Train Length

Both times I've gone to Dan's house recently, I've had to stand on the sidewalk for what seems like fifteen to twenty minutes while a train rolls past.  That's his apartment through the tanker.  You can just see the upper edge of the building.  What amazed me, more than the wait, and more than the insanity of renting an apartment next to a train track - I'm reminded of the Triplets of Bellville; I hope train proximity severely drives down your rent - was the number of cars rolling through on one train in St. Paul.  The second time I was certain I counted more than 100 cars, and I skipped the beginning and end of the thing.  I should have asked the trainspotter that was in the parking lot to the left on this picture.  He probably knew the count as he was there the whole time and had been waiting for it, although he seemed primarily interested in the locomotive and got back in his car with his camera to hang out after it went by.

According to GreasyJack over at the Straight Dope:
"There used to be practical limits on the length of freight trains because of the amount of force exerted on the couplers. Just like the old high-school physics demonstration with the blocks hanging from strings, the couplers in the front of the train have to handle the entire weight of the train while accelerating. Distributed power, which is a relatively new technology, allows the addition of remote controlled locomotives in the middle or at the end of a train, which can allow much longer trains. Another limiting factor was the delayed and reduced braking effectiveness near the end of the train with conventional airbrakes, which has been addressed with electronic controlled airbrakes.

The limit has recently been 12,000 feet (about 2.3 miles or 3,658 meters) for trains with electronically-controlled brakes. I'm not sure if this limit is (or was) legally enshrined or just the position of the AAR. Some of the big rail roads have been running some experimental "monster trains", such as this 3 and a 1/2 mile long one, but I don't know if any are regularly running them yet or not."

And Mr. Downtown refers to a picture of a train pulling 197 cars.

The interesting bit to me is that when I see a train and think, "Wow, that seems much longer than when I was a kid", I'm right, thanks to strides in coupler technology.  And when Dan'l sees the plaster falling off his roof and thinks, "That seems to go on longer than I would have ever guessed when I rented this apartment," he's not wrong given the trains of our youth.

Miscellaneous Photo Montage

I have a lot of pictures left over on my camera.  This is Eryn and I at Ring Mountain enjoying ice cream and sending Wali a picture to prove we were there within moments of his visit.



Better if you go to Flickr to see it in full size.  A panoramic of Eryn at the Day By Day Cafe for breakfast.


In addition to Sign Makers, Kyle and I went to see Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan, involving a militia, a lot of guys with beards and mustaches, a very old Grizzly Adams, a violent Paul Bunyan with three times the average life span of a human, the grave of Babe the Blue Ox, and a Minnesota camp for juvenile offenders.  Worthy of Trash Film Debauchery, but put on as a private showing with the help of Twin Cities Beard and Mustache Club.


Our first round of The Farm Game, a gift from Kyle.  Our cows seemed to be committing hari kari.  Death by dog.  Death by car.  Death by lightning.  It was endless.


Allison on the Amtrak train on the way back from Grandma Madeline's funeral preparation.  We shared a sleeper car.  I bunked it.


A photo I sent my wife from Sidney, Montana, that Allison photobombed.



This was in the hotel in Sidney, Montana.  This is amazing and should be sold for $50 so everyone could make pancakes with the push of a button whenever they want.  My happiness at food in Montana was only superseded by a piece of rhubarb pie ala mode.  If there was a machine that could make instant rhubarb pie and pancakes, I'd be 80 pounds heavier again.


From Eryn's tenth birthday party!  We had a late party, post ballet season, so we could invite her friends and family to hang at grandpa's studio, drink root beer, eat fruit snacks and cake, and listen to The Sudden Lovelys, Paige and Danny.  Eryn played their song Waxwing Birds with them which made her very happy.  She dropped her pick at one point but recovered nicely.


I hope she felt hip having her party in an art studio warehouse with live music.  It was a lot of fun.  Hopefully made up for a bit of the annoyance from last year when I was laid up.