I'm reminded of a story about trip optimizer, where it decided that the best speed for an NS intermodal was 30. This was in Indiana, where PTC will automatically sound the horn at crossings, and in doing so would reset the alerter. And so the engineer went a full 6 hours without ever touching any controls. Afterwards he joked that the train was great because he "slept through the whole thing"

One advantage that a railroad dispatcher has over an air traffic controller is that he can tell all the trains to stop and stay right where they are.

Train crew: " I want to go over there." Dispatch: "I'm in Ft Worth and I can't see where you are pointing."

Regarding the swiss steam-electric locos you talked about at roughly 29:00 here is what I remember: During WW2 Switzerland wanted to remain neutral (classic swiss move). The problem they faced was that they were sorrounded by the bad guys with Germany as their main coal supplier. Germany then eather entirely stopped or at least greatly limited their coal supply to Switzerland. (im not sure anymore but the supply went close to 0 if not just straight 0) Fortunatly Switzerland was/is a pioneer regarding electric trains and already had a decent network of overhead wiring by WW2. So instead of buying a lot of expensive and somewhat unreliable 1940s electric locos, they killed two birds with one stone and converted a bunch of steam engines to heat via overhead cable. After WW2 Switzerland wasn't restricted anymore, so they just bought coal again or slowly shifted to full electric.

In Germany, if the signals break down, you have something called railroading by written order. Basically, you get dictated a route by the local dispatcher, read it back, both of you sign it, then both of you follow that until you reach your next stopping point. It's slow, but at least you can keep the line open.

20 minutes into an hour and 10 minute episode till you tell us what your doing. Beautiful.

The employees knowing how to do their job properly and efficiently Their boss telling them to do it how they want, ends up wondering why something blew up/went wrong I think this holds true for other jobs too

The beginning of the episode was like being the new guy on the crew. The old heads would be talking about something unrelated and just start the job. If they said anything it would be "get on the engine and shut up". Later they would explain the job to you if they were in a good mood.

Hyce's family: "We play with tractors." Hyce: *Choo Choo!*

Interesting.... Looked up the Wiki on that electric-steam locomotive. Apparently, it was an answer to a very specific problem, in that during the war, the Swiss had a lack of coal, but had an abundance of hydro-electricity, and needed to maintain rail operations. So instead of do all the work to develop a catenary electric locomotive, they adapted known proven steam locomotives to heat the water in the boiler with electricity.

about the aircraft avoidance: the module is called TCAS which will listen for the pings of other aircraft and will give a command to climb or descend when a collision is imminent. The TCAS command will trump air traffic control (especially after the incident that Kas mentioned). And for assigning altitudes there is indeed a system where traffic going east and west alternate elevations every 1k ft.

Hi first comment here but, I actually know the system Kan is talking about at 1:07:59 and the accident he is referring too. The system is called tcas (traffic collision avoidance system) as an aircraft comes within a certain distance of the aircraft tcas will send out a ta (traffic advisory). If it detects that the other aircraft is getting to close tcas will send a ra (resolution advisory) instructing one aircraft to asend and the other to desend to avoid a collision. In the case of the accident the pilot / captain of a particular aircraft (going to be honest I don't remember what kind of plane.) Put his foot on a foot rest while reading the manuals for the new systems on the jet and kept switching tcas on and off causing a preventable collision with another aircraft (I think the other aircraft involved was a Boeing 737-200 or 400 this happened in the 80s)

I audibly Busted out laughing at "Every Model Different" 🤣

So you were talking about a system called TCAS (Traffic alert and Collision Avoidance System). It is a system that commands a pilot to execute a certain action through audio commands (Resolution Advisories). The case you were discussing was during the cold war, where the eastern bloc had the policy to follow ATC commands, and the west required pilots to follow TCAS RA's. ATC gave a conflicting instruction to TCAS, causing both pilots to execute the same action (climb, I believe).

The Air Plane system kAN was talking about TCAS (traffic collision avoidance system) and I think the crash he mentioned might be the 2002 Überlingen mid-air collision.

