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r/explainlikeimfive
Posted by9 years ago
Archived
There's a railroad crossing on the road to my house , and every once in a blue moon the train will come by and stop in the middle of the road and stay there for like ten minutes while cars pike up waiting for it to cross. Sometimes it'll go forward a little then go backwards again and just cancel out any progress it made. Why does it do this stuff for so long? I have a hard time believing the engineer is just fucking with me, so there has to be a reason
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level 1
They are probably adding or removing cars from the train. Is there a train station, junction or large warehouse/factory near where this is happening?
level 2
Yeah, there's a depot just around the bend
level 1
The railroad crossing on the way to your house is probably located fairly close to a train depot, or a loading/unloading area. The front of the train is most likely stopped at the depot and is waiting transfer or cars are being taken out or put in. This is why the train pulls forward, then backs- up, then forward again. I used to drive a shuttle bus for a rental car company back in the day and the only road to the airport has a train crossing and a depot down the road... so many people missing flights...so much rage.
level 2
That sounds like what's happening, cause I know there's a depot just around the bend. Thanks man!
level 1
Something blocking the tracks, route intersects with another train, derailing, track damage, etc.
level 2
They really ought to get that under control if that's what it is, it happens like once every month or two
level 1
Maybe the train is ahead of schedule. Maybe a train ahead of them on the track is delayed. Maybe there's a fault with the signalling system.
level 1
Moving forward and back could indicate that it is diverting some cars on one end onto a side track, and then backing up beyond the switch to change onto the main track to continue on. You might just be waiting on the train to drop off part of its load.
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| Trains stopped in the middle of nowhere Posted by Anonymous on Friday, July 20, 2007 5:15 PM Hello people. I've been a watcher on Trains dot com for many years and now decided to register as an active participant. I really like the new look for the website. My first forum question to get things going is this: As I travel between cities out into the country area and I'm pretty much parallel to a two track railroad, sometimes I see freight trains stopped on the main (not a side track) and was just wondering why. Thanks G
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| Posted by rrnut282 on Friday, July 20, 2007 5:31 PM There are almost too many reasons to list here. Most of them have something to do with the Dispatcher not having a place for the train to go. These causes could be, but not limited to, any of the following: they were waiting on another train so they can cross over to the other main; a maintainer has permission to occupy the next block; a train is stopped ahead; the yard is not ready for that train; the crew was at their 12-hour limit; the defect detector said there was a problem; they "lost the air" in the train line and the conductor was "walking the train"; and others that I can't think of right now. Mike (2-8-2)
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| Posted by Krazykat112079 on Friday, July 20, 2007 6:15 PM Like rrnut said, it could be a ton of reasons, but I would hazard to guess that 9 times out of 10 it is just simply a red light on the signal. Check right in front of the train for a signal next time you see one. The stop signal could be for numerous reasons itself. Nathaniel
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| Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, July 21, 2007 8:43 AM There are a lot of reasons. It could be a red signal, as mentioned before, or the crew could have gone off their hours of service laws, (dead on the law) or be having mechanical problems.
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| Posted by spokyone on Saturday, July 21, 2007 9:03 AM Not exactly in nowhere, but: Last Sunday in DeWitt IA an E/B coal was stopped with the pusher fouling the crossing. Two UP guys in a pickup were looking under the hood, kind of. It must have been there for a while, because the police had detour signs in place. I would have stopped for a pic, but traffic was heavy and policeman had a sour look on his face.
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| Posted by eolafan on Saturday, July 21, 2007 10:13 AM First and foremost Carl can most likely give us much more information here, but in the western 'burbs of Chicagoland we have the U.P. mainline and between Rochelle and Chicago there are usually very many eastbound freights sitting in the "parking lot" waiting for access to the various metro yards and/or transition to one of the other railroads like the EJ&E, BRC, etc. Carl, care to add to this? Eolafan (a.k.a. Jim)
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| Posted by vlmuke on Saturday, July 21, 2007 12:25 PM the most common is being stopped at a stop signal or a hold out point to keep from blocking roads or waiting for a yard to accept the train the next would be some other problem such as train went into emergency due to an airhose breaking or some other problem or passed a detector and got a bad reading so the crew would have to walk the train if its at a siding usually they are changing crews as the first one whent dead for time they usually don't like tieing up a main line while a train gets recrewed but its not to say it doesn't happen
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| Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, July 21, 2007 8:29 PM Thank you for the reasons. There were many listed I hadn't thought of. I did think of a red signal light ahead and also that perhaps the sun was setting directly behind the signal making it very difficult or impossible to read, but I'm not sure if this thought is plausible. The train was going westbound when I saw this take place last summer and it was nearing sunset.
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