Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
California; Seattle; and Beech Grove, Indiana, near Indianapolis.
Every locomotive is inspected every day to make sure it's func-
tioning properly. As with airplanes, locomotives are pulled out of
service for prescribed maintenance at regular intervals: every 15,
60, and 90 days, and all the way up to complete overhauls every
4 years. Passenger cars go through similar checks and overhauls,
although not as often as the locomotives do.
Safety Procedures
Whether it's a railroad, an airline, or a steel mill, the key to safety
lies in establishing and rigidly sticking to prescribed systems and
procedures. For every function or task in railroad operations,
there is one right way to perform it. Regardless of the job, rail-
road workers know that to deviate from proper procedures is to
court disaster.
Speed Limits
Individual railroads set the speed limits for their tracks. How fast
a train is permitted to go is determined by the “level of sophis-
tication in the track,” meaning the quality of the roadbed and
the “superelevation.” (That's what you would call the banking
or tilting of the track, which counteracts centrifugal force and
permits higher speeds around curves.) Once set by the railroads,
speed limits are then enforced by Federal Railroad Administra-
tion inspectors who randomly monitor selected areas of track
with radar guns to make sure limits are observed. There are cir-
cumstances when a train might exceed the maximum authorized
speed (going downhill, for example), but a horn will sound in
the locomotive cab, and if the engineer doesn't use the brakes
they are automatically applied. In railroad lingo, that's called a
penalty application .
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