17:45 A guy at the B&O Railroad Museum once said to me "Dieselization didn't really make maintenance any faster or easier. On a steam engine, it takes 10 minutes to find the problem and 3 weeks to fix it. On a diesel it takes 3 weeks to find the problem and 10 minutes to fix it." 29:15 Everyone else answered about the Swiss electric steam engines. The fun epilogue to that is that DLM, the modern-day remnant of the steam-locomotive arm of SLM, the big Swiss locomotive manufacturer, provides electric preheaters for steam locomotives to make starting up cleaner and less work-intensive. It's a little water drum and pump on a cart that's rolled next to the locomotive in the shop and connected up through a couple of pipes, and it circulates water from the boiler and back in, gradually heating it up evenly throughout the boiler. It automatically starts up at 4AM, so that staff can come in an hour before the first train to light the fire and lubricate etc, but there's already steam pressure in the boiler so they don't need to wait around for that.

A few electrical gremlins you may enjoy; Had a locomotive only go up to notch 6, when you put the loco in notch 7 it would load as notch 5 and 8 would load like 6. 2nd: we were switching in a yard and then all a sudden we could only go in reverse. After tinkering with it for about 45 minutes, gave up and made second unit facing in the reverse direction so it would load going in the forward direction of the lead unit.

with the mosca you can enter the UI easier if you look at the boiler (the part that extends into the cab) while kinda aiming at the firemans footplate

With talking about locomotives lulling you to sleep, our old squarebaler does that also. Between a warm summer day, the bouncing/vibrating, and the roller chain on the stuffer board it has almost put me to sleep running it.

I have an observation that I would like to bring to your attention. Every other train thus far up to #8 has had a pilot. I think that is what the plow is called. To continue the pattern the next train must not have a pilot. Now my request. Can you please keep the pattern going with having the Class 70 be train #21? Than you. Edit: Grammar.

1:07:28 That's not a transponder, but the so-called TCAS (traffic collision avoidance system). The transponder is the device which broadcasts an aircraft's position, altitude, direction, speed and other information, and the TCAS receives these messages and uses them to predict future collisions (or near misses), and coordinates the avoidance maneuvers between the two aircraft (iirc it's always one climing and one descending). TCAS doesn't actually steer the aircraft, but the pilots are obliged to follow it nonetheless. Nowadays, the rule is that it even supersedes ATC (air traffic controller) commands, after the Überlingen mid-air collision in 2002 (and a near miss in Japan in 2001) where one pilot followed the ATC's instructions and the other one followed the newly introduced TCAS. Also, ATC is not necessarily a thankless task, most pilots seem to have a good deal of respect for ATC keeping them safe, and are aware of how difficult that job is, so the interactions are mostly pretty friendly. Regarding the altitude staggering, there is a whole system of east and west as odd and even numbers of 1000ft, so e.g. 7000ft should be mainly eastbound and 8000ft mainly westbound traffic, and smaller planes in VFR are offset by 500ft again to e.g. 7500ft west and 8500ft east. And of course ATC can override all that again, because it is a central point of control to keep all the spacings.

The diesel electrical gremlin story reminds me of one my EE professor told us. A company had a huge piece of electrical equipment that had control system problems that no one could repair. They called in specialists, consultants, the manufacturer, whoever they could think of. They finally got a hold of an engineer and they came in and looked over it for about an hour, pulled out a piece of electrical tape and taped it to one of the hundreds of modules and told the technicians to replace that module. Technicians replaced it and sure enough, problem fixed. Company manager asks him how much they owed them for their hour’s worth of work. “$50,000” Company manager’s mouth drops. “WHAT!?!?!? $50,000 an hour!?!?!” Engineer responds “$1 for the electrical tape, and $49,999 for knowing where to stick it…”

using the alternator as the starter motor as can be a pain as you need a vfd to start, where a starter motor is you put current into the starter relay and it goes. wich means there is little to go wrong, wich makes it all the more frustrating when something does go wrong

Just in time for my morning drive 😎

About the swiss electric steam locomotives (don’t quote me on this, just what I remember): This whole thing happened during WWII because switzerland couldn’t get enough coal during the war to run their steam engines but they had already electrified a lot of lines. I guess it was also hard to build/buy new electric engines during the war so they came up with the idea to heat their steam locos with electricity. It worked, but was probably inefficient so they only build two of these engines and rebuild them into normal steamers after the war. I wish one had been preserved.

