This was a 1 in a MILLION video!! I have never seen a video that showed how difficult it was to move cars that are heavy up a small incline. Thanks for sharing this. I was amazed!!
Thank you!! It certainly was one in a million - I doubt I'll ever see anything like this again. It really puts into perspective how heavy railcars are. Oftentimes modern locomotives make it look effortless, but it's truly amazing how much weight they can pull (with proper traction)!
As a Retired "Hobo" train hopper (Moniker: Boxcar Johnny) I really enjoy your videos. Contrl Chief stuff was not on any Locomotives I rode, I quit in 2017 turned 62 got Deep Low Cost riding Amtrak! Yes, I went from F.T.R.A. to Amtrak Preferred Customer.
I appreciate it Johnny! Haha hard to believe anyone would switch to Amtrak instead of finding a better alternative. Low cost is about the only thing going for them. Those long distance routes just can't compete with the airlines.
when i was clinchfield railroad back in 70s 80 thes units were the best ever built i love the sd40s they had a sound of there own and power great vid s
Larry, right before I "retired" we had an SD40-2 on the property, briefly. It was accidentally ordered as a leaser. They were terrified of going into curves with it for obvious reasons so it stayed in the yard about 3 months before it was returned. While I have operated many of them on the road, I had never switched a yard with one until then and it was a switcher's dream come true. Of course the alternative was the 2000 and 2001 seen here in this video so anything probably would have been better. But being able to actually move cars around the yard and climb the hill towards Selig instead of slapping it into 8 and praying was a wonderful change of pace.
Very cool. Looked them up on the map and was REALLY impressed with the extensive amount of spurs for former and current customers. There’s a lot going on on that little short line railroad. Keep making videos of them.
First video I've seen of Fulton. I live in Marietta and didn't even know about them till about two months ago location scouting on Google Maps for crossings to shoot at over there. Nice catch!! Subbed!
Thank you sir! I always make sure to use thumbnails that are actually in my videos. There are too many channels that lure people in with fake thumbnails and I don't wanna be that guy.
@@ICE6365 Apreciate the Truthfull images :) Ill be watching them sparks flying a couple of times :) You can really see the power coming onto the rails :)
It's got a few bumps lol but it looks worse because of the low camera angle. As you saw, the train had no trouble running through that stretch at 10-15 mph
@@chuckwilkerson9034 Yep, it's a sharp looking scheme. I have family in Missouri, and when we visit we pass their yard in Paducah. Several times we have photographed the power sitting by the shops, but I've never seen one of their trains move.
Love the locos design. GP38's are my fav I think, besides the classic CSX EMD's lmao Beautiful wheel slip EDIT: also the train groaning at around 10:30, just a bit past, is amazing
Answer: 221,540 bags of 5 lb sugar That’s 5 fully loaded covered hopper cars in the video at shown added up LD LMT commodity capacity = 1,107,700 lbs (553.85 tons) / 5 lbs = ~44,300 lbs of sugar per loaded covered hopper railcar = ~8861 bags of 5 lb sugar per railcar The tonnage capacity of each covered hopper railcar is visible in the video if you slow down / pause footage. For example, at 3:13 mark it shows FURX 851014 with stenciled data under the reporting marks (these days UV resistant vinyl transfer graphics are used, not masked paint) showing interior contents cargo weight capacity for the 286,000 maximum loading rated freight railcar: LD LMT (contents Load Limit) = 222600 lbs (111.3 tons) LT WT (empty “tare” Light Weight) = 63400 lbs (31.7 tons) Total Weight Capacity allowed by FRA for 4-axle railcar / locomotive = 286,000 lbs (143 tons) Hope this helps!
Perfect video to ask this. I am 52 and have wondered these questions for a long time. Okay railroaders what is the mechanical clicking sounds at the first of this video. Sorta sounds like popping off an air tool from an airline. But click, click, click, click sound? Another sound is the sound of something spinning up. Like a "wherrip" normally I hear it when a locomotive is powering up to move. Silly questions but I just have always wondered.
@JD-dw8cc Hey JD, thanks for your comment! Definitely not silly questions - I have wondered about these sounds for a long time too. The clicking you hear is the air compressor on the locomotive spitting water out of the air reservoir. The compressed air causes condensation to collect in the tank, and it has to be spit out to prevent it from rusting. The "wherrip" noise on modern locomotives is the turbo kicking in to give the locomotive extra power. I don't know exactly how the turbo functions, but hopefully someone can answer that more in-depth.
@@ICE6365Thank you, I deal with air compressors alot. I drain the the tanks daily and the airline driers. I wonder now how they know to drain automatically. I would have assumed the turbo were constantly running like in tractors. I learned something new today. Thank you
@@ICE6365 on these engines, they have Roots Blower systems, and do not have a Turbocharger. They would be a GP40 if they had turbo. I am not keen on the noise you are identifying but you may be hearing the sound of the generator, or the roots blower. And the clicking is not the air compressor. These have static air compressors that are directly driven from the motor. The device you are speaking of is called a "spitter" and does exactly as you explain. They are located at the bottom of each reservoir tank. They are electronic, and when they detect condensated water, they open the valve to eject it. If the tank had a gallon of water in it, they would remain open constantly and there would be a stream of water ejecting from the spitter. Also if the voltage ever gets low or the pressure in the tank drops to a point that the valve can no longer close, it emits a very flatulent sound for a couple minutes.
Worked around this track frequently....great footage and I’ve never seen this! Atlanta has an amazing amount of rail and I’ve seen some of the old rail in Smyrna
Thank you Boris. I know most people don't have the desire to watch a 16 minute video just to see the 10 seconds of action - especially those who don't like trains as much as I do.
I saw 2 Conrail GP40-2s shove 4 Covered Hoppers loaded with sugar up the grade into the Ferra Pan Candy factory spur in Forrest Park, IL. The crew dumped all the air from those Covered Hoppers. All of the wheels were sliding. A side note, this happened in the mid 1980s. The Candy factory has several silos for the ingredients to make the candy and has big winches to position the cars for unloading. Some of the candies they make are Red Hots, Atomic Fireballs & Lemon Heads.
@@longwindingroad As far as I know. I left the Chicagoland area in July 1997. They re-opened a retail store at the factory in April 2017 and their website is still up and running.
Well A. This a shortline not a mainline, they aren't going to have the best rails.B.....Derailments are common seeing how over a thousand happen every year.
The tracks do look crooked, but that is largely due to the camera angle and zoom. These tracks are only used several times a week at low speeds, so there is no need for them to be upgraded. Most railroads use continuously welded rail that is much straighter and can tolerate higher speeds.
the wreck in Ohio was caused by overheated wheel bearing, nothing to do with the rails. The mainline that accident happened on was on better maintained rails that the short line in this video.
6:35 @ICE6365 when we were kids in the 70s we made fun of trains by putting grease on one length rails at the middle part of the hill climb. Then we discovered we can use candles but we have to apply it on rails at the middle of the day when the rails are hot. 😊😁😂
It's an everyday occurrence on the Fulco Rwy. Two customers get beer imported from Mexico and one stack goes to General Wholesale off Camp Creek Pkwy, while the other stack goes to Saddle Creek down off Westgate Pkwy. Anywhere from 8-25 boxcars a day, if they are still seeing the traffic I handled up till about 3 years ago.
Wheel slip circuit catches when one axle breaks away. In the video all four suddenly break away and probably ran away at a balanced speed. To the wheel slip monitor it looked like the train suddenly rolled uphill at 40mph. It's not going trip the wheel slip indicator for that. Modern engines have the same problem if the same results are achieved. I can show you what track looks like when a mid-train DPU ran away like this for several minutes in run 8.
when I lived in Pacific Grove in 1971, the Southern Pacific(?) still ran all the way towards Asilomar. The tracks were 200 yards in front of our house. I'd run out everyday when I felt the rumble and heard the horn to wave to the engineer... They always waved back.
