Autumn Leaves

Autumn is so nice....trees are so colorful. It is not nice for trainzzz. Leaves on tracks act as a lubricant when crushed with the weight of a train on a surface of about 1/10th of an inch....steel train wheels sit on a curved surface (steel tracks) unlike flat highway roads.....pressure on rail is is in million of pounds per square inch. Apart from stopping problems, my trainzzzs sense loss of traction with wheeels spinning and Automatic Train Control engages first trying to compensate and ultimately 'Braking In Emergency' resulting with all wheels locked and skidding to the point where wheel surface is superheated to the point where the wheel gets a major 'flat spot' that makes the train BUMP as it rolls along. What we added was 'sanders' that deposit a small quantity of dry fine sand upon the tracks in front of the wheels automatically operated. Sanders work well for locomotives hauling freight cars being manually controlled by the engineer but this application is still in question...take the money and run....7+ days with overtime. NYCTA subways on outside tracks doesn't have this problem....'slime trains' deposit an enzyme directly upon the tracks that break down leaves to prevent the problem. A simple wire brush mounted on train truck against the track would eliminate 80% of the problems but I learned about how my contributions from experience benefit others...........'Sargeant Shulttz' was always right in many ways.....'Kolonel Klink I see nothing." Passenger safety is the priority. I had a trainset come in with a gearcase lacking oil...unsealed. Supervisor said it goes out as it came in. I say trainset is condemned for motion. I'm the FRA certified Car Inspector and my word is law...what I see and ignore can subject me to Federal penalties. 'Happy medium' was for me to refill gearcase with five quarts of 80W90 oil for return without repairing leak source....fabricating a temporary metal plate for an uncompensated repair costs the company money.....trainset goes back to customer for them to fix.

Now we have my buddy 'Baghdad Bob' who says no Allied Forces are within fifty miles of Baghdad. Right, like Bombardier M7A trainsets are 'MAINTAINANCE FREE.' Just try buying a new car, running up 172K miles, driving into a tree, only changing brake pads/shoes and coming back to the dealer for warranty repair. I'm doing the maintainance work that union members should and do not do.......to make trainzzzs safe......and mark work with my railroad sign: a schematic of a grounded antenna.......my 'signal' does not go out and is not heard.