Trains....

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Yeah. You are "assuming". And therefore you're making an "ass" out of "U" and "me".

How do you know that they ever spoke to any railroad about it?

Okay...this is where I am coming from: to me the picture tells a story. The story is that the fireman were trained to use those things to protect "from vehicles". But were never trained (or equipped) to deal specifically with rail roads. So they just did what they were trained to do because they didnt know what else to do for trains- then to use a device that obviously wouldnt work for trains.

I mean...maybe I am at fault- and the thing somehow miraculously can accommodate trains too, but my point is that that device looks like its made to protect the hoses from automobiles and from road vehicles with rubber tires (trucks, and especially ambulences). And it looks like it would do that job superbly- even an 18 wheeler would just ride over it one axel at a time. But it also looks as if there is NO WAY that it could accommodate a locomotive followed by a dozen freight cars. Its like seeing someone smoke "filter tip" crack! It just looks ludicrous and laughable.

OK I get it now. Sorry! Not sure what the firemen should have done in this situation though. Probably a desperation move.

I would certainly hope that was what had been done. The ramps may pose little danger to a 100 ton plus freight loco. However if they were made from a solid plastic material they would certainly pose a danger to the sort of lightweight passenger trains I drive. Even if the ramp was destroyed in the process I'm pretty sure the leading wheels would be deflected upwards sufficiently that the flanges would clear the rail head potentially leading to a derailment.

When I was on the railways we hit many things on the rails. Once smashed through heavy concrete blocks and I think we were in either a 150 or a 158? We crashed through several of them and the only thing left of them was the metal re-enforcing rods they use to give the concrete its strength. No damage to the units wheels or pipes etc. We were puzzled with one of them as the driver said it was the size of a railway sleeper... Why we were puzzled was that it normlly takes a crane to lift things that size. It must have taken a lot of people to lift that, and they would not have had that much time to put it there.

But anyway. Gone over rail breaks (I reported one as I felt it and the driver hadn't, but I had gone over several rail breaks during my time, and I wont say what will de-rail a train, but I will say that it takes a lot to derail a train. The movies have nothing to do with real life.

Going back to that hoze, if a train hit that hoze it would just smash straight through it as if it wasn't there. We have hit a fair few things in the time I worked on the railways. Even the lightweight units I worked like the class 143's they would have cut through it as if it was not there!

One driver I worked with told me that in the days of British Railways, he was driving a DMU and came round the bend only to find a fair length of track in front of him had been lifted up on jacks. In those days rail workers did not have to notify the signalmen and they went by the timetable. It was after that incident that the new rule came in the rulebook. No one was hurt and surprizingly the DMU kept to the rails. The railworkers themselves had a lucky escape as the jacks buckled underneath the weight of the train and were flying out in all directions.

It wouldn't be the hose that would be the problem. It would be the ramps. What happens would be dependent on what the ramps are made of and whether they would fit underneath the lifeguards (the downward pointing metal brackets in front of the leading wheels). Looking at the photo I think they probably would fit under the lifeguards so the leading set of wheels would be the first thing to make contact with them.

If they were just hollow plastic then there wouldn't be any issue as they would just split or shatter. However given that they are presumably designed to allow heavy road vehicles to pass over the hose they are probably rather more sturdily made. If the ramp didn't immediately split or shatter the leading wheels would certainly be deflected upwards. Whether that would cause a derailment or not would also be dependent on lots of other factors but the potential is certainly there and I wouldn't want to be the person who found themselves testing exactly what would happen.

I've been driving a variety of lightweight passenger trains in the UK for nearly thirty years now (classes 142, 150, 153, 156, 158, 175, 185, 195). During that time I have run over all sorts of things and whilst most of the incidents probably posed little risk of a derailment some of them were decidedly unpleasant.

The incident you describe where the track had been jacked up sounds more like sloppy working practice or a miscommunication between the engineers and the signaller. It's a very long time since such work has been permitted purely on the basis of the timetable, probably not since Victorian times, as lots of trains don't appear in the timetables at all, trains frequently run at times different to those shown, and there is far too much potential for people to simply make mistakes. I'm aware of a few similar incidents involving drivers at my depot, particularly in the later years of British Rail and the early years of privatisation, but all involved engineers carrying out work without first carrying out the necessary procedures, or they involved miscommunications about what was going to be done.

Very early in my career a passenger train I was driving was derailed on a junction. A group of trackworkers were working on the points/switches at the time and were carrying out the work in an inappropriate way. They would not have been permitted to do what they actually did based purely on the timetable. At the very least it would have required a full line blockage. This was nearly thirty years ago now.

I'm sitting in a railway station, got a ticket for my destination.

Paul Simon did write (starting write the song) the song in the station of Widnes (Essex)

Thank you for sharing (both the factoid and the vid) - I really like S&G, and the live performance recording in the vid was lovely to listen to this morning. Had no idea the song was conceived in Essex!

I Like Trains

I liked trains when I was little because I loved Thomas the Tank Engine when I was aged 3 to about 8, but it wasn't a special interest. It was just something I liked. I had nearly all the trains from Thomas the Tank Engine to play with.

It wasn't. Widnes is on the River Mersey between Liverpool
and Warrington.

Widnes Railway Station.
Victoria Avenue,
Widnes,
WA8 7TJ.
England.

My apologies! I'm simply a stupid American haha, I had misinterpreted the quoted post's placement of Essex. Thank you for the clarification

Sorry for the mistake, i was confused about the Railway Hotel in Brentwood where Simon sometimes stayed.
Brentwood is Essex. About the place 'Widnes' i did read that Paul Simon shoud have said if you ever been to Widnes you shoud realise how comes about his desire for Homeward Bound. Maybe its not borring anymore. The year he did write the song i wasnt even born. The video with the song is part of a larger video. A film from about 90 minutes.
A trainride between Trier and Luxembourg, 4 years ago.

I like watching Thomas the Tank Engine (Thomas & Friends). Other than that, I'm more interested in airplanes.

I once met the man who origionally wrote the series but I was too shy and embarissed to go up and speak to him. He smiled at me.

You don't see signs saying "Go" in the middle of the track! Hehe!