Re: [CBQ] Train handling question

["Leo qutlx1@aol.com [CBQ]" <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>]

Doug,

I'll let others expound further but the key word is fuel use efficiency

Leo

Sent from my iPad

> On May 22, 2014, at 9:30 AM, "dhartman@mchsi.com [CBQ]" <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> 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
> 
>