In the Navy, they beat into their operators the need for time for the temperatures to equalize across the vessels. Whether it be the reactor, or boilers there are heat up rates and cool down rates you do not exceed. Or "BAD THINGS" happen

@Hyce German Train Dispatcher/Signal Man here, love your show! Obviously it works a bit differently in Germany. But hey, whenever i can tell anything about it i'm eager to tell how it works or how we do it. I worked on all techniques, Mechanical, Electromechanical, Relais and Computorized! Always eager to talk about my job.

Making money without derailing?! What kind of sorcery is this! Great as always hyce

I think part of the reason for electric steam was that hydro-electrisity was cheap and the water whould also act as a big thermal battery, and it still could use a fire for non-electrifide sections, along side already mentioned lack of proper motor technology.

The electric steam locos where 2 Swiss tank engines during ww2. They experienced a coal shortage and were already putting the electric lines above the track so they converted the 0-6-0 tanks to use electricity it worked pretty well but no other were made to only use electricity but they were made to use electricity to keep the engines hot in the mornings for an easier start up

The Swiss electric steam thing was a temporary setup because a certain neighboring country caused historical events, and that caused a coal supply shortage. They also couldn't get more electric locos on short notice, so they did the best with what they already had, and put electric heaters on existing steam locomotives. It was very effective for the situation, but not very efficient or practical, so when coal became available again, the electric heaters were taken off and the locos ran a few more years after that. The electric power came mostly from Hydro.

That Central Train Control room you're talking about is very well laid out and is only slightly smaller than 20 yards in radius with screens that are probably about 20-30 feet diagonally. I have only had to go there twice while I was working for BNSF this summer.

About dispatch, here in The Netherlands it's mostly automated so there isn't much for the dispatchers to do normally. Until somthing happens and chaos ensues. Most dispatchers don't know how to run a train, so as train crew when there's a problem you mostly have an idea how to resolve it quickly with the least disturbance for most of the trains involved. But dispatchers come with different solutions witch might be great for one thing but bad for the rest, and you as traincrew just sitting and waiting there thinking how much faster everthing have got solved. But here there is one dispatcher that most of the drivers know and have nothing but good to say about. They are there, but rare

It’s definitely a rare sight seeing a Climax & a classic 4-4-0 American locomotive teaming up for a double header.

Great video. Love it. I watched the whole thing.

the swiss electric steam engines experiment were 2 switching steam locomotives that they added the electric stuff on to mitigate a bit of coal use during ww2 since they imported coal from germany, after the coal prices went down they removed all the electric stuff

In Switzerland, during the ww2, they couldn't use coal (because they couldn't get any) and they had a ton of overhead wires so they thought they could put resistances to heat the water and make steam so they converted a normal steam loco into that crazy idea, it worked and years later, when they could get more coal, they reconverted the poor engine back to coal... If you want to know more about it you can check out History in the dark (another American who talks about locomotives, railroads and train stuff...)

the plane system Kan mentioned is called TCAS - traffic collision avoidance system. its on big planes and uses the transponder to see other planes nearby, and will shout ASCEND or DESCEND at you if youre in danger. big planes have it but small planes still have the transponders it detects. if both planes have it theyll talk to each other so only one plane goes up and one down, and you are required by regulation to always obey the system at the expense of all else. if the traffic controller gets mad thats too bad you didnt collide and thats what matters (and a good controller wont be upset by that anyway) EDIT: some newer planes also have Auto tcas where the autopilot will do the ascend/descend stuff for you too

On the topic of running boards, I've seen several videos of engine crew fiddling with something on the boards while the engine is bowling along at speed. So it still happens to this day. Hell our chief mechanic rode the boards while adjusting a leaking stuffing box, even got between the frames to tighten stuff up while moving. Just don't let OSHA know or they'll lose their complete shit.

45:50 anyone who wants to know, there is a place, Fort Madison in Illinois, where the BNSF stops westbound Vehicle and stack trains for a crew swap, and there's a game in the Virtual Railfan live chat where one guesses if the westbound consist is long enough to block a rail crossing or not (the stop for that is ~9000ft from the crossing). There are times the train stops on the bridge, and there are still cars that haven't crossed the bridge (called a 2-state block because cars are on land on both sides of the bridge, which crosses a state border in the process) effectively blocks the main line in one direction.

