Wow! I don't think I've ever seen rail wear like that.
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| Posted by mmi16 on February 14, 2016 | |
No rail will be replace before it's time. Transpose it and there will be a few more years of use.
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This appears to be caused by the non-steering trucks of MRL's (and BNSF's) loco fleet. EMD designed the HTCR Self Steering Trucks (3 axle) that reduce this kind of wear to tracks as well as the loco's front and back wheels of the trucks. A non-steering truck of 3 axles is like a "H", the four points of the H produces friction in curves. The HTCR trucks steer reducing that friction. If this section of track has a grade, wheel slip would have added sand to that friction as well. The rolling stock with just 2 axles on their trucks would produce little friction.
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| Posted by xBNSFer on February 15, 2016 | |
Nippon Steel? Seems like it was "soft" steel, given only a few brief years of life, I don't care how many "non steerable" trucks went over it. That and/or a REALLY sharp curve.
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| Posted by Mike on February 20, 2016 | |
Thanks for the philosophy but the non steering trucks have nothing to do with this. it's normal wear with lots of tonnage.
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SD 70ACe's have a wheel weight of 34,000 lbs, (loco full weight 408,000 lbs) with 157,000 lbs of continuous tractive effort. A coal train with more than 100 cars usually has 8 locos to produce 1,200,000 lbs of movement force. With the locos weight and tractive force, that can produce friction on Mullan's 2.2% grade track. However, soft steel (not Japanese steel) will wear more quickly. Long heavy trains will produce wear on the inside track of sharp curves. This is maybe why EMD's self steering trucks are not popular with railways as they only help part of the problem of track wear.
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