Shenandoah – by John GaltThis sounds like the type of order only given during wartime or imminent terrorist threat. Direct from the DOT/Federal Railroad Administration website:
FRA Emergency Order No 28 Notice No 1
If anyone thinks those warnings to embassies overseas were by accident, you’re an idiot. This smells like an upcoming conflict in the offing either in Iran or Syria in my honest opinion.
I don’t think so. If you go back to the laws. When the interstate commerce commission was around. Before it became the D.O.T. You will still find these laws on the books there. Back when trains had caboose and the brake man road there. And it was the brakemans job to set the brakes and inspect them. But with steam brakes and the R.R. saying this could not happen those job’s were eliminated. And the engineer only needing to set min. brake on a train. Back before springbrakes on trucks to hold them if air dropped and hold them. So it is just bringing back some old laws that use to be. My question is. Is the caboose and breakman coming back. As the engineer is not a brakeman by union contract?
I’m a locomotive engineer, the only hand brakes we’re responsible for are the one’s on the locomotive. The conductor spins hand brakes on the rail cars. Here’s a simple article on how the air brake system works on pretty much every train that runs in N. America, http://railroad.net/articles/railfanning/airbrakes/
Steam brakes were the first attempt at being able to stop a train short of sending a man along the top of the cars to set each car’s brakes by hand. The idea was immediately found to be a failure for the predictable reason that the steam quickly condensed in the long lines and lost pressure. The logical solution to that problem was to use compressed air instead of steam, the method used to this day on freight trains.
This isn’t any war order. This is in direct response to the train derailment in Canada where the train was left unattended and rolled into a town and exploded. All they are saying is all trains carrying hazardous material must not be left unattended. If anything we are getting a common sense response to a tragedy last week in Canada.
Well, this would make sense to assume something is afoot when taking into account these warnings and a connection made on another site between the moon phase and israeli military actions,
Keep yer eyes open!
Im with you kulafarmer… the first thing I thought about was next false falg coming up..it surely does not hurt to be aware and keep both eyes focused .. I surely do not have any trust in our gov..
Looks like a common sense order that had to be put in writing; when parking your load on a hill, set the breaks & chock the wheels. If loaded with HazMat, do not leave unattended. I’ve seen full freight trains setting in yards, idling & nobody around, back east. Lot of the safety stuff for the RR was lowered when Reagan de-regulated the RR. Did away with manned cabooses & put “dummies” on the coupling switches on the last car.
Looks like a “Problem-reaction-solution” order that was already just waiting to be signed after they probably setup all of these train accidents that have been happening recently.
Professional railroaders already do all the things the FRA is mandating we start doing. Except the reporting to the dispatcher the details of what we did to secure the train, such as terrain and number of hand brakes. All we do now is tell the dispatcher that the train is secure and we will disembark. And just so you know, the railroad has guidelines and rule books (GCOR, system special instructions, service unit superintendent bulletins, local instructions, etc.) that govern how, and in some cases where, we secure a train.