Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!

now that Class 1's and regionals have been done - think of the TOP 10 things that have been developed over the years and rate how they have changed railroading. 1 being the most important - ANY INVENTION, any particular locomotive, rollingstock, what everheres mine1. AC Traction
2. CTC (centralised Traffic Control)
3. The Double Stack Train
4. Deregulation in the 1980's
5. GE's C44-9W
6. EMD's FT
7. NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement - not really to do with railroads, but it affects them)
8. Continous welded rail
9. creation of Conrail
10.radios in the 1950'scheers
mike

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RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, sooner, Jan-01-03, 08:27 PM, (1) RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, MJLriak, Jan-01-03, 09:15 PM, (2) RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, sd70mac666, Jan-01-03, 10:05 PM, (3) RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, ASR_Q301, Jan-01-03, 10:27 PM, (4) RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, sd70mac666, Jan-01-03, 10:42 PM, (5) RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, ge44tonner, Jan-02-03, 00:28 AM, (6) RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, Kip, Jan-04-03, 07:05 PM, (17) RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, LAHDPOP, Jan-02-03, 01:28 AM, (7) RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, LARKIE, Jan-02-03, 05:00 AM, (8) RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, sd70mac666, Jan-02-03, 02:05 PM, (9) RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, LARKIE, Jan-02-03, 05:19 PM, (10) RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, Lone_Gunman_SG, Jan-03-03, 02:58 PM, (11) RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, ssw, Jan-03-03, 08:55 PM, (12) RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, sd70mac666, Jan-03-03, 09:39 PM, (13) RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, Lone_Gunman_SG, Jan-03-03, 11:23 PM, (14) RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, ASR_Q301, Jan-04-03, 01:48 AM, (15) RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, sd70mac666, Jan-04-03, 06:22 PM, (16) RE: Top 10 Rail inventions of all time!, darkfyre, Jan-04-03, 09:42 PM, (18)

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Without any shadow of a doubt, the single most important invention in the history of railroading - and maybe the whole history of American industrialization - was the Westinghouse air brake.

bud

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dieselization
steam superpower

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1. AC traction (with the exception of the 6000hp locomotives)
2. Deregulation
3. EMD's SD60MAC (yes there is such a thing)
4. GMD's F59PH (because GMD designed it first)
5. the 567, 645 and 710 engines
6. GE's 7FDL engine
7. GE's C44-9W
8. The Westinghouse Air Brake
9. Microprocessors
10. Self Steering Radial Trucks

The Road Goes Ever On
Gandalf The Grey
Logic 7/Reprise/Warner

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3. EMD's SD60MAC (yes there is such a thing) - who owns them?? - was it just the BN?? - i remember seeing some in a lightish green and white scheme with the "AC graph" painted on the side - it looked cool - reskinners???mike

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LAST EDITED ON Jan-01-03 AT 10:47 PM (EST)

It is a real thing, 4 of them the frist 2 constructed at Ye hallowed halls of Locomoitve Construction somewhere Outside Chicago (the final 2 to emerge) and the other 2 in London and painted BN Green with white Striping and the combo GM-BN hearld on the nose. On the sides are the words "The Future with Siemens AC Technlogy" I've run these before and trust me they were a blast to run (under the eyes of my father). Unfortunately they were only leased to BN and aer the only 4 such in the land I dunno where they are now. They also served as Demonstartors since EMD could not sell AC with overhead projections. And why not, thase are good, but the only thing I didn't like was the computer thinking. The older units didn't think they did. That aside they did perform well. Dynamic braking went all the way down to nothing and on a slow speed test once my dad told me to go to 7-11 and get slurpees for myself and my gf and see if I could catch up. Needless to say withthe speedometer pegged at 0.5mph I did catch up. In fact when I was sure he could see me I waved. He gave me the finger. My gf laughed. On a side note, the only reason why I put with the exception of 6000hp engines is because that does not make sense. CSX has at least 120, Union Pacific has 62 I think and CP Rail has only 4. It's good to see power like that on the rails only thing is is that it's too advanced and there aren't many applications it can fit into.

