Slashdot Mirror
Frozen Train Tracks? Set 'Em on Fire (theatlantic.com)
It might look dangerous, but flames have kept switches moving and rails intact for a century. From a report: As if the horrors of the polar vortex were not already enough -- temperatures that look like typos, Canada Goose robbers, and something called frost quakes -- the nation's railroad system took a turn for the apocalyptic this week, too. Rails broke in three different places between Baltimore and Washington on Thursday, causing severe delays. Amtrak canceled dozens of trains passing through Chicago, and viral videos appeared to show commuter tracks in the city on fire. Of course, the tracks themselves were not burning -- they are made out of steel, prized for its tendency to rarely go up in flames. But the sight is still dramatic. The videos of the fires in Chicago last week show flames smoldering in patches of melted snow around the tracks.
Fires have been employed on railroads -- and remained the preferred fix for many a winter hazard -- for most of their roughly two-century history. While railroads have developed impressive tools for dealing with snow on the tracks, extreme temperatures remain a challenge. Though steel is flame-resistant, it's subject to cold, which can jam up railroads' many moving parts. When cold weather does wreak havoc on railroads, lighting fires on train tracks can serve a couple of uses. One is to thaw the switches that determine which track a train goes down, which is what Metra, the Chicagoland commuter-rail authority, said was going on this week. Switches are moving parts, and if ice gets into them, they can freeze in place. There are various types of switch heaters, which might use electric current or gas to melt ice -- or even an open gas flame, which is what's appearing in the Metra videos. Where there aren't switch heaters, crews might use temporary torchlike devices with a flame, the railroad equivalent of the smudge pots farmers use to keep citrus groves and apple orchards from freezing on cold nights.
Fires have been employed on railroads -- and remained the preferred fix for many a winter hazard -- for most of their roughly two-century history. While railroads have developed impressive tools for dealing with snow on the tracks, extreme temperatures remain a challenge. Though steel is flame-resistant, it's subject to cold, which can jam up railroads' many moving parts. When cold weather does wreak havoc on railroads, lighting fires on train tracks can serve a couple of uses. One is to thaw the switches that determine which track a train goes down, which is what Metra, the Chicagoland commuter-rail authority, said was going on this week. Switches are moving parts, and if ice gets into them, they can freeze in place. There are various types of switch heaters, which might use electric current or gas to melt ice -- or even an open gas flame, which is what's appearing in the Metra videos. Where there aren't switch heaters, crews might use temporary torchlike devices with a flame, the railroad equivalent of the smudge pots farmers use to keep citrus groves and apple orchards from freezing on cold nights.
So lighting the tracks on fire, is a standard way of solving frozen tracks... While we all love to see fire, and it often an interments of destruction, a controlled fire, has its benefits too.
Did you also know fire fighters who are trying to stop forest fires from spreading, may actually control burn parts of the forest, to isolate it from spreading?
So fire melts Ice, or is this a conspiracy from big fire companies, who have been manipulating mankind for the last 2 million years.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Steel beams and all...
up 12 days, 22:30, 2 users, load averages: 993.20, 994.21, 994.56
*makes note to limit user processes...
Speaking as an Atlanta native, we are well aware that Northerners have plenty of experience heating up railroad tracks.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Exactly. These types of stories are offensive. Why didn't they use AI to determine which tracks were frozen and how much fire to use? Or they could use Tesla powerwalls to generate resistance heat to unfreeze the tracks. There isn't a solution that couldn't be improved by a 100x more expensive and complicated application of technology.
These are gas burners under the switches. They run them every winter to keep the tracks from getting ice locked.
Speaking as an Atlanta native, we are well aware that Northerners have plenty of experience heating up railroad tracks.
Yeah maybe you'll think about not owning slaves sooner next time and then you could get over a bitch slap that happened 150 years ago.
Eh, my family most likely never owned slaves. Father's side comes from NE TN which was predominately Unionist, mother's side comes from Chicago (although supposedly at one time they were merchants in the Caribbean-what type of trade they were in is up for conjecture).
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Continues today? The redneck states get a disproportionate amount of federal money. But poor you. Welfare queens.
Those tracks in Chicago are flaming like that through most winter storms. Somebody decided it was newsworthy because of the severe cold. However, it's nothing new.
It's like saying a storm is bad because lightning hit the Sears Tower.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
"Polar vortex" what-ever.
That weather is just called "winter".
The fact that you've so much lost the habit of it that some occasionnal slight return to older typical warther is suddenly newsworthy is more a sign of how awful the climate change has become !
Now insert some grumbling about up-hill in the snow both ways and about lawns.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Eh, my family most likely never owned slaves.
Yet you still manage to be salty about some bent railroad ties resulting from losing the war that the South started over an unforgivable practice of slavery.
And here I thought that underground refuges would be the last bastions against the Big Freeze ...
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
It seems people are now forgetting that it gets cold in the winter.
Those in Chicago especially. It's also bad in New England where they make excuses for their lack of budget for snow removal. "It never gets this bad."
Yes it does, people just seem to blot out the bad in favor of those nice hot and humid summers.
Using gas jets to keep track switches from bindings isn't something new.