I read your description. In a Diesel electric locomotive, the engine doesn't redline if the wheels spin. The engine governor controls the RPM at the notch the driver selects. The driver selected notch setting is the throttle. There are usually 8 notches. Each notch has a known RPM which the governor holds which is why a tacho is redundant. In a given notch what happens is the amps on the amp gauge begin to rise as the train slows. This is indicating more and more work is being done since traction is electrical. If the wheels break traction then the amps go down to nearly zero and the load comes off the Diesel engine. The governor just holds the engine RPM no matter what. If the governor detects any over RPM it reduces fuel to maintain the set RPM - more fuel for more load, less fuel for less load. EMD Diesels aren't like smaller Diesel engines in cars or trucks. They have quite a lot of internal mass, so if the electrical load is suddenly released by the spinning of the wheels the governor acts faster on the fuel rack than the revs can rise (there is a tolerance but that's the principal of operation) maintaining the set RPM. With full traction before wheel spin, if train speed reduction continues then the traction motor's electrical configuration automatically changes in a process called transition. This is usually where the wheel spin is likely to occur. Why transition is required is a complex topic but simply it changes the connection of the traction motors between series and parallel depending on whether the train speed is increasing or decreasing. Back EMF is the enemy of speed in Diesel electric locomotives. As speed increases the traction motors begin to behave like a generator (the back EMF part) reducing the traction motor windings capacity to absorb current from the generator, so the electrical cabinet changes the way the traction motors are connected to the generator. When wheel spin occurs it is the engineer that throttles down otherwise the governor would hold the set RPM for the selected notch and the generator would keep supplying just enough current to keep the wheels spinning - except there are some fancy systems that drastically improve locomotive traction so that doesn't occur. These systems are so effective they allow greater weight (more cars) or less locomotives for the same train weight or length. As we can see these locos don't have any of that equipment. Also some yard only locos have their transition disabled so they can never go faster than about 15 or 20mph. You might like this rather dry vid on locomotive transition but it is interesting. If you want to skip the first part, the description of Transition begins at six forty: th-cam.com/video/eMT8qVvn9wo/w-d-xo.html
Hi Paul. Thank you for taking the time to write this. This is cool stuff! I watched the video to learn a bit more about transition too. I am going to favorite your comment so others can learn what is happening with the engine in an instance like this.
Definitely a great explanation of the inner workings. And assuming the governor is working properly but no matter what, it will never exceed 900 RPM so long as the governor has oil in it.
Nice footage! Love the captions for the coms too. Looks like some of the track on that run needs a bit of TLC but then again I know a whole lotta nothing about that stuff!
Thank you! I'm glad you liked the scanner coms. I know the scanner can be hard to understand which is why I add the captions. Makes it fun to follow along with what is happening.
1covered hopper car weighs about 129 tonns fully loaded (about 286 thousand lbs). These guys were handling 4, which means around 500 tonns. How do two GP38s, which have a 16-645E prime mover with 2000 bhp, have so many issues with a consist of 500 tonns? Could it be the number of active axels? Only 4 per loco. In Croatia we have HZ 2062 which are ialmost identical to GP38-2 in terms of the prime mover and electric equipment. However, our locos are 6 axle locos which weigh around 107 tonns as opposed to GP38-2 which weigh about 114 tonns.
You're right, they should've had no problem moving up the hill. However, the grey GP38-2 was broken down, which added an extra 114 tonns of dead weight for the other locomotive to push up the grade. They also had no sand in the lead locomotive to be used for traction. It was a "perfect storm" of factors that caused the slip.
Maybe a ploy would have been to leave the dead 2001 at the bottom of the hill where they left the rest of the consist. It would have given 2235 100 tons less to push.
Hey James! Very glad you enjoyed it. I like the "final mile" shortlines too. It's fun filming the switching ops and funky power that these railroads tend to have.
@@ICE6365 I have made a few videos of this type of railroading in the past. And I too find it a lot of fun. But it is definitely (IMHO) more challenging that filming mainline action. I am intending to try to do more of it when the weather cooperates to give me better flying weather. Stay safe. James.
@@FrogandFlangeVideo I also think it is much more challenging to film the regional railroads. The most challenging part for me is their limited schedules. I'd love to see aerial footage of last-mile switching on your channel. I'll be looking out for your videos. You be safe as well!
@@ICE6365 I agree 100 %. I'll try to round up the links for several of my favourite ones and send them to you. They are all on the channel, but none done in the last number of months due to the weather. James.
Here are some of my favourites: CN L580 SERVICES REMBOS AND BLASTECH ON HAGERSVILLE SUB - SHISA KANKO th-cam.com/video/0PFamqgeAus/w-d-xo.html A DAY AT GARNET YARD + HYDRO SPUR th-cam.com/video/UiaYUmMhEog/w-d-xo.html END OF AN ERA - ORANGEVILLE & BRAMPTON RR A FALLEN FLAG th-cam.com/video/hUXnWgWK_n0/w-d-xo.html A DAY WITH THE ORANGEVILLE & BRAMPTON RAILWAY th-cam.com/video/cPS0PVHgUMg/w-d-xo.html CN - A DAY OF SERVICING HAMILTON INDUSTRIES th-cam.com/video/VF3xvLCKr1g/w-d-xo.html Stay safe. James.
Looking back, I'm also surprised it didn't make more noise. You can hear the grinding noise of the wheels, but there were no loud squeals. The squealing sounds trains make are usually caused by the wheel flanges rubbing against the inside of the rail.
That was very interesting; don't think I ever saw anything like that. Saw an engine stall out but the wheels did not slip and throw sparks. Nice catch !
Thank you sir! I've seen locomotives stall too, but never like this. I believe modern locomotives have technology built in that prevents major wheel slips like this.
The problem here is, all four axles cut loose at the same time. A Wheel slip indicator will only show , and the throttle is cut when one of the wheels cuts loose. If it cascades and all four or six wheels break loose at the same time, then the traction motors run away with everything the generator has waiting for it. And even when the engineer cuts the throttle, those wheels are still going to spin for a while! If the engineer wasn't about to crap himself, he would have grabbed the independent and helped them slow down. But I've been in his position, and I know how frustrating it is when the wheels just decide they're going on a trip without me! I also worked for this railroad for about 8 years and I know exactly where and how he had the problem. The second engine, the OMLX 2001 has some serious mechanical issues. Between the frame damage, several connections on the main gen and other problems, if they weren't so hard up for power, they probably would have scrapped it for parts by now. But the Bama Boys (Mechanical dept from the ATN) never have had any intentions of fixing or scrapping it. However it is one of the reasons they have had to rent power. I wonder if the OMLX 2008 (SW-1200) is still on the property? Man that thing couldn't get out of its own way and yet it contributed at least another 300 HP to the consist if we had a big cut of cars going out to the South end. It too was a piece of junk and spent most of its time stuffed and mounted at the end of Track 13. Other times we hid it back int he woods behind Kapstone so the kids would stop vandalizing it.
It was built for the Illinois Terminal, so it may have fallen under Conrail control briefly. The paint looks like Conrail blue, but it is just faded blue from the last time Omnitrax painted it.
As a German train engineer (50% shunting 50% outside the shunting yard) this was extremely cool to see. The locomotive I use every day doesn't stall that hard, even under heavy load. Is there any information on how heavy the wagons or the train itself were/was in this clip? Would love to know 🙂
A loaded railcar weighs anywhere from 263,000 lbs to 286,000 lbs. The locomotives can vary greatly, but an educated guess would be 450,000 lbs per locomotive. So, 900,000 lbs + 1,315,000 lbs = 2,215,000 lbs, minimum, for this entire train.
