I wrote a reaction to the Heat Index embarrassment for today. But finishing it, I thought, "This should be in the paper." My bosses agreed. So you'll have to wait until tomorrow for that, though it is on the Sun-Times web site now if you want to read it sooner.
Until then, the column mentions this story, written for the school guide 38 years ago, shortly before I was hired on staff. I think it's still interesting. IIT still trains railroad engineers and operators, but I couldn't find evidence that the simulator is still around.
Tim Reed, Wes Maness and Tom Joyce took a diesel locomotivfe through the Powder River Basin last month without leaving Chicago.
They pulled out of Gillette, Wyoming, and steered five locomotives and 110 railroad cars through the region's coal country. The 15,000-ton load, said Maness, in a deep Texas drawl, was "almost a mile and a quarter of train."
It wasn't what they were used to in Chicago.
The cabin rattled and shook. The clackety-clack from the wheels alternated with the shriek of steel against steel as the train rounded a curve. A whistle blast wailed mournfully.
Reed, Maness and Joyce were taking a trip toward becoming railroad engineers. The locomotive they were driving is the Research and Locomotive Evaluator/Simulator, know as RALES, at the IIT Research Institute on the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Learning to become an engineer at IIT means more than just riding the RALES. Huge trains need to be handled delicately, "like driving a car without your shoe," said Maness. "One nudge can tear the train in half."
Reed, sitting at the controls, kept one hand on the throttle, the other on the dynamic brake. He gazed steadily at the view ahead of him, trying to find the right combination of throttle and brake that would keep the train from either stopping cold or gaining so much speed tha tit would go out of control down a steep incline.
"It's very realistic," said Maness, who has been with the railroad 13 years, five as a brakeman and eight as a conductor. "I wish we had more time with this thing. It's scary."
The hills of the Powder River Basin are from a film, projected on a white wall in a darkened room. At the center of the room is the upper part of a diesel locomotive, mounted on six large hydraulic pistons that gently shake the cabin back and forth. Out of sight is a brightly lighted control room, loaded with monitors, color data readouts and dials.
A computer directs the hydraulics, the film and the sound effects to simulate real situations.
As Tim Reed moved the throttle, the film sped up. If the locomotive slowed down too suddenly, the computer delivered a persuasive "thud" that lurched the cabin in the same way the trailing cars would bump into a slowing locomotive.
Reed, Manes and Joyce, all from Wichita Falls, Texas, are in the final stages of their training to become engineers. They were practicing on the RALES for their examination, which will determine whether they will be permitted to make the step from conductor to engineer.
In the old days, they would have been tested by a human road foreman sitting in the cab next to them. Now aspiring engineers are graded by the unflinching eye of the computer.
"The machine doesn't care how big you are, how much you talk, or don't talk," said Laurence Rohter, a senior engineers at the institute.
The engineers are required to perform a variety of maneuvers. They go up and down steep grades, execute unplanned stops and read signal sequences.
"It's a lot more difficult than I imagined," said Maness. "A lot more than just tooting the whistle. An engineer has to think two miles ahead and a mile and a half behind."
RALES cost $8 million to build, and went into operation in 1983. When it isn't being rented to railroads (at $250 an hour) to train engineers, it is used to test new equipment and "human stress factors."
For example, instead of incapacitating a working locomotive to install a new type of control panel, the panel can be tested under laboratory conditions on the RALES. The cabin can also be made to reproduce challenging situations, such as 120 degree temperatures, to see how crews operate.
"This is as close to real as you can get," said Maness, studying the map of his route's slope. He tapped the top of a hill with his finger.
"A 15-second wait right there might take me four miles to correct. it's possible at any point to fail this test in 15 to 20 seconds."
Meanwhile, Tom Joyce studied the same map, giving instruction to Tim Reed, driving the RALES train.
"The minute you get off this hill, going 21, you set your brakes up," he said.
A graph on the computer shifted as the air brake clicked in on each car.
"If you don't set up the brakes right, the cars will bunch into you," said Joyce. "There's 100 feet of slack [in the train]."
Reed points to the various controls and describes what, in driving a train, he has to be aware of.
"You're looking at your amp, to see how much power you have, looking at the air flow indicator, to see how much air you have to stop with. This is just like sitting in an engine."
They pulled out of Gillette, Wyoming, and steered five locomotives and 110 railroad cars through the region's coal country. The 15,000-ton load, said Maness, in a deep Texas drawl, was "almost a mile and a quarter of train."
It wasn't what they were used to in Chicago.
The cabin rattled and shook. The clackety-clack from the wheels alternated with the shriek of steel against steel as the train rounded a curve. A whistle blast wailed mournfully.
Reed, Maness and Joyce were taking a trip toward becoming railroad engineers. The locomotive they were driving is the Research and Locomotive Evaluator/Simulator, know as RALES, at the IIT Research Institute on the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Learning to become an engineer at IIT means more than just riding the RALES. Huge trains need to be handled delicately, "like driving a car without your shoe," said Maness. "One nudge can tear the train in half."
Reed, sitting at the controls, kept one hand on the throttle, the other on the dynamic brake. He gazed steadily at the view ahead of him, trying to find the right combination of throttle and brake that would keep the train from either stopping cold or gaining so much speed tha tit would go out of control down a steep incline.
