Speculation for Nahrmahn' Little Brainstorm?

n7axw wrote:

Peter2 wrote:
They did, but . . . .

The problem was that every effort to improve safety reduced flow density and so lowered efficiency, and so each effort was countered &/or ignored (to some extent at least) to get efficiency back up again. There were some pretty horrendous accidents, notably Quintinshill. The vast majority were ascribed to human error, but you have to read each individual case to make a judgement on whether the "error" was an outright blunder, or the results of somebody bending the rules.
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Safehold currently has a very efficient semaphore system. I would see no reason to believe that it couldn't be adapted to manage rail traffic.

Don

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Bad weather/fog would be slightly problematic

Keith_w wrote:
That would mean that the rail lines would have to follow the semaphore lines or they would have to expand the semaphore lines to go where the rail lines were wanted, with a concurrent increase in trained personnel to operate the semaphore lines.

Also, please remember that the semaphore lines are not the waggley armed semaphores of Europe (and possibly the Americas), they are big boxes with windows that indicators get put in. Personally, I imagine them to be like manually operated baseball score boards.

That really would be no different than the semaphores traveling alomg rivers or canals which is what they mostly do now. If commercial exploitation of the rail lines required it, of course they would expand the semaphore system. In fact introducing rail would give birth to a new industry. Call it a jobs program.

Don

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isaac_newton wrote:

n7axw" quote="Peter2 wrote:
They did, but . . . .

The problem was that every effort to improve safety reduced flow density and so lowered efficiency, and so each effort was countered &/or ignored (to some extent at least) to get efficiency back up again. There were some pretty horrendous accidents, notably Quintinshill. The vast majority were ascribed to human error, but you have to read each individual case to make a judgement on whether the "error" was an outright blunder, or the results of somebody bending the rules.
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Safehold currently has a very efficient semaphore system. I would see no reason to believe that it couldn't be adapted to manage rail traffic.

Don

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Bad weather/fog would be slightly problematic [/quote]


Railroads had several different ways of communicating problems on a rail line before the advent of the telegraph or other forms of communication. One was the track torpedo it was a fairly simple device consisting of a flat tin container with small charge of gunpowder with tin or lead strips to hold it to the rail.

Bad wx or fog. Your suggestion would seem to require someone in listening range.

Nothing easy here. Obviously you are going to have a network of people standing by to direct traffic as well as rigorous scheduling for the trains.

Don

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n7axw wrote:Bad wx or fog. Your suggestion would seem to require someone in listening range.

Nothing easy here. Obviously you are going to have a network of people standing by to direct traffic as well as rigorous scheduling for the trains.

Don

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The Track Torpedo or whatever it might be called in different places was an emergency measure for when something was wrong with the line ahead. A broken rail or a train broken down or something. You tracked back a safe distance from the obstruction and fixed the torpedo to the rail. A train running over it set it off which warned the driver he needed to stop. ASAP.

Randomiser wrote:

n7axw wrote:Bad wx or fog. Your suggestion would seem to require someone in listening range.

Nothing easy here. Obviously you are going to have a network of people standing by to direct traffic as well as rigorous scheduling for the trains.

Don

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The Track Torpedo or whatever it might be called in different places was an emergency measure for when something was wrong with the line ahead. A broken rail or a train broken down or something. You tracked back a safe distance from the obstruction and fixed the torpedo to the rail. A train running over it set it off which warned the driver he needed to stop. ASAP.

UK practice uses three "detonators" in close proximity.
A driver hearing the three "bangs" will execute a full "Emergency Stop".
The guard is supposed to walk back from the problem for at least one mile, depending on the authorised line speed, but if another train approaches during his walk back will place the detonators immediately he is aware of the oncoming train on the basis that even if there is not sufficient space for the train to stop it will at least have slowed considerably before encountering the problem.

(It is a semi-official tradition that "time-expired" detonators will be placed on the track "on-shed" on November 5th and a locomotive driven over them)

Weird Harold wrote:

Expert snuggler wrote:OK, I'll be the dumb one. How does the recoil mechanism relate to Time on Target?

