Does anyone know if the brake sleds made it until the SD38-2s arrived? The reason I'm asking is that I've seen a few photos showing the FM 12-44s mu'd and painted in Mandarin orange and white but pushing no sleds. If they were sidelined before the SD38-2s any idea of dates? Thank you. Larry F.
Never mind on the brake sleds. I found the answer. On Mike Condren's Tulsa pages I found a photo of two of the sleds on what appears to be a deadline in 1970. Since the SD38-2s didn't arrive until 1979 it would seem I answered my own question. Maybe that'll teach me to dig a little deeper before running off at the mouth. Larry
Larry, You discovered what made me seem so knowledgeable when I first joined the forum. When anybody asked a question that I didn't already know the answer, I first searched the forum, then Condren's site and the rest of the Internet to get the answer someone was looking for. I am a lot busier now and don't spend as much time purely following the forum.
Keith, I think I'm guilty of an old age brain cramp. It is a lot of fun to research something but sometimes you overlook the obvious and forget where you have seen it. Life goes on, heh? Larry
Here are a couple of images of Brake Sled X-82 taken by Joel Armstrong in 1998 in Tulsa and a couple of images of the X-82 in HO built by Tom Teeples here in Kansas City for Larry F.
Keith, thanks for posting those photos of Tom's work. Sometimes I never get around to doing anything. The photos will attest to Tom's craftsmanship--the model is a gem and I'm very proud of it. Now if I would ever get around to renumbering my H10-44s to H12-44s. Larry F.
That's really neat, never got to see one of those. Wonder if they use those anywhere other than Tulsa?
At one time we (1522) thought about trying to get these in order to get the trucks, which were duplicates of ours. These were cut down 1500 or 4100 tenders. I would imagine they are scrapped by now.
While doing the research I ran across one of the sleds tethered to an SW7 or SW9 which I believe showed the set being used in Memphis. Larry
What was the criteria for using brake sleds? Were they ever used in a local train that had an enormous load? Joe
The sleds at the Tulsa hump were needed to provide extra braking for the H12-44s as Tulsa's hump was a hold back rather a conventional hump. This was manifested later on when the two SD-38s ordered for Tulsa were equipped with dynamic brakes for the extra braking. Larry
The dynamic brakes were a great help in maintaining the cuts we took to the hump, but as tonnage grew, the practice was to cut in five cars of air to aid in the braking. There were times that even with all of that braking we could not control the cut, and we would have a run a way. When that happened, the retarder operator assisted us with the retarders. When that happened, I would have a very helpless feeling. I do not remember any wrecks from that, but we did have several collisions when a cut was pulled to the hump and broke in two. The east portion of the cut would roll down hill and run into the other hump job that was humping at the time. That caused a tremendous mess as you can imagine. No one was ever hurt, fortunately, but it created quite a mess for the car men and maintenance of way men to clean up the derailed/overturned cars and destroyed track. Terry
That is about how it was a couple years ago when I was on that job. Nearly everything inbound is 7000 feet, so you get to block that QT crossing for a spell and get a few new members in your fan club. They love to tell you you are number one with a different finger. I learned the hard way the difference between BN and Santa Fe SD40-2s - extended range dynamic braking. Santa Fe units have them, BN units do not. I got accustomed to using dynamics to control the train over the hump. Then the next day I got on a pair of BN motors and found out standard dynamics do not do anything at hump speed! The engineer who trained me showed me that you get the speed close with the train air and fine tune the speed with the independent. That last 30 cars or so you transition to going up the hump and that took some practice. It wasn't a bad gig, compared to most yard jobs.
I hear you Ryan, When we first started running these trackage rights trains thru the Rockies, we had buckets of the green SD40-2s. I cant tell what its like to start down a 58 mile 2 1/2% grade, go to dynamic 8 and feel the slack run out on the power, yep got to know the air pretty good, yessir.
Spectacular! I've always thought that these were a unique Frisco oddity that beg to be modeled. Glad to see that someone has one, regardless of scale. Thanks for sharing, Keith, Best Regards,
I learned from a friend on Facebook today that the next issue of Railroad Model Craftsman (RMC), January 2018, has an article on building one of the Frisco's brake sleds. I might just have to pick it up.
Tom Teeple confirmed that his article will be published in the January RMC. This is how-to on the model pictured above of the model Tom built for me. Photographs don’t do it justice, it is a beautiful model. Larry F.
Can’t wait. One of those has been hovering on my to do list for many years. Terry / Tom / Ryan I liked the stories above. I have driven dump trucks or trucks with trailers that were heavy but can’t imagine train heavy or that weight getting away from you.
