CN Rail Train wash out.WOW!!!.3gp - YouTube

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Good thing someone was there to see that. Cant imagine what the out come would have been had that happened at night and a train came upon it.

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Railroads are not just sitting out there waiting for Bigfoot to come along and tear them up. They are watched over 24/7 by someone sitting in a control room that could be thousands of miles away.

All the tracks in the US that are mainline routes are attached together with cable that is welded to the tracks. Space has to be left between the individual steel rails to allow for expansion and contraction, but a length of cable that looks a lot like a grounding strap is welded to each rail making for one long connected piece of metal.

A low voltage signal is run through the rail on a constant basis. A pulse is sent out and a ping is received at the other end proving that the rail is unbroken. When the pulse fails to ping there is a washout of some type and all the traffic stops until the line is flown.

This is so accurate that if the ping time changes it is also considered to be a break of some kind. The track has to change length to change the ping time, and a wash-out would do this.

There is also the common sense thing going here that the driver will slow down at river crossings that are known to be in flood stage and proceed with caution. Floods don't last forever and a delay of a few hours is all just a part of running one of these systems.

Looks like a river washed it out, very cool to see it on video.

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Generally pretty secure. however not infallible. in this instance either they had poor drainage through the valley underneath the tracking or the pipes failed or just diddnt exsist at all, washouts happen.

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hum.....
1987 300TD 311,000M Stolen. Presumed destroyed

Canadian National being a state owned railway now with extensive American trackage in their empire. Generally cheap engineering and execution was not an operational hallmark of theirs since the taxpayers footed the bills.

Somehow even in very difficult times both major Canadian carriers do generally well. I think Bill gates brought a large chunk of Canadian pacific stock at Warren Buffets suggestion. He has made a killing on it.

I was going to buy some at about thirty a share myself perhaps ten years ago. It is well above a hundred a share today and may see two hundred. Both the private owned CP and government CN are heavily modernized and profitable.

Both seem to be good examples of generally how to profitably run railways in harsh climates. Normally a government would mess up a crown corporation like CN in some if not many ways. They somehow missed on this one.

I have noticed the wire linkages between rails being a rail buff a little. Just never thought or considered their function until now.

My first thought is that with so many spikes when the ties had any amount of moisture would dampen any form of pulse signal but must not. There is no sound reason other than what is mentioned for them to be there.

After thinking this over for a minute. The actual value of a ground point many miles away would be different than the other. This ground being one leg and the rail another one. If any change occurred in the rail continuity there would be a change in refferance to the two grounds. Suttle perhaps but it would be there I suspect.

High frequency pulses preffer to travel on a surface area of a conductor. Low frequencies more equally in the conductor. I guess I will have to read up a little on how exactly they are doing this. A washout does not mandate actual separation of rails as they are also bolted together by side plates I think. So wonder if detection would cover it? The rail has sagged but with no substantial load would it actually stretch at all? Generally it has to to stretch to sag though I think. To detect that over what normal temperatures would produce is interesting as that would require quite a program. As I said interesting enough overall to have a read on it if on the internet.