@@LmaA1 Das stimmt. Ich ziehe mit meiner Rangierlok noch 4000 Tonnen weg (Spreche aus Erfahrung). Selbst bei Regen geht's (Mit genug Übung). Das hier sollen wohl nur 800 Tonnen sein.... 😆
@@Fuerwahrhalunke I'm glad you liked it! Where in Germany do you operate and what types of locomotives do you use? These older locomotives weigh about 250,000lbs (125 tons) so their traction isn't as good as newer engines that weigh closer to 450,000lbs as Daniel said. These particular railcars have a load limit of about 220,000lbs (I looked at the last car of the train at minute mark 3:17. You can see the "LD LMT" under the reporting mark GACX 53969). I estimate the weight of the railcars and the one engine that shut off to be roughly 550+125=675 tons. Compared to main line 120-car coal trains, that's easy work, but not for one GP38 locomotive with no sand and this steep hill.
@@ICE6365 Hey! Because I'm German it's rough for me to translate everything into my language, so if I misunderstand something, this is why 😛 I operate in Northrhine-Westphalia, close to the netherlands. My locomotive is (mostly) the BR 294, though I operate the BR 261/265 as well. The 294 weighs about 80 tons and were first built in the 60s, though their engine got renewed in the late 90s to a 1300 hp engine. We don't operate more than one locomotive at a time because the heaviest trains we have regularly are 2000 tons. You are right though; I didn't see that you had no sand available and I couldn't estimate how steep this hill is. How much hp does the GP38 have?
@@Fuerwahrhalunke Sieht so aus, als ob alles gut übersetzt wurde. Vielen Dank, dass Sie sich die Mühe gemacht haben, zu übersetzen! Ich habe nach weiteren Informationen zu den BR 294 gesucht. Cooles Zeug. Ich danke Ihnen für das Teilen. Gibt es Fälle, in denen Sie beim Rangieren oder auf der Hauptstrecke zwei Lokomotiven gleichzeitig einsetzen? Der GP38 hat 2000 PS. Aufgrund der geringeren Zugkraft und Pferdestärke im Vergleich zu anderen US-Lokomotiven verkehren sie meist paarweise.
My comment keeps getting purged, I assume it's because I included a link to my map: I wanted to offer some corrections on your video description. Fulco Railway is a Terminal, not a railroad. A Railroad has more than one station and has duties where they pull a train from Station A to Station B, etc. Most railroads classify interchange as one station and the customer as another station, but even Fulco does not do that. So because they are classified as a Terminal, all of the tracks are operated under Yard Limits. Even with that, OmniTrax still holds a track authority over the whole terminal so the crews get what is essentially the equivalent to a Track Warrant for the entire line from the CSX Derail, back. AS a terminal they are also exempt from certain other rules such as handling a HAZMAT tank with a cover car, or placing a marker on the rear of their train. Fulco operates 21 miles of Track and serves a total of 68 customers, of which more than half are not actively served at the moment. (Your description only says three miles, but I assure you it's much longer than that!) The last year I was there, 2021, they were handling 47,000+ carloads per annum, with the overwhelming majority of those carloads being loads inbound and empties upon turnback. It's roughly 4 miles from the CSX Interchange point at Fulco Jct. to the river Jct. Another 10 miles that parallel the Chattahoochee river from Westgate Parkway to just north of the Interstate 20 overpass. And then there are another 7 miles split between the 4 leads; The Winn-Dixie Lead at the Utoy Creek trestle, The Wye lead in Great Southwest Ind Pk. The Coke Lead at Camp Creek Parkway and Munford Lead off Boat Rock Road. There are 3 other short leads as well. I have a detailed map on google which shows the layout as it was about 3 years ago. I tried posting the link but my comment will get deleted if I do. If you look through my videos, I have two that I have shared of a Body-worn camera, Conductor's POV shoving out to CSX and shoving from River Junction down to Camp Creek Pkwy. Commodities transported by Fulco are Frozen Potatoes, Malt Liquor beverages, Cooking Oil, Corn-based sweeteners, Paper, Tar, Aggregate minerals, Canned fruits and vegetables, plastic pellets and waste oil, among other things.
During my 8 years with this railroad, I saw the worst and the best all at once from the operators and their management team. The one thing they made absolutely clear though was that employees are easily replaced, like fuses on an old building. We were threatened with our jobs every day, some worse than others. So the morale at this company is at it's lowest. On top of that, the Terminal is located between the largest industrial complexes in all of Atlanta, and the poorest neighborhoods in all of Atlanta. So the hazards of working there include the neighbors who trespass on the regular. I've seen kids as young as 10 with a Smith & Wesson .45 ACP in their waistband walking through the yard to cause trouble. I've seen old men in a beat up pickup truck stealing fuel from the reefers. I've seen vandals, taggers, smugglers and addicts out there. We've even run some of them over while switching, which was regrettable but unfortunately unavoidable. I've had my vehicle broken into and vandalized many times, so many in fact that I could not insure my car for more than liability as long as I parked it there. All the police would do is say "sorry for your trouble" but they would not arrest or even stop the kids from doing it. Now before I got there, management had just abolished the Yard Job. Originally there were three jobs, the Day Shift, the Night Shift and the Yard Job. Day shift would handle the customers who wanted a switch first thing in the morning and night shift would handle all the rest of the customers who wanted their switch later in the day or in the evening. And then it was the yard job who built the trains for those two crews and made interchange with CSX. They also handled customers right there on the yard lead, going toward the river. But that job was abolished and they had driven off all but three employees. Now the two jobs were trying to take up the duties of the yard job but it was never balanced. For a long time, we had a superintendent and a safety manager in our yard trying to pick up the slack, but it was a neverending battle, like paddling upstream. One of the office brains had this bright idea to abolish the night shift and just make the day shift a three man crew. Now customers were experiencing delays and interruption in service. Crews were hogging out after 12 hours and there was no one else available to pick up where they left off so they were just coming back the next day and finishing the days work from before. So then they send an office brain out to coax the crews to get more work done in less time, even with mechanical failures, bad track conditions and of course the wonderful morale that they encourage. On August 8th 2016 at about 9:30 pm, I was on CSX with a conductor trainee as we were shoving the turnbacks out for interchange when a trespasser snuck up behind me and shoved me as hard as he could into the train. I got tangled up on the corner of a sugar car with a brake stick. The stick got wedged into the ladder and then impacted the inside of my elbow causing it to dislocate. It then yanked me, causing me to lose footing and dragged me by my now dislocated arm. I yelled on the radio to stop and it took a while, I'd say about 100 yards before we finally got stopped. The brake stick sheared off and I stopped just before then. By now the trespasser was long gone and the only thing I could do was sit there and wait. There were lights in the yard but a storm had blown the wires down about 9 months earlier and CSX just rolled the wires up instead of replace or repair them. The reason I am told is because Fulco was only supposed to make interchange during daylight hours so they had no real reason to be there. When CSX Police interrogated me, the first thing they did was insist they were going to arrest me if I told a lie and that they had cameras everywhere! Except I knew they had no cameras. There were some cheap little decoy cameras with the blinking lights in them. The next thing they asked me was, "What did you do to instigate the assault?" Yeah! I was standing there checking car numbers as the train rolled by with my little railroader's lantern and wasn't even aware of this person's presence. But now I am the instigator. At First, OmniTrash accepted the issue and offered to pay for the doctors but when I needed surgery, that's when it was all over. And then they denied this incident, even saying I exaggerated the whole thing. We agreed on a pitiful little settlement and they forced me to retire from railroading. 21 years I worked for the railroad, 8 of them at this pit of hell, and all I got was a little cash and a salute to retire. I feel bad for everyone that has to work for this company. The few people who cared about the employees were fired or forced to leave. The last was Gord Anutooshkin who sent people in to observe the chaos that this railroad suffered while I was there. And after those observers left, drastic changes were made to improve. It didn't help me when I got pushed, but I hope it's gotten better after I've left...
