Life on the Rails

[Savonarola]

If your goal is to not be bothered by anyone then yes, you want to be as far from head office as possible.  Working in Whitehorse when "head office" was Ottawa was ideal that way.  They couldn't care less what we were doing.

If, however, your goal is to be noticed and promoted you want to be near head office.

Melbourne, Florida it is, then.   

[Savonarola]

I've never wanted to be at corporate under the assumption that the closer to Caesar the greater to the fear.  I may change my mind on that now that our headquarters are in Paris, rather than Erie Pennsylvania.   

Actually, I think this is the opposite of how things work in most companies--if we are talking layoffs or compensation. Execs don't want to layoff the people they work with or in the offices they frequent, the people in satellite offices are more likely to be dismissed. For similar reasons the bonuses tend to be outsized at corporate.

On the other hand, corporate policies have a tendency to actually be implemented at corporate while in the provinces they may get ignored.

I don't think that strategy would have worked at GE; we seemed to go through executives every week or so.  Alstom, so far, is different in that respect.

[Savonarola]

I do have a personal laptop, but it is a pain to travel with two.

You know my workaround? I discovered that while actual porn sites are blocked, if you do an image search with safesearch turned off, you can get naughty pictures to pop up. 

I think they can still see what you're searching for; if your company monitors things like that.

[Savonarola]

Jeff is on Caltrain back in his signaling role; Sofia thought that the bay area would be a good place for him to hide his undocumented girlfriend.  Kevin is also on Caltrain, he's ordering material for the project.  Nick, despite his unwillingness to travel, is also on Caltrain.  He spent a two month period San Francisco, and will return there after Thanksgiving for another three weeks until the Christmas break.  He had struck a deal with GE, they would bring his fiancée out there three times during his stay.  GE is so desperate for people that they agreed to his request.

I had lunch today with Nick and Glen.  Nick had just come back from California.  He didn't see Jeff, but the rumor there is that he married his undocumented girlfriend from Crepes y Waffles.

Nick did get married at a small ceremony in the Keys.  He rented out a house for a week and had both the wedding and reception there.  Glen was supposed to be his best man but, GE being GE, he was sent to Port Hedland, Australia on the week of the wedding.  It might be for the best.  Glen told me that Nick's fiancée was constantly telling him things like, "You know you have responsibilities at this wedding you can't look like you've been drinking margaritas for three days straight," or "You can't get too drunk, you have responsibilities like seating my mother."  The evening after Glen told me that, I told my wife I loved her very, very much.  I find myself doing that almost every time Nick tells me something about his wife.

Glen went to Australia with Gary.  The safety training is a little more vigorous there than in Colombia, you have to go through a health physical and drug screening.

Glen:  And they had this really bitchy woman do it.  She gets right there with you, shoulder to shoulder so she's looking right down at it; and if you don't start going right away she'll start to make sarcastic comments.  I waited until I really had to go, so I had no problem, but Gary went in when he only sort of had to go.  When the woman started talking to him he said "Look do you want to hold it?"  So they made him wait five hours for his results.  I got mine in an hour, and then I had time to drive our coworker half way across Perth, stop and get coffee, return to the office and wait half an hour before Gary got his results back.

Gary is rather short; Jeff had nicknamed him "Leprechaun" when we were in Colombia.  Glen, who is tall, had a rather different take.

Glen:  He's got all sorts of small man's diseases.  Did you ever see him walk?  He like throws out his shoulders and struts around as if that makes him look bigger.  He's like a puffer fish trying to make himself look large.  I'm like a bear, I kept feeling like I was going to swat him out of the way.

[Savonarola]

Gary is a pilot, as a hobby, and has a hanger at the Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville.  The airport shares space with the Warbird Museum, which has a collection of restored war planes.  Last week they had their airshow with everything from a MiG to a B-29, to a Huey, to dozens of other aircraft I couldn't name.  Gary invited us to his hanger to watch the show; and we had front line seats at the runway.  When I arrived I was greeted by none other than Señor Jeff.  He managed to get himself kicked off of the Caltrain project as well (I found this out from Sofia, but neither of us know what he did) and now he's heading up to Waterloo Ontario to work on a project; so be careful Canadians. 

