thing for a diesel locomotive, so it seemed likely that someone had done it.
I’m curious what the supposed advantage is. Seems like there must be some problem it’s trying to solve. Wikipedia says ‘lower weight, high reliability, and lower capital cost’ and it also says that they’re ‘less efficient’, so. . .
Honestly, if you were going to try something out on a railroad, the last one to pick would have been the SP. They painted their locomotives dark primer grey, and from everything I’ve heard, didn’t know what preventative maintenance was.
I wonder if that’s because they were early designs of electrics, and that was more practical given the technology of the time, or if there was another reason for it?
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I think a lot of commuter and subway cars are like that, although I’m not entirely sure. I don’t think it’s technically cheating, heck, it might be cheaper to have each car have enough motors to power itself rather than one strong locomotive and a whole bunch of lazy cars just trailing along for the ride. Not to mention the flexibility of being able to make a train out of whatever equipment happens to be in the yard.
I’d have to look it up, but some hybrids have basically an electric engine in place of the flywheel/torque convertor, and I’m guessing that they’re using something like that. I don’t know what tech they use to uncouple it from the engine in pure electric mode, but it’s doable with some kind of clutch mechanism, and yeah, in that case you wouldn’t need a starter, just couple it to the engine and that gets the engine turning and started. I want to say that that’s how the Prius does it, I don’t think they have starters at all (not 100% sure, though).
For what it’s worth, my 78 Chevy could do that, too. Not well, but well enough to work when the clutch linkage broke--I put it in first and cranked over the starter, which got the truck moving and the engine started as well. Not nearly as smooth or fast as that race car, though.
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I’d argue that hydraulic doesn’t count as ‘mechanically-coupled,’ but YMMV on that (or the actual definition of ‘mechanically-coupled,’ lol). I did know about those, and that they were not a great success on the SP. Apparently finely-engineered machines didn’t get along with SP’s trackwork or deferred maintenance department: “The brakes sort of work and it’s not on fire, so it’s good to go back out.”
Thank you!
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In some ways, those are probably easier to build than elevators--you’re never lifting the bridge with any load on it, and you know how much the bridge weighs, so all you have to do is put on enough counterweights and the bridge will practically lift itself.
There’s a similar idea on a canal lift bridge (probably more than one, honestly) where one part goes down as one part goes up, and thanks to the magic of displacement, the ‘going up’ side and the ‘going down’ side weigh the same automatically.
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One advantage to being a grazer, practically everywhere is food and it doesn’t take all that much effort to hunt.
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From what I understand, Amtrak is supposed to have priority when they’re on-schedule. When they’re not, well, they’ve got to take their turn. And they’re not well known for their on-time performance.
I figure at some point I’m going to be on an airplane and some idiot is going to try that and we’ll get diverted to somewhere horrible and have to sit there for a while. It hasn’t happened yet, though.
Like, in this day and age, how does one not know that public transportation is no-smoking? And take a long-distance train anyway?
Yeah, I wouldn’t take a long-distance train without a room, even though it costs more. Just for having a bed. Although I once spent close to 36 hours on airplanes and in airports, so. . . .
I’m actually strongly considering going to Everfree Northwest by train next year. It’ll take a few days and cost a big stack of money, but I think it’ll be worth it. I did that trip as a kid, and it was fantastic.
Yes, that’s the best way to do it.
Or if you’ve got money coming out of your ears, get a private railcar.
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I did not. It was SmellsLikeBeer.
EDIT: here’s the link to his DA page
I’ve done the small source links under pictures for a long long time, just check any of my blog posts after mid-2015 (not sure exactly when I started doing it that way, but I was doing it that way from May of 2015)
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I think that’s my fault for what I did to the chapters before releasing the story, which is why it’s got a publish date of September 14 instead of whatever day it was actually published.
I’ll make sure that going forwards it doesn’t already have a date stuck to it.
Or if you’re a pegasus pony and the world’s full of free grass (and various yummy crops if you’re fast enough) and catchable fish in rivers.
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Pretty sure I’m the one that screwed that up, you’ll note that the chapter publish date is September 14, even though that’s not actually when it went live.
Thank you!
Yes, thank you!