@SD40Fan_Jason Thank you for taking the time to share! I have updated the errors in the description. Cool to know there were so many customers on the terminal at one point. I remember my friend complaining about understaffing and poor maintenance while he worked there. He said he saw lots of sketchy figures out there too. It's a neat operation, but it sounds rough apart from that. I'm sorry the comment kept getting purged. I would've liked to have seen the map. I've looked around on Google Earth in the past, but I could only assume which customers were active. I checked out your channel. Great footage of the shove to the interchange! That's a long time to ride the shove... Correct me if I'm wrong, but was it a 15 minute shove at 10mph?
@ICE6365 15 minutes? I suppose it depended on where you were going and who was running. I had ol' "Buzz" in the seat for me and he was afraid of going too fast out of fear of getting fired for causing a derailment. But I couldn't express to him that if the event recorder shows you're going the designated track speed and you weren't doing something stupid like 10 lbs on the brake and notch 7 on the throttle at the time you derailed, then it's not your fault and you aren't going to get pinched for it. But considering what I know now, I believe his point of view. Anyways the shove outfrom the yard to Fulco Jct was 15 minutes at 10mph and is about a 2 mile shove. On the other hand the shove from river jct all the way to Southgate was more like an hour and a half, accounting for the bad curve past Boat rock Rd and the big hill after the Del Monte lead. On really bad nights we were forced to break up the train into pieces and double or even triple that hill just to make it work.
This looks like a lack of maintenance, A locomotive doesn't need to run out of water. Now you're putting extra wear and tear on the locomotive that works.
I wonder the same... The crew didn't know this was going to happen, so I bet if they hadn't made it up the hill on the last try they would have set the unit out and tried again.
I've been on the other side of town for over 20 years. That the ATL is a southern rail hub has been more than obvious, but I didn't know about this short line.
Atlanta is a huge rail hub and Fulco definitely flies under the radar. They are easy to miss since they mainly handle last-mile switching. The places we filmed are the only "main line" spots on the whole line, and it was an all day affair to get them.
@@ICE6365 @rjpx947 Fulco is also in a very dangerous area. It serves the biggest Industrial centers in Atlanta and backs up to some of the poorest neighborhoods Fulton County can provide. I used to work there. Only reason I don't work there anymore was because a trespasser assaulted me, tried to kill me by shoving me into a moving train. Luckily I'm still on this side of the dirt but I can't work anymore because of my injury. If you decide to railfan this line, do not go alone and keep your head on a swivel at all times.
They are old rails, but the camera angle certainly makes them look worse than they really are. The rails are laid in 20-foot sections (offset by 10 feet on either side) and there are small dips at each joint. When looking at them from a low angle you can really see those spots. Side note - this is what causes the "rocking back and forth" motion that many people associate with trains.
This was a 1 in a MILLION video!! I have never seen a video that showed how difficult it was to move cars that are heavy up a small incline. Thanks for sharing this. I was amazed!!
Thank you!! It certainly was one in a million - I doubt I'll ever see anything like this again. It really puts into perspective how heavy railcars are. Oftentimes modern locomotives make it look effortless, but it's truly amazing how much weight they can pull (with proper traction)!
😅😅😅😅😅😊
Holy hell! I thought the sparks were fake until I watched. Wow that was more insane than I thought!
Yeah man, it was unreal!
That was great. Enjoyed it. You don’t see that every day hats off to the crew and the guy that filmed it. Thanks.
Thank you Michael!
As a Retired "Hobo" train hopper (Moniker: Boxcar Johnny) I really enjoy your videos.
Contrl Chief stuff was not on any Locomotives I rode, I quit in 2017 turned 62 got Deep Low Cost riding Amtrak! Yes, I went from F.T.R.A. to Amtrak Preferred Customer.
I appreciate it Johnny! Haha hard to believe anyone would switch to Amtrak instead of finding a better alternative. Low cost is about the only thing going for them. Those long distance routes just can't compete with the airlines.
when i was clinchfield railroad back in 70s 80 thes units were the best ever built i love the sd40s they had a sound of there own and power great vid s
Thanks Larry. I agree - the geeps are great but the sound of an SD40 definitely wins in my book
Larry, right before I "retired" we had an SD40-2 on the property, briefly. It was accidentally ordered as a leaser. They were terrified of going into curves with it for obvious reasons so it stayed in the yard about 3 months before it was returned. While I have operated many of them on the road, I had never switched a yard with one until then and it was a switcher's dream come true. Of course the alternative was the 2000 and 2001 seen here in this video so anything probably would have been better. But being able to actually move cars around the yard and climb the hill towards Selig instead of slapping it into 8 and praying was a wonderful change of pace.
Excellent action and great that the crew were so cool about the situation.
Thank you Joseph! Yes, the crew was very friendly. I asked them afterwards if they were ok with me posting this, and they approved.
Very cool. Looked them up on the map and was REALLY impressed with the extensive amount of spurs for former and current customers. There’s a lot going on on that little short line railroad. Keep making videos of them.
Thank you Jason. I am impressed with how many customers they serve as well. I will try to film them more in the future.
First video I've seen of Fulton. I live in Marietta and didn't even know about them till about two months ago location scouting on Google Maps for crossings to shoot at over there. Nice catch!! Subbed!
@@LancesLens thank you Lance! They definitely fly under the radar. I would have never known about them without a friend telling me. Glad you enjoyed!
Yet another amazing video from ICE6365!
Thank you sir!
You caught some crazy action!
Yessir! It was unreal
Awesme footage!
And no clickbait !!!!
Well done Sir!
Thank you sir! I always make sure to use thumbnails that are actually in my videos. There are too many channels that lure people in with fake thumbnails and I don't wanna be that guy.
@@ICE6365 Apreciate the Truthfull images :) Ill be watching them sparks flying a couple of times :) You can really see the power coming onto the rails :)
1:38 That is some really banged-up looking track.
It's got a few bumps lol but it looks worse because of the low camera angle. As you saw, the train had no trouble running through that stretch at 10-15 mph
Nice wobbles, beautifully filmed.
Thank you!
Wow! I've only experienced seeing that one time, I was close enough and the breeze was just right, I could smell the steel grinding😮
It's a cool experience for sure! The wind was to my back, so I couldn't smell the steel grinding
JUst subscribed!!! Great video buddy!!!
Thank you! I subbed back. Hope you'll get to 1,000 subscribers soon
Awesome footage and great catch of the Wheel slip action! 🚂👍🙋♂️
Thank you Wayne!
@@ICE6365 You're welcome!
I like the paint scheme on that GMTX engine number 2235.
Me too. It is a former Paducah and Louisville (PAL) paint scheme
@@ICE6365 I thought it looked like a P&L. I live in Dawson Springs KY. I see this scheme almost daily.
@@chuckwilkerson9034 Yep, it's a sharp looking scheme. I have family in Missouri, and when we visit we pass their yard in Paducah. Several times we have photographed the power sitting by the shops, but I've never seen one of their trains move.
@@ICE6365at one time, they operated mostly at night. I beside the CSX Henderson Sub, between the PAL and EVWR at Robards, KY.
and on OmniTrax property, anything but the wish d tcom CSX version of paint looks amazing!
Love the locos design. GP38's are my fav I think, besides the classic CSX EMD's lmao
Beautiful wheel slip
EDIT: also the train groaning at around 10:30, just a bit past, is amazing
Me too. Thank you!
I think my favorite has always been the SD38-2. But they are so rare.
Have a nice day, thanks
Thank you
Wonder how many 5 bags of sugar that was. Great video and kudos to the to all pushing up that hill and the videogpher as well.