I know the story on the swiss locomotives. it was, like, two shunters, they had this massive coal shortage, and there was a gigantic hydroelectric dam right there, and they just needed these shunters to keep working efficiency be damned, so they added electric heating elements so they could draw from the already existing catenary wires the modern locomotives were using. There was also a steam electric locomotive in France, though, that did use a steam generator and traction motors. It did actually have some improvement compared to conventional steam, but as they were electrifying anyways, they scrapped the one or two prototype designs and just built electric locomotives instead.

While we're also talking about electric steam locomotives, let's not forget about steam electric locomotives! Basically like a diesel electric but instead you use steam to drive a turbine that drives a generator for the traction motors. A number of american railroads tried it, like the N&W with their 2300. With its tender it was the longest steam locomotive ever built, with a 0-6-6-6-6-0 wheel arrangement!

In Sweden we had the only steam turbine locomotives that actually were considered successful and worked for more than a couple of years they worked from 1930 to 1953 and all three are preserved. One of witch have run in preservation. They were only replaced once the lines they ran on were electrified.

Ive worked on trucks that have air start, and its actually pretty nice. I worked at a garbage company that had an old rolloff truck, it had both electric and air. On cold days, when the electric couldnt spin the engine fast enough, you could literally just take an air hose and connect 2 trucks together to fill the air. Once filled, you start holding the electric start button, then hit the air start and the engine would spin fast enough to start. It made so much noise though, we had a rule, no air starter in the shop because of how loud it was.

For the mosca. You have to be outside of the train and aim below where you would stand in the cab to get in the ui. Works more reliable for me

The difference between railroad dispatching and air traffic control is that if everything turns to shit the dispatcher can tell everybody to just stop where they are. Not so much with air traffic control.

we've got redundant dual starting on the Hm4/4's. The engines can be started off the alternators if shore power 480v or power from another converter on the train is available to start the engine. OR you can start off the standard cummins starter at 24 volts off the super capacitors. It hasn't been too often that the engine won't start that way!

Hello! Love the channel! I’m a pilot. 1:06:20 when you start talking about TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System). Mostly this is on commercial airplanes and some private aircraft as it requires a certain level of AutoPilot system available for use. ATC generally will get an audible tone when two aircraft get close. At least in the USA, there is the ADS-B System (Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast) and aircraft will have an In and out Or an out only, or some have an in only (mainly handheld devices) . An In and out means they can see other aircraft and other aircraft will see them. It transmits/ receives at the bare minimum altitude and direction. Then you can get airspeed, tail number, and call sign too. Again depending on the level of both in and out. For an out only system. It does at it says. It only transmits out and the pilot onboard does not see others. Where as an in only will only see other aircraft and not be projecting out. You also have ADS-B Mode A, Mode C, Mode S systems based on the type of air raft and purpose normally. (And cost for upgrades too! It’s not cheap) What Kan was talking about with Squawk codes is a unique aircraft identifier for that flight only. It’s also loaded with information like where they are going to and how they are flying there. It’s also a requirement for IFR and above 18,000ft MSL (mean sea level). They use this for safety, avoidance, and to get extra information when filed for a flight plan. You can even find out who the pilot is and who is on board for some filing plans. When I get a squawk code with filing. It will have myself, my passengers, route of flight, fuel on board, range, total weight, emergency airports, aircraft producer, model, and equipment on board. Both electrical systems and survival equipment. All three of those have saved my bacon more then a few times while flying and avoiding others. It’s surprising hard to see another airplane in the sky! And the most dangerous time is actually with no clouds on a bright day. It’s really hard to see anything that is primarily white! It warms my heart when you started talking about flying!

42:30 - over here most modern vehicles are equipped with a system called AFB in German, which translates directly as "automatic driving and breaking control". If you engage it, you set the speed and the max. throttle and the train does everything it can (within the parameters you set) to reach/keep the speed.

Hello Hyce! In regards to the segment on aviation, I am an FAA-certificated commercial pilot (can provide proof in DMs) and would be more than happy to answer any questions you have on aviation in the future. It's the least I could do for all of the train knowledge you've taught us.

I picked up RO again and redid my line to the coal mine. It's no longer a 10% single switchback, it's now a continuous 2% that starts past my smelter hill turn towards the iron mine, back towards the saw mill crossing the main line, loops around and goes crossing the main line again along the cliff past the iron mine before making another loop half way back to my helper station before getting to the height of the top of the hill.

