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| Re: Questions from the eager & curious (860282) | |||
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Re: Questions from the eager & curious |
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Posted by SelkirkTMO on Wed Nov 18 01:57:22 2009, in response to Questions from the eager & curious, posted by Mike W. on Wed Nov 18 00:49:34 2009. Hopefully, some more serious replies will ensue as well as likely corrections of what I'll offer just so you don't think everyone here is a hoser. :)1) SMEE is an automatic type of braking used in older cars about to vanish entirely from the system. There are arguments as to the proper terminology of what SMEE exactly means. Back in the 1970's when I worked for the Transit Authority, the much older cars were of the AMUE type which meant that in order to operate the brakes, you had to feed air into the brake cylinders and then physically lap (or hold) the pressure much as is done on locomotives and freight trains of antiquity. The SMEE category describes "self-lapping brakes" wherein you no longer had to physically lap or hold the pressure. SMEE braking is more like those on an automobile where the amount of handle movement determines the brake pressure applied and automatically adjusts as you move the handle. Oversimplification to be sure, but I think it gets the point across to you. 2) PATH is a "real railroad" by legal definition and their trains operate under locomotive engineers. As a result, there's no artificial restriction on the speed as there is in the subways and because of the long straight stretch, they can get up slightly about 60 MPH on that "dash" in the hands of their engineers. It's about as fast as it legally gets. :) 3) I started as a conductor, so did the door work as well. Conductors have a key which must be inserted into the panel at each stop to enable the pushbuttons which operate the doors. Back in my day, we operated the doors from outside the cars between them but that's irrelevant today. So the procedure at station stops is to announce, insert and turn the key once the train has stopped and the conductor has confirmed by observation of a wooden "zebra stripe board" which should appear outside their cab window that the train has actually stopped where it's supposed to. Recently, they've added an extra procedure that requires the conductor to point AT said board (management watches for this and woe be to those who fail to point) with a particular finger. Once this has been satisfied, the conductor can then insert and turn the key to enable the door switches and drop the window so that they can observe the platform while pushing the buttons to open the doors. A certain amount of time must pass at which time they then push the CLOSE buttons and attempt to close the doors. Once the doors are closed and locked, they then remove the key which passes "doors closed indication" to the motorperson up front who can then move the train. Conductors are also required to observe the platform as the train departs for three car lengths of travel before they can close their cab window and go about their business before the next stop. As to the map weirdnesses, I'll leave that to the riders since I'm sure they'll bitch about it. (grin) |
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