Re: Emergency Braking Was: Re: Beresfield Accident Findings

[David Johnson <trainman@ozemail.com.au>]

MarkBau1 wrote:

> A few other points: US freights typically have a lot more slack than an
> equivilent length Australian train due to the widespread use of cushioning
> devices on box cars, coil steel cars etc.
> US trains can get very long, (the longest I've run was 9,000 feet long) (almost
> 2 miles) a train of this length has a tremendous amount of slack, thus the
> problem of emergency applications. Coal trains normally max out at 115 cars, a
> little under a mile.

The longest coal train run in NSW was 105 wagons, comprising of only 15
auto-couplers.  We ran it at 80 km/h and threw it into emergency.  The stopping
distance was 1 km (half a train length) when empty, and nothing derailed.

--
David Johnson
CityRail Guard
trainman@ozemail.com.au
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~trainman/