Would be curious to know the same. Thank you!
Answer:
221,540 bags of 5 lb sugar
That’s 5 fully loaded covered hopper cars in the video at shown added up LD LMT commodity capacity
= 1,107,700 lbs (553.85 tons) / 5 lbs
= ~44,300 lbs of sugar per loaded covered hopper railcar
= ~8861 bags of 5 lb sugar per railcar
The tonnage capacity of each covered hopper railcar is visible in the video if you slow down / pause footage. For example, at 3:13 mark it shows FURX 851014 with stenciled data under the reporting marks (these days UV resistant vinyl transfer graphics are used, not masked paint) showing interior contents cargo weight capacity for the 286,000 maximum loading rated freight railcar:
LD LMT (contents Load Limit) = 222600 lbs (111.3 tons)
LT WT (empty “tare” Light Weight) = 63400 lbs (31.7 tons)
Total Weight Capacity allowed by FRA for 4-axle railcar / locomotive = 286,000 lbs (143 tons)
Hope this helps!
Perfect video to ask this. I am 52 and have wondered these questions for a long time. Okay railroaders what is the mechanical clicking sounds at the first of this video. Sorta sounds like popping off an air tool from an airline. But click, click, click, click sound?
Another sound is the sound of something spinning up. Like a "wherrip" normally I hear it when a locomotive is powering up to move. Silly questions but I just have always wondered.
@JD-dw8cc Hey JD, thanks for your comment! Definitely not silly questions - I have wondered about these sounds for a long time too. The clicking you hear is the air compressor on the locomotive spitting water out of the air reservoir. The compressed air causes condensation to collect in the tank, and it has to be spit out to prevent it from rusting. The "wherrip" noise on modern locomotives is the turbo kicking in to give the locomotive extra power. I don't know exactly how the turbo functions, but hopefully someone can answer that more in-depth.
@@ICE6365Thank you, I deal with air compressors alot. I drain the the tanks daily and the airline driers. I wonder now how they know to drain automatically. I would have assumed the turbo were constantly running like in tractors. I learned something new today. Thank you
@@ICE6365 on these engines, they have Roots Blower systems, and do not have a Turbocharger. They would be a GP40 if they had turbo. I am not keen on the noise you are identifying but you may be hearing the sound of the generator, or the roots blower. And the clicking is not the air compressor. These have static air compressors that are directly driven from the motor. The device you are speaking of is called a "spitter" and does exactly as you explain. They are located at the bottom of each reservoir tank. They are electronic, and when they detect condensated water, they open the valve to eject it. If the tank had a gallon of water in it, they would remain open constantly and there would be a stream of water ejecting from the spitter. Also if the voltage ever gets low or the pressure in the tank drops to a point that the valve can no longer close, it emits a very flatulent sound for a couple minutes.
Worked around this track frequently....great footage and I’ve never seen this!
Atlanta has an amazing amount of rail and I’ve seen some of the old rail in Smyrna
Thank you Stephen! Agreed, Atlanta has a lot of tracks. It can get very confusing on what goes where especially in downtown lol
Norfolk Southern stuck me on medical leave. Maybe I can apply with these guys!
Spectacular. And nice that you provide a direct jump to the "action".
Thank you Boris. I know most people don't have the desire to watch a 16 minute video just to see the 10 seconds of action - especially those who don't like trains as much as I do.
@@ICE6365 Coming from a railroad family, I'm surely not one of those people. I can watch these movies for hours. So keep them coming. ;)
I saw 2 Conrail GP40-2s shove 4 Covered Hoppers loaded with sugar up the grade into the Ferra Pan Candy factory spur in Forrest Park, IL. The crew dumped all the air from those Covered Hoppers. All of the wheels were sliding. A side note, this happened in the mid 1980s. The Candy factory has several silos for the ingredients to make the candy and has big winches to position the cars for unloading. Some of the candies they make are Red Hots, Atomic Fireballs & Lemon Heads.
I'm definitely a fan of GP 40-2's and Atomic Fireballs. 👍🇺🇸
Is the factory still operating?
@@longwindingroad As far as I know. I left the Chicagoland area in July 1997. They re-opened a retail store at the factory in April 2017 and their website is still up and running.
And if you want an explanation of why you keep having trans derailed, look at those tracks. I've seen straighter corrugated iron.
Well A. This a shortline not a mainline, they aren't going to have the best rails.B.....Derailments are common seeing how over a thousand happen every year.
The tracks do look crooked, but that is largely due to the camera angle and zoom. These tracks are only used several times a week at low speeds, so there is no need for them to be upgraded. Most railroads use continuously welded rail that is much straighter and can tolerate higher speeds.
the wreck in Ohio was caused by overheated wheel bearing, nothing to do with the rails. The mainline that accident happened on was on better maintained rails that the short line in this video.
@@ICE6365😊
Yeah okay, that track is perfectly fine .....trucks are spring loaded the cars can handle it....
Great railway footage.
Many thanks!
Awesome shots !! 👍
Thank you sir!
@@ICE6365 You're very welcome !
Well, the track's giving the suspension a workout!
The rails looks like in India. Nevertheless, cool video! Thanks for sharing!
Haha yes they do. Thank you!
Great video John! I remember you telling me about this but now, actually seeing it is really cool!
Thank you my guy! Yeah it's hard to put this into words lol
Nice to see an old EVWR engine here.
Agreed. It's a very nice paint scheme
I could watch this all day...
Thank you 🙏
I'm watching this while playing with my model trains. I think I may have a sickness.
Not a sickness. Healthy!
Very cool, wish we had some of that excitement here in Clemson. We love our train videos in Clemson SC, Go Tigers! Keep it up.
Thank you, and Go Tigers!
6:35 @ICE6365 when we were kids in the 70s we made fun of trains by putting grease on one length rails at the middle part of the hill climb. Then we discovered we can use candles but we have to apply it on rails at the middle of the day when the rails are hot.
😊😁😂
Gollee that's hilarious! Did it ever cause a train to slip? For anyone reading, do not try this yourself.
@@ICE6365 always😄
Awesome to see several of those boxcars in a row.
Agreed
It's an everyday occurrence on the Fulco Rwy. Two customers get beer imported from Mexico and one stack goes to General Wholesale off Camp Creek Pkwy, while the other stack goes to Saddle Creek down off Westgate Pkwy. Anywhere from 8-25 boxcars a day, if they are still seeing the traffic I handled up till about 3 years ago.
Wheel slip circuitry not working for sure. Awesome vid.
Absolutely. Thank you!
Wheel slip circuit catches when one axle breaks away. In the video all four suddenly break away and probably ran away at a balanced speed. To the wheel slip monitor it looked like the train suddenly rolled uphill at 40mph. It's not going trip the wheel slip indicator for that. Modern engines have the same problem if the same results are achieved. I can show you what track looks like when a mid-train DPU ran away like this for several minutes in run 8.
Wonder what horn 2235 has here... S3-L?
I don't think it's an S3L, but it's a 3-chime of some sort... I'm not an expert on horns so maybe someone else will see this and let us know
when I lived in Pacific Grove in 1971, the Southern Pacific(?) still ran all the way towards Asilomar. The tracks were 200 yards in front of our house. I'd run out everyday when I felt the rumble and heard the horn to wave to the engineer... They always waved back.
That is wholesome Tony, thank you 🙏
I read your description. In a Diesel electric locomotive, the engine doesn't redline if the wheels spin. The engine governor controls the RPM at the notch the driver selects. The driver selected notch setting is the throttle. There are usually 8 notches. Each notch has a known RPM which the governor holds which is why a tacho is redundant.
