Bad weather + Trains

plarnold

It is the time of year when weather events are more likely to be extreme depending on your geographic location.

Here in Australia it gets very hot. The last week has seen temperatures rise past 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and rail transport has had to slow down in case of any problems with the tracks. The maximum becomes 90 kmph on the entire network in extreme heat events.

As members of BPT come from various parts of the world, I am wondering what the speed limits become when the temperature reaches similar regions.

And to further complicate life, I fear for the rubber wheels on our dear little trains too. 😐

-plarnold

sunhuntin

boy, our "heats" maximum speed limit is 40k. max speed with no heats is 80k, i think?

we do have some bridges here that have permanent speed reductions on them of 30k or so. one was damaged in an earthquake back in the 1930s. it must have been repaired at the time, but never replaced, just a permanent low speed assigned.

Super

I never thought of that but it makes sense with the expansion of the steel and dryness of the ground. I don't know if they have such restrictions here in the States but I would assume they have them. Better find a nice shady tree and a glass of cold ice tea to cool you off Plarnold...or, just stay inside with the air conditioning playing with trains. 😃

leylandvictory2

when the temperature reaches 35 degrees Celsius, all the trains slow down. As for snow, operators use common sense. they generally runs around 10 to 20 km/hr.

GO (known as Government of Ontario) Transit has a heat blower systems installed right next to switches to ensure the tracks don't get frozen. Sadly it is not effective at times thanks to the power of mother nature.

Subway spray some sort of deicing fluid on the tracks to make the tracks more tractions.

Streetcar relies on sand to gain traction to assist in the braking.

plarnold

Wow. I didn't know they slowed down that much in New Zealand. What has the government tried to do to make it faster?

If our trains are in the news, it is usually for the wrong reasons. Small reasons, but the wrong reasons. Commuters just complain about late trains. That's all. Terrible that they don't take care of their customers. Sometimes it's about no air conditioning. Can't believe there is no air conditioning in this day and age. Occasionally, the change of timetables means some people may have to take 10 minutes to transfer from their bus instead of 5 minutes which is unfair even though their line went from 15 minutes a train to 10 minutes a train. Which planner decided to do such a terrible thing?

Unimaginable.

Disgraceful.

😉

-plarnold

sunhuntin

i think our lines just arent safe at any higher speeds than that. we have a lot of small crossings at farm driveways [one near me is often used by railfans, including myself] and not overly many straights without crossings etc. might be different in the south island, but i cant remember.

one big crossing in my town has a speed of 10k, if memory serves. the line its on was mothballed for many years, and was almost torn up. the people who live and work on the other side of it got complacent about there never being trains, so when it reopened, they just refused to adjust. id say that near misses would be a daily occurance.

our trains dont often make the news, either. usually for delays, rail safety promotions or vehicle collisions. it was mentioned the other day that a section of line damaged in the big quake a few weeks back has been repaired. must admit, that surprised me. figured it would take much longer than that,