The Road Goes Ever On
Gandalf The Grey
Logic 7/Reprise/Warner

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My list of the 'top 10' rail inventions might be a little different, although with some overlap as above:
1. Going clear back to the 1800's, The first steam engines by Richard Threverick, and the improved versions by Stepheson.
2. Steel T-rail, replacing inadeqate strap-iron, rolled-channel, and other designs.
3. Dispatching trains by telegraph
4. The Erie Railroad invented modern corporate management, with chain-of-command and delegation authority.
5. Westinghouse air brakes
6. Electric Traction, and the power transmission and control systems that made it practical
7. Super-power steam locomotives
8. The EMD 567 series diesel engine, and the FT diesel that put it to practical use.
9. CTC - the first large-scale distributed instrument control system.
10. Mag-Lev trains (the first commercial route, in Singapore, went into service this weekend)
Dan

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LAST EDITED ON Jan-04-03 AT 07:07 PM (EST)

Let us not forget that the Railroads were basically the first to use "time zones"....which would be adopted later on as the time zones of N.A. that we use today.Kip

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I'll limit mine to the most important invention that I haven't seen listed above:
The modern knuckle coupler. (Followed closely by the current brake pipe system)
Even if we still had to operate with steam; even if we still used Train Orders snatched from tower operators for movement authority; even if a dozen other modern technologies were thrown by the wayside; I don't think they'd have as basic a negative impact on railroading in general as a return to manual coupling, and the old brakemen riding the cars system of braking.
Even if only in terms of deaths and injuries, (not to mention how much their loss would slow down operations across the system), losing automatic couplers and modern braking would completely derevolutionize the industry, IMHO.
Pop

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There's only one candidate for the MOST important thing,and it's omitted in the above list,The flanged wheel.That's the item that finally put the trains on rails.All other rail inventions merely improved on that basic concept,in regard to efficiency and safety of operation.

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and what concept is that

The Road Goes Ever On
Gandalf The Grey
Logic 7/Reprise/Warner

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I thought the concept was pretty clear,at least it was to Stephenson.
Having vehicles riding on top of the rails,held in place with wheel flanges,is a much better approach than running with plain wheels on "L" section flanged tracks,or "U" sectioned troughs,as were the first attempts.Especially in tightly curved situations.

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well letsee....
its a tough choice...1. Union Pacific Big Boys
2. the invention of the railroad signal
3. creation of BNSF (ill miss just plain old SF)
4. Dash 9's
5. creation of steel passenger cars (minimal telescoping accidents)
6. the Turntable
7. Concrete ties (Save the trees!)
8. creation of reefer cars
9. roadrailers
10. Amtrak Acelas
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1. flanged wheel
2. Westinghouse Air Brake
3. Steam Engines of all flavors
4. FT
5. rail
6. The Diesel Engine (ok, sorta rail)
7. CTC Dispatching
8. The Passenger Train
9. steel cars
10. PTC

Bradley Linda
Waco, Texas

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Whoever said the Amtrak Acela has got to be smoking something other than cigarettes. that's the worst thing out there and it gets worse every day

The Road Goes Ever On
Gandalf The Grey
Logic 7/Reprise/Warner

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Excuse me? if you'll notice its at the very BOTTOM, stupid.
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its the TOP 10 inventions of all time some rather interesting responses here

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you should have put something other than that piece of crap.
I see that
Sorry if I offended

The Road Goes Ever On
Gandalf The Grey
Logic 7/Reprise/Warner

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LAST EDITED ON Jan-04-03 AT 09:58 PM (EST)

1. Physics
2. Engineering
3. The Wheel
4. Economics
5. Metalworking
6. The Mine
7. Electricity
8. The Oil Pump
9. The Refinery
10. DieselizationWell, that's my top 10...


...Runnin' on Soda...

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