[Savonarola]

I had a course in Jacksonville last week on Rail Dynamics.  The course description was vaguely written so everyone who went to it assumed that the course was on the subject of general rail operations (dynamic assumed to refer to the movement of the train.)  As it turns out the "Dynamic" being referred to was the engineering mechanic term referring to the summation of forces on a moving body; and rail was not "Railroad" but track.  We spent two full days learning about the summation of forces between the track and the wheels and the truck on which the wheels are attached (called the bogie.)

It was a week for misunderstandings.  Our professors thought people were coming all the way from Australia to attend their course; they were a little disappointed when we told them we were from Melbourne, Florida.  They had come from Europe and, as is Alstom policy, made their travel reservations through our travel agency.  The agency made hotel reservations in Jacksonville, Florida and flight reservations to Jackson Mississippi.  They didn't realize their error until they gave their hotel address to their taxi cab driver and he said "You sure you want to take a cab to Florida."  They contacted the travel agency again and finally got to the right place.  Fortunately they had given themselves an extra day; why? I'm not sure.  Maybe they thought Jacksonville was like Miami, if so they were disappointed since it was below freezing when they were there.

"Dynamics" is from a branch of engineering called Engineering Mechanics which focuses on the interaction of forces on objects.  I hadn't studied this since undergraduate, and wasn't at all good at it (which is why I'm an electrical engineer rather than a mechanical engineer.)  The one thing I remember from the courses I took was one adjunct professor had come up with the "Fundamental theory of geometry:" if two angles look the same, they are.  I've found that to be accurate in my professional career; your high school geometry class was a waste of time.

The reason this is an important to rail deals with derailment. There are three methods (other than a collision) which can cause a derailment; wind, degraded or curved track (which will cause the wheels to slip off if the train goes too fast) and climb (in which the inner flange rides up the rail until it climbs over and causes the train to spill.)  All three of these are computed using dynamics which in turn determines the safe speed trains can run at.  The reason that European trains can travel on standard track quicker than their North American counterparts is that they use a different amount of friction (called a coefficient of friction) to calculate the likelihood of climb.

Our teachers had a video that showed climb; since it's metal against metal it makes a truly hideous grating sound.  Since both were professors with advanced degrees in engineering, neither could figure out the projector.  They could play the video without sound or sound without video; but not both.  So we listened to metal on metal grating again and again until they finally got the projector to work at which point they played it another five times for good measure.

That turned out to be a good thing for me, since my boss (Jeremy) was with me in the sessions and one of my co-workers (John) as well.  Jeremy had taken us on a "Team building" event at Dave and Busters which lasted well past midnight.  We had to keep nudging one another throughout the next day to stay awake until the grating started and then we were all wide awake.

They had a set of man sized Rock-em Sock-em Robots at D&B; I thought of Yi when I saw that.

[The Brain]

Lovely.

[Savonarola]

We're supposed to request training courses for the upcoming year.  Alstom is a production company as well as a signaling, so a number of the courses were related to very specific features of the locomotive including, not just one, but two courses on the toilet:

Toilet Product Description
Toilet Product Integration

So you can sign up for toilet training at Alstom.   



(On board sewage treatment is an area where Alstom is an industry leader.  As railroads go more green this will probably become even more important.  So the courses really are important, it was just amusing to see them written as such.)

[KRonn]

The reason this is an important to rail deals with derailment. There are three methods (other than a collision) which can cause a derailment; wind, degraded or curved track (which will cause the wheels to slip off if the train goes too fast) and climb (in which the inner flange rides up the rail until it climbs over and causes the train to spill.)  All three of these are computed using dynamics which in turn determines the safe speed trains can run at.  The reason that European trains can travel on standard track quicker than their North American counterparts is that they use a different amount of friction (called a coefficient of friction) to calculate the likelihood of climb.