I knew it never showed up on the ‘updated’ list, I didn’t know that people who were tracking it/favorited it didn’t get a notification, although I think that’s probably also because of the identical ‘publish’ date to the first chapter.
You’re welcome!
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and with the magic of displacement... that's pretty freaking cool.
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I used his art here https://www.fimfiction.net/story/81109/precious-gem many, many years ago.
He had so much talent, even more potential, and I fear he is truly gone.
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Hm, pretty plausible, at least -- though I don't know why FIMFiction's software does things, sometimes.
:)
No problem! :)
Of course, there were also some other experiments early on...
Thanks, and you're welcome.
Also plausible, as above, aye.
And yeah, no, as it happens, I'd looked down the library and seen there was an unread chapter, and in this case, of course, there was the blog post I'd also have seen. But if not for one of those, I don't know if I'd know there was an update.
So, good that in fact both of those happened, then. :)
:)
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"Or if you’re a pegasus pony and the world’s full of free grass (and various yummy crops if you’re fast enough)"
Though I would be concerned about pesticides and such on the crops, and in some places also on the grass.
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Science is magic!
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Interestingly, i’ve been pointed to that website before and found out about other locomotives I had no idea existed (the electrically-heated steam locomotive, for example). Looks like lots of good stuff there, maybe some day I’ll have the time to go through it
That is a good point. I think that most pesticides used in food crops in the US are safe for quadrupeds, although I don’t know that for actual fact. Less sure about the grass, since that’s generally not meant to be eaten when on people’s lawns or whatever.
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"Interestingly, i’ve been pointed to that website before"
Well, with some of the things you blog and write about, I'm not all that surprised. :D
"and found out about other locomotives I had no idea existed"
Yeah, they've quite the list, as I recall. With, at least in my impression, levels of practicality and usefulness ranging from "In a plausible alternate universe, this became the standard." through "This was a useful learning experience or worth trying, but it makes sense it didn't catch on." and "This if clearly useful in its very particular niche, and was in fact used extensively there, but isn't well known outside it." to "Why on Earth did anyone think this was a good idea?".
"the electrically-heated steam locomotive, for example"
Aye, that'd be one of those very-good-in-a-niche ones, as I recall.
Though, interestingly, I was just earlier today wondering if there might also have been a niche for fireless steam locomotives fed by electric boilers, in freight yards for highly electrified railroads in the interwar period or thereabouts. The reasoning being that you might want to avoid putting third rail or overhead line down for the yard for reasons of cost and safety (third rail especially, but one might also have people moving around on top of the cars, or want to use cranes...), you might want to avoid a steam or diesel yard shunter because of having to manage fuel supplies and engines and such, and you might want to avoid a battery-electric shunter because the batteries of the time period weren't good enough and charging time especially might be a concern, with the low battery capacity. Under such circumstances, it might make sense to have one boiler off to the side of the yard, fed by the electrification system and used to charge shunters. Only one boiler, or maybe two right next to each other, for redundancy, to manage, and the shunters can use proven steam traction technology without the operators needing to worry about fire management or fuel. When the reservoir gets low, move the shunter over to the boiler house, and it'll recharge as fast as you can pump superheated water in. If the shunters needed to be too big for 0-X-0 wheel arrangements, they could be geared to still make all axles driven; this is, after all, another application where one wants high tractive effort but not so much speed.
I don't know if that was ever done, though. Certainly, fireless steam locomotives had niches they were well-suited to; I mean the electrically-heated boiler at a freight yard thing.
"Looks like lots of good stuff there, maybe some day I’ll have the time to go through it
"
Good luck. :)
I don't think I've been through the whole thing, either.
I might have, once, years ago, but I'm not sure of that, and even if it was the case, I believe they've added new stuff since.
"That is a good point. I think that most pesticides used in food crops in the US are safe for quadrupeds, although I don’t know that for actual fact. Less sure about the grass, since that’s generally not meant to be eaten when on people’s lawns or whatever."
Right. Well, our protagonist here seems to be getting by alright so far, at least... Maybe she can taste the pesticides and so can avoid plants treated to dangerous levels? I don't know how easy that would be to do, though, even if she could.