In a given notch what happens is the amps on the amp gauge begin to rise as the train slows. This is indicating more and more work is being done since traction is electrical. If the wheels break traction then the amps go down to nearly zero and the load comes off the Diesel engine. The governor just holds the engine RPM no matter what. If the governor detects any over RPM it reduces fuel to maintain the set RPM - more fuel for more load, less fuel for less load. EMD Diesels aren't like smaller Diesel engines in cars or trucks. They have quite a lot of internal mass, so if the electrical load is suddenly released by the spinning of the wheels the governor acts faster on the fuel rack than the revs can rise (there is a tolerance but that's the principal of operation) maintaining the set RPM. With full traction before wheel spin, if train speed reduction continues then the traction motor's electrical configuration automatically changes in a process called transition. This is usually where the wheel spin is likely to occur. Why transition is required is a complex topic but simply it changes the connection of the traction motors between series and parallel depending on whether the train speed is increasing or decreasing. Back EMF is the enemy of speed in Diesel electric locomotives. As speed increases the traction motors begin to behave like a generator (the back EMF part) reducing the traction motor windings capacity to absorb current from the generator, so the electrical cabinet changes the way the traction motors are connected to the generator.
When wheel spin occurs it is the engineer that throttles down otherwise the governor would hold the set RPM for the selected notch and the generator would keep supplying just enough current to keep the wheels spinning - except there are some fancy systems that drastically improve locomotive traction so that doesn't occur. These systems are so effective they allow greater weight (more cars) or less locomotives for the same train weight or length. As we can see these locos don't have any of that equipment.
Also some yard only locos have their transition disabled so they can never go faster than about 15 or 20mph.
You might like this rather dry vid on locomotive transition but it is interesting. If you want to skip the first part, the description of Transition begins at six forty:
th-cam.com/video/eMT8qVvn9wo/w-d-xo.html
Hi Paul. Thank you for taking the time to write this. This is cool stuff! I watched the video to learn a bit more about transition too. I am going to favorite your comment so others can learn what is happening with the engine in an instance like this.
Definitely a great explanation of the inner workings. And assuming the governor is working properly but no matter what, it will never exceed 900 RPM so long as the governor has oil in it.
Nice footage! Love the captions for the coms too. Looks like some of the track on that run needs a bit of TLC but then again I know a whole lotta nothing about that stuff!
Thank you! I'm glad you liked the scanner coms. I know the scanner can be hard to understand which is why I add the captions. Makes it fun to follow along with what is happening.
1covered hopper car weighs about 129 tonns fully loaded (about 286 thousand lbs). These guys were handling 4, which means around 500 tonns. How do two GP38s, which have a 16-645E prime mover with 2000 bhp, have so many issues with a consist of 500 tonns? Could it be the number of active axels? Only 4 per loco. In Croatia we have HZ 2062 which are ialmost identical to GP38-2 in terms of the prime mover and electric equipment. However, our locos are 6 axle locos which weigh around 107 tonns as opposed to GP38-2 which weigh about 114 tonns.
You're right, they should've had no problem moving up the hill. However, the grey GP38-2 was broken down, which added an extra 114 tonns of dead weight for the other locomotive to push up the grade. They also had no sand in the lead locomotive to be used for traction. It was a "perfect storm" of factors that caused the slip.
@@ICE6365 oh, I haven't noticed that one was broken. That makes it a whole lot different then :-) thanks for the extra explanation! Really cool video!
@@ibazulic Thank you! :)
Looks like 1206 from Unstoppable
Yes it does lol
Cool video thank you. Nice spark show
Thank you Rick
Excelente video saludos desde Queretaro México 🚂🚂🚂👍👍
Saludos Jose! Me alegro de que hayas disfrutado el vídeo. Muchas gracias 🙏
Them tracks have seen better days.
"good garly the sparks" said the engineer LoL
Yes lol I thought that was funny too
Congratulations 🎉 1000 subscribe
Thank you very much! 😁
What’s the water for
The water cools the engine and prevents it from overheating
Ca me parait bien compromis? On voudrait la suite, merci.
Je ferai de mon mieux pour filmer une suite. Merci d'avoir regardé
great video bro
Thank you!
Superb shots !
Thank you!
@@ICE6365 You're welcome !
Holy 🚬 smokes! Literally....(got this in my feed, subscribed...awesome action!)
Thank you Christopher! Yes, quite literally LOL
I’m pretty sure steam engines have sand canisters with the wheels to help grip on the track if it gets too slippery
Correct. These locomotives have sanders too, but they don't do much good without sand in them lol
Maybe a ploy would have been to leave the dead 2001 at the bottom of the hill where they left the rest of the consist. It would have given 2235 100 tons less to push.
I agree. I'm surprised the crew didn't do that.
Wow ! really cool to watch this. I am a big fan of the last mile type of action. Kudos !! James.
Hey James! Very glad you enjoyed it. I like the "final mile" shortlines too. It's fun filming the switching ops and funky power that these railroads tend to have.
@@ICE6365 I have made a few videos of this type of railroading in the past. And I too find it a lot of fun. But it is definitely (IMHO) more challenging that filming mainline action. I am intending to try to do more of it when the weather cooperates to give me better flying weather. Stay safe. James.
@@FrogandFlangeVideo I also think it is much more challenging to film the regional railroads. The most challenging part for me is their limited schedules. I'd love to see aerial footage of last-mile switching on your channel. I'll be looking out for your videos. You be safe as well!
@@ICE6365 I agree 100 %. I'll try to round up the links for several of my favourite ones and send them to you. They are all on the channel, but none done in the last number of months due to the weather. James.
Here are some of my favourites:
CN L580 SERVICES REMBOS AND BLASTECH ON HAGERSVILLE SUB - SHISA KANKO th-cam.com/video/0PFamqgeAus/w-d-xo.html
A DAY AT GARNET YARD + HYDRO SPUR th-cam.com/video/UiaYUmMhEog/w-d-xo.html
END OF AN ERA - ORANGEVILLE & BRAMPTON RR A FALLEN FLAG th-cam.com/video/hUXnWgWK_n0/w-d-xo.html
A DAY WITH THE ORANGEVILLE & BRAMPTON RAILWAY th-cam.com/video/cPS0PVHgUMg/w-d-xo.html
CN - A DAY OF SERVICING HAMILTON INDUSTRIES th-cam.com/video/VF3xvLCKr1g/w-d-xo.html
Stay safe. James.
Cool switching video (Dave).
Thank you Dave
That was cool...Thanks for sharing 👍
Thank you William 🙏
Wow that's amazing and it's like a Ho scale model that dose the same thing
Thanks! Must be a Tyco model :)
"Beans don't burn in the kitchen. Beans don't burn on the grill.
Took a whole lotta tryin' just to get up that hill."
Да ребятки,состояние путей полный швах
Определенно не соответствует стандартам пассажирских железных дорог
I’m surprised it didn’t make much noise. When it snowed where I live couple week ago a train went by uphill and the squeal nearly blew my ears out.
Looking back, I'm also surprised it didn't make more noise. You can hear the grinding noise of the wheels, but there were no loud squeals. The squealing sounds trains make are usually caused by the wheel flanges rubbing against the inside of the rail.
@@ICE63659
Nice video
Thank you!
Nice footage man and great catch on the wheel slip action 👍👍
Hey Rob, thank you! This was a once in a lifetime witness so I'm glad I got it
That was very interesting; don't think I ever saw anything like that. Saw an engine stall out but the wheels did not slip and throw sparks. Nice catch !
Thank you sir! I've seen locomotives stall too, but never like this. I believe modern locomotives have technology built in that prevents major wheel slips like this.