You do, of course, realize that destroying the tracks was merely an act of genocide. It was a deliberate, malicious act to destroy the economy in order to weaken the southern culture *after the war*.
If a state at war is not trying to destroy it's enemy's ability to make war, that state is ineptly led and most likely destined to lose the war. Atlanta and it's railroads were a valid military target. If you want to blame anyone for the state of the South after the war, blame Booth. He's the idiot that killed Lincoln and let the hardliners take control of Reconstruction.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Eh, my family most likely never owned slaves.
Yet you still manage to be salty about some bent railroad ties resulting from losing the war that the South started over an unforgivable practice of slavery.
Who says I was salty? I was merely making a tongue in cheek reference to Sherman and the March. However, I am of the camp that argues that boiling down the cause of the Civil War to slavery is a gross simplification. While it may have been about slavery and profits for the landowners and aristocracy behind secession, for the majority of the men behind the guns, it was about the perception (fueled by the pro-secessionist political/economic forces) that outsiders were going to come in and take away or change their way of life. That perception still exists today and can partially explain the rise of the alt-right and white nationalist movements in mainstream American politics.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I've had jobs that seemed like that every day.
Chicago Born and Raised. Seeing tracks on fire during the winter is pretty common. I honestly thought this was common practice.
~ Mooga
Be like Bill Gates, his miles long driveway is a heated, ice/snow free one.
The Dutch rail system has a large number of gas-heated points. Their fires kept getting blown out, so they're being phased out in favor of electric heaters.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/...
I dont have a dog in this fight. i am neither black nor white and recent immigrant to US but the Northerners were not fighting out of the pureness of their hearts. The northern economy was based on manufacturing for which they needed cheap factory labor. One large available source was freed slaves. hence they wanted to abolish slavery to give a boost to their manufacturing. At the same time they wanted high tariffs to protect their factories from European imports. The Southern economy was on the other hand based on agricultural plantations which needed both slaves to run and export markets in Europe so the Southerners were against abolishing slavery and for low tariffs (tariffs are generally mutual - if you put high tariffs on European imports they will put high tariffs on Southern exports). The country basically had 2 economies and each needed a different handling from the center. So the Southerners decided to go their separate way which was their right under the Constitution as understood at that time.
This is not very dissimilar from Brexit however I don't see a European army invading Britain to keep it in the EU.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Switches with _any_ security, may that be isolated rails or axle-counters would be ruined, not to mention the modern switches have plastic rolling supports that would melt.
These were used, because the old steel plaques had to be treated with oil every day or every couple of days by hand, which costs a fortune.
So most modern railway companies use automatic electric heating when the temperature falls below a certain point. It's way cheaper than having to pay people to go there and heat them by hand.
In some countries, Belgium f.ex. they use gas heating if it's only one or a couple of switches.
PS: I have been a railway dispatcher for 40 years.
How about environmental impact? Where are the people who would be concerned with the impact of C02 and other air polution. How about climate warming, literally....
...I was crazy for buying that flamethrower. Well, my railroad switches are working just fine...
Be like Bill Gates, his miles long driveway is a heated, ice/snow free one.
Good idea. I will become a billionaire. Why hadn't I thought of that before? Now, if each of you can give me a few hundred thousand $$$$, I will achieve my aim.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
No matter how dense you are, this is /thread.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
The roads are used by both tax payers and heavy commercial trucks of the 80,000 lb class. The damage done by on truck equals the wear and tear of some 9000 private cars. The cost of road and bridge project to accept 80,000 lb trucks makes them so expensive. But they get massively subsidized by the tax payers.
But there is very strongly embedded idea among the people that railroads are tax subsidized white elephants, while the commercial trucks are the epitome of free market and competition.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
So you view the south as occupied territories, not a part of the union?
While the war was ongoing, yes, they were occupied territory. They had a functioning government, territorial integrity, (relatively) functional currency, and diplomatic representation. They were literally one victory away from receiving international recognition as an independent state. After surrender and reintegration into the union, they once again became US territory. Just as the original 13 colonies were occupied territory for the areas held by the British during the Revolution.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
late 1940 to early 1950's where tolls at the state level of owner ship
Your bigotry is priceless in this context.
This kind of bigotry is not a reference to the slavery of 150 years ago or the race relations of 60 years, but butthurt over the South switching from Democrat to Republican circa 1980. Certain people have been wanting to restart the Civil War ever since.
There are large parts of the country where we still use wooden ties.
If a state at war is not trying to destroy it's enemy's ability to make war, that state is ineptly led
Or they've read their Clauswitz and understand that the objective of war has fuck all to do with winning the war.
Your "way of life" argument is a self-deception. Your claim is that the northerners had no right to dictate that the south cannot have slaves, but simultaneously that southerners should be able to dictate that the US government is responsible for upholding the south's slave laws, effectively extending those laws outside the south. I would completely agree that current alt-right and white nationalist movements also are blind to the fact that their ideology is founded on an essential hypocrisy like this.
What about the millions of black people being held prisoner in the south? What about their "way of life"? Did they get to vote for or against secession?
I'm not arguing for the merits of those beliefs, I'm simply stating that they held those beliefs.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I tihnk you're aroused the ire of a snowflake. Well, it is February in the Northern Hemisphere...