Ace-Garageguy

More info about detectors...

Awareness or your surroundings can keep you from getting squashed by something big, solid, and moving fast.

Circles, squares, and triangles are indistinguishable to some members of the population.

I respect that. I have no family or close friends in the business, but I've been a rail enthusiast longer than I've been into cars, still read a good bit about the industry, and understand the workings of the equipment and systems. A short-line railroad operated by Patriot Rail runs past my current house, about 60 feet from my door, and seeing the frequent movements tends to keep me interested in the railroad industry, the machinery, and the technology.

The reason I posted this particular video...if you actually watch it and pay attention, the fella who made the video works for a small short-line railroad. They apparently are such a small railroad, their length of trackage only justifies having ONE "hot box" detector. The guy comments that there was a hot-box signal, still well within safe limits, but in just a few miles, the bearing had overheated to total failure, as shown, taking out the axle and derailing the car. And the train in the video here was running SLOW, on old recycled rail, as short-line trackage often is. What these two incidents are saying to me, having a whole lot of experience with various types of bearing failures, is that it looks like there aren't enough detectors, or the detectors may not be close enough together. Once a bearing is "dry", its temperature can rise so fast that a catastrophic failure can occur between one detector reporting "slightly elevated" temperatures and the next one...which would leave the crew thinking they had time to get to a siding to do a physical inspection or set the bad-order car out. My point is that, if I were a senior engineer or official in the railroad industry (or regulatory agency), I'd be commissioning a study to look into the viability of developing cheap bearing temperature monitors ATTACHED TO EACH RAILROAD CAR to monitor EVERY BEARING, ON EVERY RAILROAD CAR, CONTINUOUSLY. As I wrote above, relatively inexpensive wireless tire pressure sensors come on most road vehicles now, and configuring a wireless sensor to monitor temperature rather than pressure is easy...especially when the sensors could be statically mounted to the frame of a freight car. It's a lot trickier to have a sensor as part of a road-car valve stem that rotates with the tire. Sonic detectors are another option, as a bearing failing most likely makes an easily identifiable sound...and computers are very very good at sorting through random "noise" to pinpoint a particular frequency range and amplitude. We already have sufficient technology available to fast-track a continuous bearing temp monitoring system (with fail-safe redundancy) from mostly off-the-shelf parts, with the on-train system reporting to a simple engineer's phone app in the cab of the lead locomotive, or patched into the existing locomotive control software. If mass-produced, I'd think a continuous bearing temp (or sonic) monitoring system could be developed to come in at a few hundred dollars per rail car...and if implemented system-wide, it would probably be cheaper than the ultimate cost of the single Ohio derailment will end up being to NS, the shippers, the insurance companies, and the affected residents.

WARNING: A POSSIBLY OFFENSIVE DIGRESSION FOLLOWS One thing I love about this forum is the constant triggering of new build ideas it engenders (squirrel !!!!!!!!) I really want to do a late '40s style mild custom Willys coupe with a hot Ford flathead V8 now...

Hand-holding while driving with your girl in the car is easier with a necker knob on the wheel.

I'm sure you can. For more photos from every possible angle, do a google image search for "Ford 9N tractor engine".

This has been in the news lately, and these things happen fairly frequently...though usually without the dramatic consequences of the Palestine, Ohio event. If these big roller bearings run dry and overheat, they fail catastrophically pretty quick even at low speeds because the loading is so high. When you consider that cheap cars now often come with four wireless sensors that report tire pressures to the vehicle's computer to display dash warnings, you'd think (at least I would) that similar low-cost technology would be implemented to monitor bearing temps on railroad cars...especially when the potential costs from a failure are so high.

"Complicated?" she said when I challenged her convoluted illogic, "no, you're just being obtuse".

Alive or not, your opinion matters.

Should have had a big external AC unit on the Caddy, some massive cooling units on the trailer roof, plus what looked like an incinerator stack, and a rack of 20 or so propane tanks. "Tim's Mobile Morgue and Crematorium".

The '41-'42 four cylinder for the trucks is basically a 9N tractor engine, rated at about 30HP for 1941, 40 for 1942. INFO AND PIX HERE: https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/showthread.php?t=80256

Safety can become an irrational obsession, so much so that one lives in constant fear of everything.

Heart-break is more effectively countered with intestinal fortitude than with spleen venting.

Words won't break your bones like viciously wielded sticks and stones.

Looks great. Exceptionally clean. Hows 'bout some parts source breakdown, and how you achieved the paint effect?

I tried to open the site itself, not the "investigation" page (which is pretty obviously a translation from another language), and it was blocked by one of my malware programs for being infected with a particular virus. Not a good sign...

Looking good, but I'd never noticed how wrong the tool designers got the rear axles on that kit. Very interesting...

Shaken bacon occurs when you put pigs in a large vibratory machine like a gravel sifter.

Some of the models produced using 3D printing are staggeringly good...but the best of the best I've personally seen come from builders who had already mastered the traditional techniques, and added 3D to their existing toolbox. In truth, even if you can print perfectly accurate miniatures, you're still going to have to have many of the old-school skills involved with fitting (clean assembly) and finishing (paint). There are some parts that 3D printing isn't well suited for too, like clear windows. Again, fabrication and fitting, and possibly mold-making and vacuum forming, will be required to produce top-tier work. There are enough 3D-experienced folks on this board now that you can sidestep much of the discovery part of the learning curve if you research and think and pay attention to process details.

70's US cars aren't, for the most part, at the top of my modeling interest list.

Good looking build of a historically important and often overlooked car.

I think the "panel truck" and "sedan delivery" distinctions are clearly just as you defined them. Panel trucks would go in the "light truck" category as the forum is currently organized. Sedan deliveries could go either way, but are bound to offend someone whatever you do. A sedan delivery is of course nothing but a station wagon with opaque rear quarter windows being used as a light truck. Oh, the humanity !!!

Behold a pale horse chestnut.