The problem here is, all four axles cut loose at the same time. A Wheel slip indicator will only show , and the throttle is cut when one of the wheels cuts loose. If it cascades and all four or six wheels break loose at the same time, then the traction motors run away with everything the generator has waiting for it. And even when the engineer cuts the throttle, those wheels are still going to spin for a while! If the engineer wasn't about to crap himself, he would have grabbed the independent and helped them slow down. But I've been in his position, and I know how frustrating it is when the wheels just decide they're going on a trip without me! I also worked for this railroad for about 8 years and I know exactly where and how he had the problem. The second engine, the OMLX 2001 has some serious mechanical issues. Between the frame damage, several connections on the main gen and other problems, if they weren't so hard up for power, they probably would have scrapped it for parts by now. But the Bama Boys (Mechanical dept from the ATN) never have had any intentions of fixing or scrapping it. However it is one of the reasons they have had to rent power. I wonder if the OMLX 2008 (SW-1200) is still on the property? Man that thing couldn't get out of its own way and yet it contributed at least another 300 HP to the consist if we had a big cut of cars going out to the South end. It too was a piece of junk and spent most of its time stuffed and mounted at the end of Track 13. Other times we hid it back int he woods behind Kapstone so the kids would stop vandalizing it.
Tanks Brasil 🌟🇧🇷🙏👍
Great train video.
Thank you Frank
빨리와요 😢😢😢😢😢😢
Great video! Thumbs up!
Thank you! 👍
What State is this ?
Georgia, USA
That blue locomotive is that an old Conrail
It was built for the Illinois Terminal, so it may have fallen under Conrail control briefly. The paint looks like Conrail blue, but it is just faded blue from the last time Omnitrax painted it.
good work guys
Great work indeed. Thanks Team 👍
try Hamilton mountain in Ontario. The steepest grade in the country. What is your problem?
The incline railroads are remarkable to see. They are much different beasts than this unassisted 2+% grade
As a German train engineer (50% shunting 50% outside the shunting yard) this was extremely cool to see. The locomotive I use every day doesn't stall that hard, even under heavy load. Is there any information on how heavy the wagons or the train itself were/was in this clip? Would love to know 🙂
A loaded railcar weighs anywhere from 263,000 lbs to 286,000 lbs. The locomotives can vary greatly, but an educated guess would be 450,000 lbs per locomotive. So, 900,000 lbs + 1,315,000 lbs = 2,215,000 lbs, minimum, for this entire train.
@@LmaA1 Das stimmt. Ich ziehe mit meiner Rangierlok noch 4000 Tonnen weg (Spreche aus Erfahrung). Selbst bei Regen geht's (Mit genug Übung). Das hier sollen wohl nur 800 Tonnen sein.... 😆
@@Fuerwahrhalunke I'm glad you liked it! Where in Germany do you operate and what types of locomotives do you use?
These older locomotives weigh about 250,000lbs (125 tons) so their traction isn't as good as newer engines that weigh closer to 450,000lbs as Daniel said. These particular railcars have a load limit of about 220,000lbs (I looked at the last car of the train at minute mark 3:17. You can see the "LD LMT" under the reporting mark GACX 53969). I estimate the weight of the railcars and the one engine that shut off to be roughly 550+125=675 tons. Compared to main line 120-car coal trains, that's easy work, but not for one GP38 locomotive with no sand and this steep hill.
@@ICE6365 Hey! Because I'm German it's rough for me to translate everything into my language, so if I misunderstand something, this is why 😛
I operate in Northrhine-Westphalia, close to the netherlands. My locomotive is (mostly) the BR 294, though I operate the BR 261/265 as well. The 294 weighs about 80 tons and were first built in the 60s, though their engine got renewed in the late 90s to a 1300 hp engine. We don't operate more than one locomotive at a time because the heaviest trains we have regularly are 2000 tons.
You are right though; I didn't see that you had no sand available and I couldn't estimate how steep this hill is.
How much hp does the GP38 have?
@@Fuerwahrhalunke Sieht so aus, als ob alles gut übersetzt wurde. Vielen Dank, dass Sie sich die Mühe gemacht haben, zu übersetzen! Ich habe nach weiteren Informationen zu den BR 294 gesucht. Cooles Zeug. Ich danke Ihnen für das Teilen. Gibt es Fälle, in denen Sie beim Rangieren oder auf der Hauptstrecke zwei Lokomotiven gleichzeitig einsetzen? Der GP38 hat 2000 PS. Aufgrund der geringeren Zugkraft und Pferdestärke im Vergleich zu anderen US-Lokomotiven verkehren sie meist paarweise.
The GMTX2235 that could
Thank you Bepis Man
Engineer: Hey, buddy, she can’t do this, we may have to double it!
@@ICE6365 ouch those wheels on the diesel train it looks hot
That was a good catch!
Thank you!
On Google Earth we can see that this line serves many factories on a large area,, but some sections are abandoned. Jacques, from France.
Correct
The GMTX 2235 Was going up the hill was going up the hill to struggling, throwing spark was very epic I just looking up on Wikipedia.
Very epic indeed :)
They are SO LUCKY those sparks didn't start a fire in the bushes and trees near the right of way.
Agreed. I was surprised there weren't any small fires in the pinestraw or crossties too
Vídeos muito bacanas imagens lindas parabéns amigo pelo excelente registro 👏💯 locomotivas muito lindas 👏👏
Gracias, muy apreciado!
My Buddy Josh works for that line , he might be the engineer on this cut , third times a charm !!!!
Nice! Not sure what the engineer's name is, but he was a cool guy
Good video, like !
Thank you!
Hill: Harry, where's "Ludicrous Notch?"
9:21 RS3K or K3H/K3HA?
Pretty sure it's a K3HA, but I'm far from a train horn expert. Maybe someone else can confirm
Great work
Thank you
2235 is a beautiful locomotive.
Indeed it is
This was a great video...
Thank you Johnny!
Fantastic video😉👍️✨
Thank you! :)
My comment keeps getting purged, I assume it's because I included a link to my map:
I wanted to offer some corrections on your video description. Fulco Railway is a Terminal, not a railroad. A Railroad has more than one station and has duties where they pull a train from Station A to Station B, etc. Most railroads classify interchange as one station and the customer as another station, but even Fulco does not do that. So because they are classified as a Terminal, all of the tracks are operated under Yard Limits. Even with that, OmniTrax still holds a track authority over the whole terminal so the crews get what is essentially the equivalent to a Track Warrant for the entire line from the CSX Derail, back. AS a terminal they are also exempt from certain other rules such as handling a HAZMAT tank with a cover car, or placing a marker on the rear of their train.
Fulco operates 21 miles of Track and serves a total of 68 customers, of which more than half are not actively served at the moment. (Your description only says three miles, but I assure you it's much longer than that!) The last year I was there, 2021, they were handling 47,000+ carloads per annum, with the overwhelming majority of those carloads being loads inbound and empties upon turnback. It's roughly 4 miles from the CSX Interchange point at Fulco Jct. to the river Jct. Another 10 miles that parallel the Chattahoochee river from Westgate Parkway to just north of the Interstate 20 overpass. And then there are another 7 miles split between the 4 leads; The Winn-Dixie Lead at the Utoy Creek trestle, The Wye lead in Great Southwest Ind Pk. The Coke Lead at Camp Creek Parkway and Munford Lead off Boat Rock Road. There are 3 other short leads as well. I have a detailed map on google which shows the layout as it was about 3 years ago. I tried posting the link but my comment will get deleted if I do.
If you look through my videos, I have two that I have shared of a Body-worn camera, Conductor's POV shoving out to CSX and shoving from River Junction down to Camp Creek Pkwy.
Commodities transported by Fulco are Frozen Potatoes, Malt Liquor beverages, Cooking Oil, Corn-based sweeteners, Paper, Tar, Aggregate minerals, Canned fruits and vegetables, plastic pellets and waste oil, among other things.
