Comment on Train collides with 18-wheeler hauling cars, intersection reopens Monday morning

• danc4498@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I don’t even know how that gets started. Let alone stops.

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  • scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Started is tih as you see, 3 to 5 massive diesel-electric engines, taking quite a while to max speed.

    Stopping is interesting. The engines have their own brakes, but three engines can’t stop a train that long by themselves, the brakes would just melt. They are set mostly like a parking brake when you are already stopped.

    The actual brakes are air brakes, with a tube of compressed air connecting from the front of the train to the back. Each car has its own brakes then that are applied as pressure is released from the brake system. Going into emergency brake is essentially all pressure being released and all brakes throughout the entire train engaging, and that is what we are seeing here.

    With that though, the train is still tens of thousands of tons of mass moving at a max track speed of 55mph. It’s going to take some time to slow that down, even with every brake being applied.

    Don’t fuck around with trains.

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    • danc4498@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Wow, very interesting. If there wasn’t any critical damage to the train, might as well keep going till the destination!

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      • scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        From that level of crash I’d assume mostly cosmetic, maybe a tiny bit of damage right behind the hood, but yes I assume once the bits of truck were moved out of the way it just started up and kept going, probably visiting the shop on its next service stop is all

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