From: nilknocgeo@earthlink.net

"Glen Labah"  wrote in message
news:gl4317-5D9BA8.22395517052014@mx05.eternal-september.org...
> In article ,
> "conklin"  wrote:
>
>> You are irrational once again.  If Metro-North needs to follow X, Y and Z
>> for safe transport of passengers, then freight RRs which carry oil need
>> to
>> have track as good as Metro-North.  Or, are you saying that Metro-North
>> needs no new program because you say so?
>
>
> The mainline railroads already are doing these types of track
> inspections - or rather the Federal Railroad Administration does the
> inspections with its own cars:
>
> http://www.fra.dot.gov/Page/P0120
>
> In some cases the railroad companies have their own track inspection
> cars to do track inspection work, or they have other methods of doing
> this work.  The FRA is only supposed to verify their methods are working.
>
> About two years ago I attended a SoundTransit meeting where the expense
> of track inspection came up, and one of the contractors said the
> cheapest way of doing the regular track inspection was, rather than have
> a special track inspection car, to simply put the required equipment on
> some of the cars already operating in regular service.  They said they
> were already doing this on a few other commuter railroads.
>
> Therefore, what Metro-North is doing is probably not really required
> beyond the regular inspections they are already doing.  Instead, what
> has probably happened is that someone pointed out to them that the
> regular inspections would be a lot cheaper and somewhat more useful if
> it were being done by the cars they already have.
>
> Because of the sheer number of miles on a class 1 railraod, the main
> line railroads already have crews and track inspection cars that do
> this.  Union Pacific has a few locomotive hauled passenger cars for
> this, or the Canadian National has a rebuilt RDC (their 1501) that does
> this.
>
> The problem here is that a commuter railroad has cars that pass over the
> track a number of times a day, so Metro-North or any other commuter
> railroad that inspects their track by having inspection equipment on
> their cars is inspecting their track far more often than is required.
> It isn't necessarily that they are more safety conscious but simply an
> effect of doing this inspection with the cheapest method available to
> them (that is, using their own passenger equipment).
>
> For freight railroads, the cheapest thing is going to continue to be
> doing the inspections only at the required interval.
>
> --
> Please note this e-mail address is a pit of spam due to e-mail address
> harvesters on Usenet. Response time to e-mail sent here is slow.

Then I guess, according to your comments, even low speed oil trains don't
derail because of the excellent track in the USA.  NOT.

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