This is good stuff,  in depth engineering knowledge and training to figure out the forces at play. Your job sounds pretty interesting.  

[Eddie Teach]

Mongers, don't you need your coat?

[Malthus]

Heh, it would be a good idea to collect these stories in one place - they're a great read. 

[Iormlund]

...Since both were professors with advanced degrees in engineering, neither could figure out the projector...

[The Larch]

For some reason this thread had eluded me, after seeing it brought back I've read it for the last week or so, google maps and Spanish wiki at hand and everything, and it has been a most interesting read. Thanks Sav!

[Savonarola]

The coefficient of friction that I mentioned in my previous post determines the frictional force.  Frictional force is the amount of force that needs to be overcome to get an object to move (static friction) or is lost as an object is kept in motion (kinetic friction.)  The frictional force is proportional to the weight of the object (or "Normal force" in engineering terms) that proportional value is the coefficient friction.

As an example on a low friction surface (like an ice skater on ice) it takes less force to move an object than on a high friction surface (say a cardboard box on pavement) with the same weight.  A lighter box takes less force to move than a heavier box or a lighter skater takes less force to move than a heavier skater; the force it takes to move is directly proportional to the weight.  That proportional value is the coefficient of friction.  In almost all cases it takes more force to get an object to move in the first place than it does to keep in motion; this is because the coefficient of static friction is almost always greater than the coefficient of kinetic friction.

On the other hand the means of propulsion often needs friction to give it something to push against.  Your car wheels are made of rubber, which as a high coefficient of friction on pavement, because it makes it easy to accelerate and brake.  Locomotive wheels, on the other hand, are steel on steel rails; this has a much lower coefficient of friction.  This allows locomotives to continue moving at speed with much less energy than it would take a truck proportional to weight; but requires more force to accelerate or decelerate.  Locomotives carry sand and dump it on the track in order to increase the coefficient of friction in order to start moving.  Braking, on the other hand, braking is a problem.

For this reason we use two coefficients of kinetic friction in rail; a higher one to determine climb mentioned before and a lower one for braking.  This is for safety concerns, more friction means that the train is more likely to climb; less means that it needs more room to stop.  Friction can be further decreased by the condition of the tracks.  Water makes the track more slipper; ice even more so and wet even more so.  Every conductor fears wet leaves on the track.  In the case of climb that's no issue; dry track is the worst case scenario.  For braking, though, different braking distances are needed for the varying conditions (which can cause speed restrictions.)

All testing, whether for speed or for braking, is done in dry track conditions.  One of the professors told us that when he was testing (a speed test for climb) in Spain there was dew on the grass so they made him stop the test.  The tracks were still dry, but just the possibility of some moisture developing would have made the test invalid.

On the other hand one of my co-workers, Tim was once part of a braking test on ice.  Amtrak had wanted to see how accurate their braking calculations were for icy conditions.  They had installed our product so they could get the test train up to 110 Miles per Hour (175 KMPH); the maximum speed for standard track in North America.  They waited until they had icy conditions.  They got the train going at full speed and then applied full brake.  The train slid and slid and slid until it came to a complete stop; about where the calculations said it should.  The braking had so much heat over such a sustained period of time that the wheels had developed flat spots on them.  That's bad; really bad.  As I had mentioned before derailments can occur when a train is going over degraded track over a certain speed.  In this case the train itself was degraded so all track needed a speed restriction.  They needed to call the Federal Rail Authority (FRA) in order to get a proper speed, and since they had run the test in the middle of the night, they had to wait until someone with authority had showed up to work.  Morning came, the FRA heard what they did and told them that they were restricted to 5 MPH (8 KMPH.)  Their nearest yard was in Chicago 100 miles (160 Km) away.  That was a long 20 hours.

[Savonarola]

This is good stuff,  in depth engineering knowledge and training to figure out the forces at play. Your job sounds pretty interesting.

Thanks Kronn, my job is only a small part of the operations (radio).  There's a huge body of knowledge about rail; much that I'm only just becoming aware of.  A lot of what they taught in that class was about things I had never even considered.