"It's very realistic," said Maness, who has been with the railroad 13 years, five as a brakeman and eight as a conductor. "I wish we had more time with this thing. It's scary."
The hills of the Powder River Basin are from a film, projected on a white wall in a darkened room. At the center of the room is the upper part of a diesel locomotive, mounted on six large hydraulic pistons that gently shake the cabin back and forth. Out of sight is a brightly lighted control room, loaded with monitors, color data readouts and dials.
A computer directs the hydraulics, the film and the sound effects to simulate real situations.
As Tim Reed moved the throttle, the film sped up. If the locomotive slowed down too suddenly, the computer delivered a persuasive "thud" that lurched the cabin in the same way the trailing cars would bump into a slowing locomotive.
Reed, Manes and Joyce, all from Wichita Falls, Texas, are in the final stages of their training to become engineers. They were practicing on the RALES for their examination, which will determine whether they will be permitted to make the step from conductor to engineer.
In the old days, they would have been tested by a human road foreman sitting in the cab next to them. Now aspiring engineers are graded by the unflinching eye of the computer.
"The machine doesn't care how big you are, how much you talk, or don't talk," said Laurence Rohter, a senior engineers at the institute.
The engineers are required to perform a variety of maneuvers. They go up and down steep grades, execute unplanned stops and read signal sequences.
"It's a lot more difficult than I imagined," said Maness. "A lot more than just tooting the whistle. An engineer has to think two miles ahead and a mile and a half behind."
RALES cost $8 million to build, and went into operation in 1983. When it isn't being rented to railroads (at $250 an hour) to train engineers, it is used to test new equipment and "human stress factors."
For example, instead of incapacitating a working locomotive to install a new type of control panel, the panel can be tested under laboratory conditions on the RALES. The cabin can also be made to reproduce challenging situations, such as 120 degree temperatures, to see how crews operate.
"This is as close to real as you can get," said Maness, studying the map of his route's slope. He tapped the top of a hill with his finger.
"A 15-second wait right there might take me four miles to correct. it's possible at any point to fail this test in 15 to 20 seconds."
Meanwhile, Tom Joyce studied the same map, giving instruction to Tim Reed, driving the RALES train.
"The minute you get off this hill, going 21, you set your brakes up," he said.
A graph on the computer shifted as the air brake clicked in on each car.
"If you don't set up the brakes right, the cars will bunch into you," said Joyce. "There's 100 feet of slack [in the train]."
Reed points to the various controls and describes what, in driving a train, he has to be aware of.
"You're looking at your amp, to see how much power you have, looking at the air flow indicator, to see how much air you have to stop with. This is just like sitting in an engine."
—Originally published in the Sun-Times, March 10, 1987
My uncle attended and graduated from and taught at IIT. As a kid back in the sixties I hung around there quite a bit I believe they call it now Chicago tech.
ReplyDeleteGreat peace even now nearly 40 years later.
I remember learning why that hundred feet of slack is in the train it's really only a few inches between each car so that when the train begins moving the engines only pull first one car then two then three so one at a time each car begins to move if they had to pull all the cars at the same time it would be impossible even for locomotives with such strength.
I also was recently informed by my son an electrical engineer that modern locomotives are electric engines powered by diesel motors.
Training technology has come a long way
A diesel–electric transmission, or diesel–electric powertrain, is a transmission system powered by diesel engines for use in road, rail, and marine transport. Diesel–electric transmission is similar to gasoline–electric transmission, which is powered by gasoline engines.
DeleteDiesel–electric transmission is used on railways by diesel–electric locomotives and diesel–electric multiple units. Diesel–electric systems are also used in marine transport, including submarines, and on some other land vehicles.[Wikipedia]
Diesel locomotives were the first hybrid vehicles. And General motors was the biggest builder of them, at their huge Electro-Motive Division factory on 55th St. in West suburban McCook, built in the late 1930s. But the fools running GM, never, ever thought of transferring that technology to cars, it took the Japanese auto industry to start that! Then GM moved the locomotive production to London Ontario, because it was cheaper due to Canada's national health insurance. Then they sold off EMD.
ReplyDeleteGM execs have complained about how much the health care costs for their employees & their families are, but the idiots running the company just can't make the logical leap to supporting the Canadian plan in the US, even though they moved the locomotive production there for that specific reason!
My uncle worked at the McCook plant during the 50s. He was a big union man and liked to tell a story about Walter Reuther taking a tour of a Detroit plant using robots to help assemble automobiles. The exec leading the tour couldn't help smugly stating, "Sorry to say, but these workers don't pay union dues." Reuther instantly responded, "And they don't buy cars either."
Deletejohn
I was a locomotive engineer and I have to say I was never able to steer a train, didn't have a steering wheel, I had to go where the tracks took me. I don't mean to be picky but that always grates on me as much as calling them engine drivers, although that's is what they are called in the UK.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, I was pleasantly surprised as a daily reader to see a story about trains in EGD but things have changed since that story was written and since I'm retired, I can't exactly tell in detail how much it has changed but trains are much longer and mid-train power is common.