With electric motors, 1hp is 746W. Which means that, for 1000hp/746,000W @ 74V, you would be drawing ~10,081A, assuming 100% efficiency.

I actually did research into that swiss engine because ywas thinking about how to make steam preservation more eco friendly. The swiss invented it because of the coal shortage in WWII, and the swiss also didn't have essy access to dc motors as a result of WWII, so they came up with a mixed solution. By the time it was ready for service, the war was over and resources because available again.

Hyce I believe your right about it being a 16 cell battery and if I recall correctly they are in a 18 cell case weighting about 600-1800 lbs depending on the amps (I fixed like 2 or 3 pairs of those for CN Rail, back in 05-06)

If I remember correctly the Swiss electric steam engines was because of a coal shortage, and the power for them came from a hydroelectric dam. I believe it was also used to preheat the locomotive after the shortage before eventually being dismantled but don’t quote me on that.

On planes, it's called TCAS, Traffic Collision Avoidance System. It's really cool!

hope hyce see this, Hyce did in the history of trains happen that the crew of a train slept/fell asleep while running a locomotive

most of the local switching/siding houses around here have battery backups and permanently set up generators with at least 5,000gallons of propane to run them on hand at all times. granted some times you cant get to the switching house for weeks sometimes during our blizzards here in ND.

I remember being on a excursion railway that had just gotten back their Oil burner after running a wood/coal for the first half of the summer, the conductor told us he was glad the engine was back because it meant he could talk about the history of the area and such instead of needing to keep an eagle eye out with a extinguisher on the back to put out everything the loco was setting aflame behind them, how much of that was hyperbole is anybody's guess

Mosca tip. Always easier to enter UI standing on the tender and looking at the firebox.

The Swiss Elektric Steam Locomotive was used on a Indistrial line, the Line was elektrified with Overheadwire, but the switchinglines to the Industrie were not, so the locomotive heatet up on the mainline and used the pressure on the switchoffs.

I look forward to these "podcasts" every week.

I think, you mentioned Boden Lake crash, and it went slighly other way . To clarify - that system is called TCAS. It was just made mandatory and may pilots and traffic controllers weren't familiar with it. It doesn't pull up by itself, it literaly warns pilots to pull up. Very loud and clear. So, DHL plane pulled up as system said... And BAL plane also pulled up, listening to command of air traffic controller, against recomendations of the system. Basically, ex-USSR pilots were familiar with very heavy control by air traffic... And actual air traffic controller was overworked and hasn't got a clear picture of situation due to equipment restrictions.

Norfolk Southern actually experimented with CAT engines and they were so unreliable in railroad use that they had to take the engines out because they would regularly fail.

Recommendation for Hyce and Khan: Future #13 for C.R.A.P RR should be the Shay, because whoever is driving the Shay is unlucky to do so. Also, the Shay Should be named Sluggard, because slugs and snails are slow, like Shays. Also, I believe if their is an Update for RR Online, Diesel Locomotives should be added. Also Hyce and Khan, I believe that soon, you should let more people play your server. And I believe, if their is a RR Online update that adds diesels, the diesels may most likely be like the diesels on the White Pass & Yukon Route RR, which has a fascinating history of its own.

Regarding the Flight Level decision, or how ATC decides at what altitude a plane will fly, there’s a myriad of factors that go into that, from route requests, weather, destination, jet stream location, etc. At the basis however is “East is odd, West is even odder” which is used for visual flight rule or VFR aircraft. So if you’re flying between 0-179 degrees, you’d fly at an odd altitude plus 500 feet. Between 180 -359 degrees, it’d be an even altitude plus 500. The same idea is used for instrument flight rules or IFR which any commercial flight is usually on, they just don’t add 500 feet. If you’re flying from LA to NYC, you’d be at 33,000 or 35,000 or even 37,000, etc. Going the other way it’d be 34,000, 36,000 etc. Pilot and working in an airline training department, love the talk about planes and trains, keep up the great videos guys!

Fun fact....the APU on an airplane (not you, 787) typically supplies pneumatic pressure to the engines for starting (along with electrical power for other systems). So, for your locomotives that have a pneumatic starter, that APU is basically your giant 3rd air tank. The only difference is constant provided pressure vs. a fixed amount of tanked air.

