And like I said - the San Antonio to El Paso and Ft. Worth /DFW to El Paso.
And El Paso runs to LA via Tucson. From there, north and south (Naval bases) and ends in Washington (naval yard).
Martin - been in the San Francisco Naval Yard on UP tracks working on an old Steam engine. I did like the working tables in there. We had to re-build the boiler and was taking out the long long bolts that hold it all together. They had to be burnt off and the bolts pounded out. Welder on the outside...
We were inside with two other engines being looked at - the Naval/UP setup was deeded to the non-profit club that works on keeping the steam up and maintains the place in case a fast move in is needed. Navy was moved out by the Demo's. I have a patch for the work and money donated.
"Dave from SoTex" wrote in news:5zznw.986236$ snipped-for-privacy@fx09.iad:
It may be concrete ties are coming down in life cycle cost enough that their advantages over wood ties are worth the investment, or the UP is planning for possible higher speed rail. Train speeds much over highway speeds (70 in many places, 75 in others) require the use of concrete ties. This is just speculation on my part, and maybe a bit of hope.
Sure would be nice to have another option for those trips where another state is just in the way. (IL to OK has MO in the way. I44 in MO is interesting, though.)
Puckdropper wrote in news:549fc017$0$39582$c3e8da3$ snipped-for-privacy@news.astraweb.com:
As I noted earlier, concrete ties have been the norm for mainlines for the last 20 years or so. With a heavily used track, the rail cuts into wood ties and they have to be replaced every couple of years. The counterpart to that is that concrete ties are very stiff, so the subroadbed has to be built very strong, so that the ties don't flex at all. For a less-used secondary line, it makes more sense to put less money into the roadbed, and use wood ties which will flex without cracking.
No, you can use wood or concrete at any speed. It's the weight and number of trains that makes a difference, not the speed (speed limit for freight trains is 69mph, for passenger 79mph except for a handful of "high speed" lines. As you might guess by the weird numbers, those are set by the Federal government).
With airline seats being designed for 12 year old children, yeah, having an adult alternative would certainly be nice :-)
All of which is true but doesn't much correlate w/ the sidebar discussion of the routes thru W TX and to/from the coal regions of the Powder Basin and environs...
Now I've been thinking...I'm not sure but what I've not seen both BNSF and UP power on that stretch...but can't say for absolute certain. Now I'm itching for another trip... :)
That would be US56 from Clayton to Raton, I presume? You stopped at Mt Capulin? It's worth the time imo if haven't. Hadn't been up to peak since was a kid until last fall took a couple of the grandkids up to Eagle Nest/Red River for a while--they only know the Smokies as mountains being in Raleigh so stopped by on the way albeit it's a little out of the way to Cimarron to go north to Raton and back down to get to Eagle Nest. Wife's family has ground west of Clayton that we're the operators for so we head out there fairly frequently--it's out in middle of nowhere but for some mysterious reason NM has a 55 mph speed limit on US 64 on over to Springer--that stretch takes, it seems, forever at that rate. Sometimes for some variety we'll take a NM road from Roy on over to Wagon Mound and up from there; it crosses the upper end of the N Canadian across a nice little canyon for a scenic breakup on the way. Going up to Raton at least gets one closer to the Johnson and Black Mesas and the scattered foothills sooner than on over to Springer for a little more diversion...
dpb wrote in news:m7pj82$cr5$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:
Yes! Boy, was that a surprise the first time I went that way. Who'd expect to find a volcano in the middle of New Mexico? But definately very much worth stopping and taking the walk up to the top.
(that's actually US87...north out of Amarillo, take a left at Dumas (and swear at the traffic light), thru Dalhart, Texline, Clayton, Capulin, and eventually Raton. As a Southern boy, it always surprises me to be going thru cotton fields up that way).
John McCoy wrote in news:XnsA4115EAF917Cpogosupernews@213.239.209.88:
While that's true from a physics standpoint, I believe it's also a government requirement that higher speeds be done only on concrete ties. It's been a while since I came across it, but speeds above something like
100 mph required concrete ties and full grade separation.
Excuse the delay... I had to go watch a train. :-)
The explanation I read years ago about the speeds were based on highway speeds + 15 mph, which is considered the threshold for wreckless driving in some states. 65 + 15 = 80, minus 1 is 79. (Thus "safe". ha ha ha)
That's really confusing to me, Puckdropper. I would think that the faster you go, the less chance you have of being "wreckless." Hell, I see the way some of these idiots drive at less than 20 miles per hour and they STILL have wrecks. They'd be reckless if they were parked in a garage.
Puckdropper wrote in news:54a08a0e$0$24430$c3e8da3$ snipped-for-privacy@news.astraweb.com:
Hmm, not sure if that's a FRA requirement or not - it's been a while since I was involved with that stuff, and there's two different things the government calls "high speed" (one being anything over the normal 79mph limit, and the other being Acela style 150mph speeds) which have different rules.
Definately all forms of high speed require enhanced signalling and grade crossing control, with Acela speeds needing grade seperation. And now, of course, PTC will be required.
As a practical matter, you'd use concrete ties, whether required by regulation or not.
