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Started tracking freight train speeds with a stopwatch app instead of guessing, and it pays $22 an hour
Two years back I got hired as a railroad track inspector in Cheyenne and I was eyeballing train speeds wrong for months until a guy named Dale showed me to time each car between two mile markers with a $3 stopwatch app. Now I clock roughly 60 trains a week and the data keeps my crew out of trouble when a rail's running hot. Anyone else here work a job where a dumb little timing trick made the whole thing click?
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karenw907d ago
Hate to be that person but timing cars between mile markers gives you average speed, not the speed at any one point. A train could be doing 40 at the marker and 55 by the middle, and you'd never know it from a stopwatch. Your mileage may vary depending on track, but on a grade or coming out of a curve that average can hide a lot. Still beats eyeballing it though, so I get why Dale's trick stuck. And for what it's worth, most crews I've been around just radio the dispatcher or check the event recorder if they need real numbers.
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