<snip>
Add drainage to the things that are more important
than rail size. Frost heave and mud pumping, on
jointed rail were killers.
<end snip>
All too true. There's a fill near Albia, IA, that had behaved itself quite
nicely since 1869 . . . until the Q started running unit coal trains almost a
century later - and suddenly, they started having all sorts of derailments.
With 110 cars of 110 tons and exactly the same wheelbase and exactly the same
speed, three times a day, the fill began sucking water up from the natural soil
level, anbd every few months, something would go skittering down the
embankment. It's called "resonance". As long as you were running trains of
varying car length, loading and speed, the rhythm wouldn't build up. Once the
coal trains started, it was disastersville. I recall track gang members at the
time calling it "the Albia pumper".
Marshall
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