If CTC fails, many roads, including BNSF, UP, KCS, go to track warrant control. A failed signal is regarded as its most restrictive on GCOR railroads. For example an intermediate signal may be a stop and proceed when failed.

The steam electrics have a disappointingly mundane explanation: The Swiss had limited access to coal during WWII. The reason they didn't use electric motors was simply because they weren't looking for new rolling stock; They just had a fleet of steam locos that needed an alternative fuel source and the line was already electrified. By the time the project was ready to roll out the war was over and coal was plentiful, so the prototypes were converted back to normal steam trains

It's always fascinating to me that vehicles in different industries use different voltages for their electrics. In yachts and small ships, 12v, 24v, and 48v are quite common. Apparently you tell me that 32v and 74v are common in railroading, road transport commonly uses 12v and 24v.

It was done during WWI or WWII in Swizerland because they couldn't import coal to fire the locomotive... Worked well during the war but was no longer needed afterwards as coal again became avaliable and the electric heating was no longer needed.

Some german locos have air start, where air from a reservoir is directly fed into the engine to turn it over. Its only enough for 2-3 starts.

Hi Mark good video as alway glad to see you guys can run a train without biting it lol. Now if only we could get Leighton fixed on breaking engines on photo charters 😂. Hey just wondering when will the next 3/4 a idiots video be out? Thanks again man your friend Jeff aka NW611J.

My "saw a youtube video about this" understanding of the electric steam locomotives: This was in Switzerland or something during WWII. They were struggling to import coal because ze Germans were being kinda weird about everything, but had plenty of hydroelectric power. Some of their rail network was electrified for passenger trains, but they used steam locomotives for cargo. So to save coal, they could heat the water in the boiler with electric power from the overhead wires while on the electrified section of the track and run the steam engines on hydroelectric power, until they were out on the non-electrified portion of the road. It did work but was was deemed kind of "meh." But they did find it was useful having the electric heating elements in place for starting the locomotives. They could save a lot of coal and a lot of labor by just plugging the locomotive in to heat it from cold, and start the fire relatively later.

The Hazer Schmalspurbahn HSB in Germany is very likely responsible for most of the forest fires in the Harz National Park. Some people plotted the source of the fires and most of them follow the line with the most steam locos traveling

Engineer: “IM AN ENGINEER DAMN IT! ILL FIGURE SOMETHING OUT!”

To the topic of how controls the Switches. Here in Germany, we have ad every bigger city a so called "Stellwerk (Control plant)" with several so called "Fahrdienstleiter (dispatcher)" how are in change of switching and managing the train flow in there area of ​​responsibility. Back in the days, where Switches where Control by cabels, there where small switching towers at every Station. Tom scot made a very good Video awhile ago, Dressing our train dispatching systems. from old, to new. "The world's most useful model railway".

15:40 you just described my project truck to a T lol

74 gear is amazing for learning all things planes. Also the altitude thing like 31000, 33000 exc are one way and it's like 32000, 34000 the other direction. They are spaced out well and if they are going to have a head on one plane will yell at the pilot to pull up and the other will yell at that pilot to go down to avoid eachother so many things need to go wrong for a collision to happen.

Kan was thinking of TCAS i believe with airplanes (half listening LOL), aircraft use what I was taught was neodd and sweven, north and east operate at odd altitudes, and south and west at even. VFR guys would operate on that principal plus +/- 500 feet. Was an ATC in the USAF

Oh, the stories about Plane Crash Avoidance Systems. The first that comes to mind is the plane crash of Überlingen. There was a russian passenger plane and (afaik) a DPD cargo plane. The russian plane crew was taught to listen to ATC no questions asked, and the other crew was taught to listen to their systems told them. The TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) worked fine on both planes and tells one plane to go up and the other one to go down as it detects close traffic. And then in comes the overworked and stressed ATC guy who told them the exact opposite. So both planes go down and crash. That crash was a huge thing especially because there was a bunch of kids on the russian plane. The father of one of the russian kids visited the ATC Controller and killed him (I'm 80% sure) or at least tried to. After that accident it was ruled that pilots always have to listen to their TCAS first before listening to ATC. And I'm sure that there are some more stories, but that is the big one that comes to mind when talking about plane collisions in the air and not on the ground. On the ground it's a whole different story since planes by nature come close to each other at the gates and taxiways.