During my 8 years with this railroad, I saw the worst and the best all at once from the operators and their management team. The one thing they made absolutely clear though was that employees are easily replaced, like fuses on an old building. We were threatened with our jobs every day, some worse than others. So the morale at this company is at it's lowest. On top of that, the Terminal is located between the largest industrial complexes in all of Atlanta, and the poorest neighborhoods in all of Atlanta. So the hazards of working there include the neighbors who trespass on the regular. I've seen kids as young as 10 with a Smith & Wesson .45 ACP in their waistband walking through the yard to cause trouble. I've seen old men in a beat up pickup truck stealing fuel from the reefers. I've seen vandals, taggers, smugglers and addicts out there. We've even run some of them over while switching, which was regrettable but unfortunately unavoidable. I've had my vehicle broken into and vandalized many times, so many in fact that I could not insure my car for more than liability as long as I parked it there. All the police would do is say "sorry for your trouble" but they would not arrest or even stop the kids from doing it. Now before I got there, management had just abolished the Yard Job. Originally there were three jobs, the Day Shift, the Night Shift and the Yard Job. Day shift would handle the customers who wanted a switch first thing in the morning and night shift would handle all the rest of the customers who wanted their switch later in the day or in the evening. And then it was the yard job who built the trains for those two crews and made interchange with CSX. They also handled customers right there on the yard lead, going toward the river. But that job was abolished and they had driven off all but three employees. Now the two jobs were trying to take up the duties of the yard job but it was never balanced. For a long time, we had a superintendent and a safety manager in our yard trying to pick up the slack, but it was a neverending battle, like paddling upstream. One of the office brains had this bright idea to abolish the night shift and just make the day shift a three man crew. Now customers were experiencing delays and interruption in service. Crews were hogging out after 12 hours and there was no one else available to pick up where they left off so they were just coming back the next day and finishing the days work from before. So then they send an office brain out to coax the crews to get more work done in less time, even with mechanical failures, bad track conditions and of course the wonderful morale that they encourage.
On August 8th 2016 at about 9:30 pm, I was on CSX with a conductor trainee as we were shoving the turnbacks out for interchange when a trespasser snuck up behind me and shoved me as hard as he could into the train. I got tangled up on the corner of a sugar car with a brake stick. The stick got wedged into the ladder and then impacted the inside of my elbow causing it to dislocate. It then yanked me, causing me to lose footing and dragged me by my now dislocated arm. I yelled on the radio to stop and it took a while, I'd say about 100 yards before we finally got stopped. The brake stick sheared off and I stopped just before then. By now the trespasser was long gone and the only thing I could do was sit there and wait. There were lights in the yard but a storm had blown the wires down about 9 months earlier and CSX just rolled the wires up instead of replace or repair them. The reason I am told is because Fulco was only supposed to make interchange during daylight hours so they had no real reason to be there. When CSX Police interrogated me, the first thing they did was insist they were going to arrest me if I told a lie and that they had cameras everywhere! Except I knew they had no cameras. There were some cheap little decoy cameras with the blinking lights in them. The next thing they asked me was, "What did you do to instigate the assault?" Yeah! I was standing there checking car numbers as the train rolled by with my little railroader's lantern and wasn't even aware of this person's presence. But now I am the instigator. At First, OmniTrash accepted the issue and offered to pay for the doctors but when I needed surgery, that's when it was all over. And then they denied this incident, even saying I exaggerated the whole thing. We agreed on a pitiful little settlement and they forced me to retire from railroading. 21 years I worked for the railroad, 8 of them at this pit of hell, and all I got was a little cash and a salute to retire. I feel bad for everyone that has to work for this company. The few people who cared about the employees were fired or forced to leave. The last was Gord Anutooshkin who sent people in to observe the chaos that this railroad suffered while I was there. And after those observers left, drastic changes were made to improve. It didn't help me when I got pushed, but I hope it's gotten better after I've left...
@SD40Fan_Jason Thank you for taking the time to share! I have updated the errors in the description. Cool to know there were so many customers on the terminal at one point. I remember my friend complaining about understaffing and poor maintenance while he worked there. He said he saw lots of sketchy figures out there too. It's a neat operation, but it sounds rough apart from that. I'm sorry the comment kept getting purged. I would've liked to have seen the map. I've looked around on Google Earth in the past, but I could only assume which customers were active.
I checked out your channel. Great footage of the shove to the interchange! That's a long time to ride the shove... Correct me if I'm wrong, but was it a 15 minute shove at 10mph?
@ICE6365 15 minutes? I suppose it depended on where you were going and who was running. I had ol' "Buzz" in the seat for me and he was afraid of going too fast out of fear of getting fired for causing a derailment. But I couldn't express to him that if the event recorder shows you're going the designated track speed and you weren't doing something stupid like 10 lbs on the brake and notch 7 on the throttle at the time you derailed, then it's not your fault and you aren't going to get pinched for it. But considering what I know now, I believe his point of view.
Anyways the shove outfrom the yard to Fulco Jct was 15 minutes at 10mph and is about a 2 mile shove.
On the other hand the shove from river jct all the way to Southgate was more like an hour and a half, accounting for the bad curve past Boat rock Rd and the big hill after the Del Monte lead. On really bad nights we were forced to break up the train into pieces and double or even triple that hill just to make it work.
This looks like a lack of maintenance, A locomotive doesn't need to run out of water. Now you're putting extra wear and tear on the locomotive that works.
I agree. I had never heard of a locomotive running out of water until this instance.
@@ICE6365It might have a leaking radiator, or worse, a head gasket leak.
@@andrewc1199 that would be nearly fatal to the unit, wouldn't it?
@@ICE6365 Yes it would. A leaking radiator is one thing, but a head gasket leak would require tearing apart the prime mover.
way to go guys.good job.
Thanks team 👍
Very nice! I see there is an EX-PAL Unit as well.
Yep! A lot of people (including myself) like the look of the PAL scheme. I've received a lot of comments on it.
No water? In the cooling system? Excellent rail fanning!
Correct, no water in the cooling system. I appreciate it!
@@ICE6365 Wonder why it was hooked up, just pushing dead weight, would have got up the grade a lot easier.
I wonder the same... The crew didn't know this was going to happen, so I bet if they hadn't made it up the hill on the last try they would have set the unit out and tried again.
I've been on the other side of town for over 20 years. That the ATL is a southern rail hub has been more than obvious, but I didn't know about this short line.
Atlanta is a huge rail hub and Fulco definitely flies under the radar. They are easy to miss since they mainly handle last-mile switching. The places we filmed are the only "main line" spots on the whole line, and it was an all day affair to get them.
@@ICE6365 @rjpx947 Fulco is also in a very dangerous area. It serves the biggest Industrial centers in Atlanta and backs up to some of the poorest neighborhoods Fulton County can provide. I used to work there. Only reason I don't work there anymore was because a trespasser assaulted me, tried to kill me by shoving me into a moving train. Luckily I'm still on this side of the dirt but I can't work anymore because of my injury. If you decide to railfan this line, do not go alone and keep your head on a swivel at all times.
1:55 so old Rails just look at them
They are old rails, but the camera angle certainly makes them look worse than they really are. The rails are laid in 20-foot sections (offset by 10 feet on either side) and there are small dips at each joint. When looking at them from a low angle you can really see those spots. Side note - this is what causes the "rocking back and forth" motion that many people associate with trains.
My boy Charlie made it to the Big Time!
It is now a Rail grinder.
What’s the grade 5:54
2.0% or greater. I do not know the specific grade unfortunately
@@ICE6365 On that specific hill, climbing up Camp Creek away from the river is almost a 4% grade.
Cool video and channel just subscribed
Thank you, I appreciate it!
That spark very amazing 6:33
Thanks! It was crazy to see
@CE6365 please tell what vhf frequency do they speak, what diapason is in the use?