The better the recoil mechanism, the quicker the reload time, and the more rounds that can be put into the air before the first rounds impact.

It isn't the only factor in being able to do ToT, but it is necessary to have reasonably efficient recoil management.

Your MRSI implies multiple rounds from the same gun.
I was implying rounds from several (many) guns, even of differing calibres and ranges all landing simultaneously on some poor sod of an unsuspecting Temple Warrior's head.

chrisd wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:It isn't the only factor in being able to do ToT, but it is necessary to have reasonably efficient recoil management.

Your MRSI implies multiple rounds from the same gun.
I was implying rounds from several (many) guns, even of differing calibres and ranges all landing simultaneously on some poor sod of an unsuspecting Temple Warrior's head.

You're talking about a coordinated barrage rather than MRSI. My answer was specific to the effect of a good recoil system, which obviously would mean a single gun since recoil systems aren't built for more than one gun.

In practice, the ideal is combined MRSI and Coordinated Barrage so that multiple guns fire multiple rounds for the maximum possible number of rounds impacting simultaneously.

Peter2 wrote:

n7axw wrote:
Dunno the answers to these questions... but I do know that there was an extensive railroad industry prior to the widespread use of electricity. So they must have figured it out somehow.

Don

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They did, but . . . .

The problem was that every effort to improve safety reduced flow density and so lowered efficiency, and so each effort was countered &/or ignored (to some extent at least) to get efficiency back up again. There were some pretty horrendous accidents, notably Quintinshill. The vast majority were ascribed to human error, but you have to read each individual case to make a judgement on whether the "error" was an outright blunder, or the results of somebody bending the rules.
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A Train Question? Oh be still my beating heart! I am nothing if not a train nut.

Can't say for Great Britain, but here in the states the methodology of using schedule, rule, and train order worked for a great number of railroads for a very long time. And did it, I might point out, on single line tracks, double tracking is not needed. Indeed the Long Island Railroad only abandoned it comparatively recently. While active track control is undoubtedly superior Train Order methodology will work even with only Semaphore to relay train orders up and down the line. Emergencies are dealt with by line squibs (line torpedoes) , signaling lanterns, flagmen, etc. Why do you think train crews once used to be so large? Answer is that they needed an extra hand or two in case they had to flag down approaching trains in an emergency. Well that and the number of brakeman required to brake a train before you had air brakes. In any case a nice discussion on train order methods can be found on Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_order_operation

And nobody bends rules under Schedule and Order. NOBODY! Best flacking way that I know of to get fired from a railroad. Not to mention beaten within an inch of your life by your fellow railway employees. Everybody knows about the deaths and accidents that resulted in the beginning before strict rule enforcement was in place. And everybody will know you put them and their brother railwaymen at risk by bending rules. The union won't protect you, the railway won't thank you and the feds will hammer your butt for it. Railways live by the train movement rulebook. (See: http://www.gn-npjointarchive.org/GN_Misc/ccor_1967.pdf all 105 pages of it if you want to see how extensive they could be.)(And every railroad employee would be expected to know all of it to operate on the trains.)

Yes Safehold could do trains without electricity and they could get quite a good volume of traffic, even with only semaphore and train order rules. As many others have pointed out though, the EoC has a need for all the Steel and Iron it can get supporting its current war production needs. AS Chisholm, Emerald, Corisande, Tarot, and Siddarmark get their industrial bases cranking up though, I think that the excess productive capacity will come online to support a rail-line or two. I don't see that happening in the current book series though, much as it breaks my heart to say it. <Sigh>

Larry

Larry wrote:[snip]

And nobody bends rules under Schedule and Order. NOBODY! Best flacking way that I know of to get fired from a railroad. Not to mention beaten within an inch of your life by your fellow railway employees. Everybody knows about the deaths and accidents that resulted in the beginning before strict rule enforcement was in place.
[snip]

That's the time I was talking about.

You obviously know an awful lot more about this than I do. I just have a couple of friends who are train nuts, including one who builds his own model engines.
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