With talk of power outages… the story where a city needed electricity so the borrow the locomotive to use it as a generator which power the town.

The most unique thing about diesel locomotives from the 30s and 40s, is that a lot of the same exact diesels were used in submarines. Because subs needed the power and range to operate long distances, at least in the USN. So a lot of EMD diesels and Fairbanks Morse locomotives had submarine engines

If you want to fly in the air space of a big airport you need a radio with transmit and resive with altitude encoding also this should be right but I haven't had schooling about it since 2018 so my memory is a bit shoty about some certain details

12:38 That must have been why that B40-8W kept shutting down and starting the first time I saw it

29:23 iirc they couldn’t get as much coal as they needed due to WWII so they converted a few steam locomotives.

1:08:32 it's actually every 1000 feet, alternating directions, so odd number altitudes would fly in one direction and even number altitudes will fly opposite that

In Germany, the ICE (inter city express) have the AFB (I believe it's called like that) which controls the speed without touching anything (except the dead man pedal)

1 HP is 746 Watts.... and the traction motors are not running 74V... The DC stuff was 600V, and the newer AC stuff I believe is 1000V. The cable used called DLO (aptly named diesel locomotive cable) has a very high strand count, and insulation good for 2000V. I think it's EPDM, but whatever it is, it's super nice to work with because it's so flexible it's not like THHN wire or the stuff you bring to feed your breaker panel in your house typically at 19 strands... this stuff can be in the 2-400 strand range depending on the cable size.

Slow speed control works like a cruise control but only up to 10mph. And the alerter is different from one type of locomotive to the next as well as the carrier. A UP AC44 alerter is about a minute and a half while in slow speed and a BNSF GE Evo has no alerter in slow speed. It does power in 1Klb of effort and will auto-throttle as well. It's really useful for loading 150+ car coal trains at 0.5-1.2mph.

I'm in ground school for aviation, and I'm scared to say anything about it, but I wasn't aware that there was any system to automatically steer aircraft out of the way of each other, except maybe in cruise. As far as I know, most aircraft give just a "traffic" warning through the T-CAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System). As far as I know as well, even many small little Cessnas have some kind of warning system for traffic. Not T-CAS specifically, but they, like most aircraft in the air, have Mode S transponders to talk to other aircraft and report all of their data to be shown on the GPS map. This isn't to say that all aircraft have Mode S though, as controlled airports only require Mode C transponders which are much simpler, giving only pressure altitude information to ATC, and maybe other aircraft running Mode S, I don't exactly recall. Video containing T-CAS warning sounds for the B737: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jZuKYMdiv96UYqM.html (at 0:47)

Your opening Bluegrass piece could almost be renamed “Forced Draft Rag”. Wouldn’t be a bad name considering the. Conversation haha)

For the swiss electric steam, they had overhead wires, and they would have stretches of no wires, so in those areas, they had it at full pressure and used the boiler as a capacitor to get to the next stretch

I hear the derail music start up and my anxiety builds with it.

BNSF 3606 (SW1000) is now a leasing locomotive, currently (at least in 2019) on the Grand Forks Railway in British Columbia.

Swiss Pantagraph train was due to the Swiss not wanting to trade coal with the germans anymore during ww2 so the tested the conversion of the coal to electric heater. But cool thing was it could run for 15 to 20 min without the power and do switching

Hey Hyce! It was cool to meet you at the Broooaaad Top. It’s a shame I couldn’t have stuck around until Sunday but I had things to do at another trolley museum.

Too skeptical to call this title spoilers lol

The airliner collision avoidance system doesn't automatically maneuver, but the two computers negotiate the best maneuver to separate between themselves and each tells their pilot what to do - usually one plane climbs and the other descends, or both turn to their respective lefts or whatever. When it goes off, you do whatever it says *right now*, damn what ATC or the procedures say you should be doing.

If I remember correctly the Swiss E3/3 (electric kettle) was built as a concept in response to the upcoming WW2 and the threat of embargoes for coal and copper. In the 50s they converted it to a regular coal burner. Fun fact, its still in museum service!