In the case of trains it's because the Federal regs use the phrase "less than". Passenger trains must operate at less than 80mph. So the railroads, logically enough, set 79mph as the speed limit. In cases where the Fed rules don't apply, they use multiples of 5 like everyone else.
Good...just thought I'd mention it as being worth the stop if you had always just driven on by...
87/64 run together from Clayton to Raton. 64 then goes back south and west on over to Cimarron while 87 follows I25 north. Since we are used to 64 in OK far more than 87, that's the nomenclature we think of it as... :)
Re-reading earlier posting I see I did flip 56 and 64, though...56 goes on to Springer while 64 goes northwest to Raton from Clayton...
Sometime if you have the time to take another hour or so driving time and it's been a good year moisture-wise, try taking NM 72 east out of Raton and just follow it along the Johnson Mesa/Plateau. It'll end up taking you to Folsom and then you can take 456 (caution, it's got about
20 mi of gravel road/track; avoid on a rainy day) along the Black Mesa and end up in Boise City or go on south there and come back to 64/87 at Des Moines just east of Capulin. Gorgeous country with miles you'll see nary a telephone post, even.
We came back from Santa Fe by the long route a few years ago in August after a wet year and it was as pretty a drive as I've ever taken...looked more like the KS Flint Hills country instead of NM that year.
dpb wrote in news:m7rsvk$gfj$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:
Those overlapping route numbers are a pain...at least on a paper map they print them both, I dunno how people that depend on Google Maps and the like survive, because they often only show one. (worst is in NC where I-74 overlaps with US74, something the designers of the Interstate system specifically set things up to avoid, but apparently the NC DOT didn't read the manual).
Noted. I hope some day to be able to spend more time out there just looking around...I'd like to take US60 across thru Clovis and Belen and then look around Albuquerque. Was out there on business years ago and couldn't make any time for sightseeing...
Never taken it but interesting you mention NC as we were in VA/TN for
30+ yr before returning to family farm so all the kids grew up back there; only the eldset, the elder son was born before we left school in KS. He is in Raleigh so been over there a fair amount. US 64 meanders all across the country and ends up its eastern terminus on Roanoke Island...
Spent quite a lot of time w/ Duke Power as started w/ the reactor vendor for the Oconee station and was there for startup of Unit 1 then went the consulting gig but continued to work for the B&W owners utilities for years afterwards before eventually drifting over to mostly fossil as nuclear work became more competitive and tiring to deal with the increasing bureaucracy burdens...
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Just out of curiosity, where in S TX are you starting from??? Possible to suggest other touring guidelines, perhaps knowing starting point... :)
Mother's side of family settled in "The Valley" in the '30s around McAllen/Pharr. Still have family on that home place and scattered from there northwards. Don't get down there much; last and farthest we made was a reunion in Bay City in fall of '98 while were still in TN.
dpb wrote in news:m7uuuv$eks$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:
I hear you on the regulatory burden - altho in fairness, the scale of the problem when things go wrong with nuclear does justify an excess of caution.
On the fossil side, I recall Duke being noteworthy for the high efficiency of their powerplants back in the early 80s. Dunno if that's still the case, or if everyone else has caught up.
I'm actually starting from the pointy end of Florida (Ft Lauderdale) :-)
I have family in Austin, and family in Ft Collins, and every so often I take I long vacation and drive to both. There's still a lot of alternative routes for sightseeing out west (I've pretty much worn out all the alternatives in Fla).
It really was not so much the nuclear safety that was the problem, it was the increased security practices and layers of duplication (even before 9/11) that just made trying to work such a pita, especially for offsite contractors it just became to be more trouble than it was worth in my view when there was as stimulating work in the fossil side where all one had to do was walk in once had site clearance...
It's mostly related to how old the plants actually are...at one time the top-ranked plant by heat rate almost annually was TVA Bull Run owing to it being one of the few super-critical cycles plants out there. It does take a committed operations staff to make them run at or near their peak, of course, so the utility mentality and particular plant manager/operations staff do make a difference. But, Bull Run is an early-60s plant so now it's down in the pack a ways.
In 2014, Duke had two of the top five (albeit they were 4 and 5)...
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Ewww...that _is_ a fur trek...at least you do have the intermediary wayside point in Austin. At least in our case until the kids were out of high school both sets of grandparents were in the same place so one trip made it to both. In doing that for 30+ yrs, we covered about all possible routes as well, even those that on occasion went down through AL and (once) as far north as Chicago (on that occasion was a side trip to a cousin's place for a special event they were having plus a stop at the younger son's place in N KY just across river from Cincinnati).
I suppose we should probably bring this to a close...enjoyed the chat... :) Still puzzling over what I _think_ I recall about the rail lines out there in E CO but I have to admit it's been a while and mayhaps I'm placing things somewhat incorrectly...maybe by the time see the coal trains we are already up to Kit Carson???? Oh well...
It's turned cold here so am trying to finish up year-end books and not doing anything can avoid outside...was 3 F this AM; at all the way to 6 now--at least wind has let up. Got a snow covering over the wheat so that is _a_good_thing_ (tm) ... but this is a diversion when tired of what should be doing... :)
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