[CBQ] Train handling question

["dhartman@mchsi.com [CBQ]" <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>]

To Leo and others more tuned-in and with more current experience:

I haven't run into old co-workers recently to ask this, but in the vein of 
things not being as much fun on the RR these days, has there been a big change 
in train handling practices?

I have noticed most trains slowing in a bunched condition. Is the stretch 
frowned on? (Brake shoe wear, etc.) Is being a "wizard with an air brake" (as I 
heard Fast Eddie E and Barney Joe, among others, referred to) a lost art?

I saw reliance on the dynamic coming in the 80's. However, playing with the 
first generation simulator (a control stand with a computer data screen) it was 
easy to run the "dangerous" forces off the scale with heavy dynamic. 

So, to my thinking, knowing how to slow and then re-accelerate using stretched 
slack was both easier on the loads (and waycar occupants :) and more efficient 
to operations. 

Of course, to run stretched required a higher skill level. Is reliance on 
dynamic a dumbing-down of the craft? Or a broad-brush safety issue? A 
mis-gauged air set for a signal either resulted in an embarassing too-early or 
a tense almost-too-late.

But it was fun....

Doug
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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Posted by: dhartman@mchsi.com
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