D1015 -- How not to drive a loco

Just found this posted on Google UK Rail group
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7gjYXQQN_k

(apologies if posted before on Nat Pres)

 

I bet that made a nice mess of the rail head! #-o

 

That is horrible and hard to comprehend. Edit!

(I have deleted the questions I asked in this post originally. A quick scan of other fora discovered much frothing that I don't think needs exacerbating.)

Cheers
Alan

 

Is that the diesel version of the Blue Peter incident ? <BJ>

 

The loco moved foreward slightly and then started to slip. What the heck was the driver thinking during the next 35 seconds?

Very little I suspect.

Disgraceful. I hope there is no wheelset damage.

46118

 

D1015 seemed ok last saturday on the West Somerset and Cogload;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHu7K78cFvI

I thought there was a wheel slip warning light on the dash-board(is that the right term,dash board for a loco????) so surely the driver should have been alerted??

 

Anyone ask for a rail grinder? :-#

 

Saw that on Railchat... Nasty...

 

I doubt it on a 1960's loco.

anyway martin has written at some length on wnxx so I suggest that anyone interested pops over there to catch up on what happened.

 

Would be alot eaiser if you could just post him as a quote please ...

 

Am I being simple? Surely if you had powered up the engine and were not moving as expected then something must be amiss and you would power down the engine to check?

 

There can be a time delay between moving the power controller and any sign of movement - the 37/9s were well known for this hence their nickname of SLUGS ! Add in the presumption that the driver was in his raised cab and therefore unlikely to hear the engine sound unless listening with his cab window open - and I doubt you can blame the driver for not fully appreciating the situation which he was creating.

 

I don't much about the technical side of Westerns, but can I ask a couple of questions?
1. Do they have rev counters?
2. Does the speedo only work in the cab of the appropiate bogie, ie front bogie only works front cab speedo or rear bogie only works rear cab speedo? If this is the case then as the rear bogie was slipping the front speedo would not be working.

 

Correct on both counts. As one of the owners of D1015 and a footplate man of over 30 years I think it is time to put my head above the parapet. I personally am becoming dismayed by the driving skills of some of the men rostered to drive 1015. It would appear that many have this "default" method of starting away with full power being applied from a standing start to make as much noise and smoke as possible, prehaps im being boring but these men get off the loco at the end of the day and go home prehaps none the wiser that an exhaust joint has blown or the turbo charger base has cracked. You ask if the driver could hear the rear engine powering up, yes he could, he also has fault lights on the desk, the light would have been flashing blue-red-blue as the transmission went through its various stages. I know for a fact that one of the DTG staff in the rear cab tried to attract the drivers attention by sounding the fire alarm, he then went to the engine room and isolated the control air supply to the governor thus returning the engine to idle. Im not pointing the finger at anyone in particular but if any of you find yourself in the drivers seat of 1015 remember its an old lady now, it can lift its skirts and go like the wind but at the end of the day its the owners that have to fund and repair any damage that may occur out on the main line and twisted cardan shafts are not cheap to repair.

 

Thank you for your honesty.

 

To answer a couple of other questions; Western don't have wheelslip warning lights. And the governor would prevent engine RPM exceeding its normal maximum.
It is not the diesel equivalent of the Blue Peter incident.

 

Just another observation after viewing the video clip. When the power was eventually killed, the wheels came to a stop very suddenly. I'm sure this would have caused shock stress to the transmission joints.

John.

 

Our fitter had shut off the control air to the engine governor, this will make the engine revert to idle. the transmission was still in power and this would have absorbed most of the power being produced but as the revs dropped away the wheels would have slowed by default. The danger would have been if the wheels had suddenly gripped i.e if sand had been applied, this is when the cardan shafts would have possibly been damaged. In the event of the engine overspeeding the engine overspeed switch will operate and shut the engine down, I cant remember exactly but 1800rpm rings a bell, the normal maximum being 1550rpm.

 

Opening diesel locomotives up to full quickly in order to produce clouds of clag is a very good way of shortening the life of the turbocharger and other components. Clag indicates slow / poor combustion and there is a high probability that there will be some afterburning taking place in the exhaust thus wrecking the exhaust valves and turbocharger turbine disc. Analysis of that clip indicates that the engine reached a rpm figure of about 1535, I shudder to think what speed the wheels got up to, the transmission appears to have changed up convertors at least once. The second clip indicates the train moving off with the engine running at about 1150rpm, thus indicating a total lack of neccessity to howl the knackers off D1015 even when running on one engine. I'm glad to hear there was no damage to the machinery, either as a result of the slip or the wheels graunching to a stop as the regulating air was shut off. It does concern me the lack of care that is shown to locomotives that are restored at great expense to main line operation in order to satisfy the need to 'showboat' for the benefit of the cameras.
I believe there was only one D1000 modified where the tachometer in the leading cab could read either engine at will by means of an 'engine speed switch', D1066 I think it was.

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