[Leica] Abandoned locomotive

[lrzeitlin at aol.com (lrzeitlin at aol.com)]

Peter writes:



"Larry,






fascinating shot, I wonder where the motor went? but on my screen it looks a


little dark. It's the only shot this morning that has looked dark...






Peter Dzwig"






Lawrence Zeitlin wrote:


For the railroad buffs. On a bike ride I spotted this abandoned diesel


locomotive, one of many old engines and railcars at the Harmon/Croton Yards.


This facility is the major repair center for Amtrak's Metro division. If


some rolling stock is uneconomical to fix, it is pushed to a siding and


waits until eternity or some scrap metal dealer bids on it - whichever comes


first.


http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Abandoned+diesel+locomotive_+Croton+Yards.jpg


.


Larry Z



- - - - - -




Peter,

The picture was taken on a dark, overcast day. But it looks fairly normal on 
my Mac. About the diesel engine and electric motor, I was told by a 
maintenance engineer that they are the most valuable parts of the locomotive 
and are often rebuilt or used for spare parts while the rest is left to rust 
away.




I had a childhood fantasy about driving one of these monsters and I got my 
chance for about 30 minutes of nerve wracking anxiety several decades ago. I 
was asked by the ICC to be an expert witness in a case involving "Rule 99." 
That was the rule requiring a train stopped on the tracks to send a flagman 
equipped with flares and signals back about 1/2 a mile to warn oncoming 
trains about the stopped train. The railroad operators wanted to eliminate 
the rule, the unions wanted to keep it.




To get familiar with the problem, I rode in the cab of a diesel locomotive 
for a number of runs between NYC and Albany on the Hudson Line. The old 
grizzled engineer and I became friends. During our fourth trip he asked if I 
wanted to drive the locomotive. After a few minutes of instruction about how 
to keep the amperage indicator below 800 amps, I got in the driver's seat at 
Poughkeepsie to realize my boyhood dream. Everything went OK through Cold 
Spring. When we emerged from a short tunnel approaching Peekskill, I saw a 
station wagon stalled on the tracks. I panicked. "What do I do?" I implored 
the engineer. "Blow your whistle," he answered. The car didn't move. "Keep 
blowing," he commanded. When we were only a few hundred yards away, the car 
finally limped off the track. The engineer regained the controls and brought 
the train to a stop at Peekskill, the end of the run.




As we exited the cab, he said, "You look pretty shaken. Let's have a drink." 
As we sipped our beers in the station bar I asked why he didn't tell me to 
hit the brakes. "Look sonny," he said, "we were coming into a station. There 
were probably 100 people standing in the aisles waiting to get off. If you 
braked hard enough to stop before reaching the car, they would all have been 
thrown down. Many would have been injured bad enough to go to the hospital. 
Some might have even been killed by luggage falling from the overhead racks. 
The railroad would have been sued by dozens of passengers. Better to have 
hit the car." That's the real world. Moral - don't halt your car on a 
railroad crossing. The train won't stop.




Larry Z