What are /r/trains' favorite Products & Services?

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Thanks for checking out the pic! I took it while in a car driving from Swakopmund to the Deadvlei area, and was going roughly the same speed as the train at the time. It's a beautiful setting. The dunes are otherworldly and get even more so the farther you go from the coast.

Here are some similar photos from another source for context: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/train-desert-namibia-passing-by-on-1057019018

When I was 8 I was given this book about train wrecks. It showed gruesome levels of locomotive carnage and it held my attention in ways that could only be rivaled when I later discovered boobies.

That's Caltrain. All of ACE's cabcars are numbered 3301-3309. Also, ACE doesn't park at Diridon overnight since they would be in Stockton, and they park south of Diridon during the day. (I believe they park at a siding south of Tamien, since that is the most reasonable place I could locate on a map, and I have personally seen ACE trains going over I-280 while driving, so I know they do go in that direction.)

Limmattal classification yard near Zürich, Switzerland.

Edit: Google Maps link.

I'm not sure about what's available online, but I picked up this book from Amazon a year or so ago - it's a great look at 1971 just before and just after Amtrak's creation.

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Journey to Amtrak: The Year History Rode the Passenger Train

I went looking for "Behind the Scenes of a Railroad at War", but all I could find was an unhelpful Google Books entry and someone selling it for $25 on Amazon (ironic considering NYCRR gave it away for free).

I could have sworn I’ve seen it there..

Here is an Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Flying-Scotsman-Memorabilla-Set-available/dp/B008VV4YGG/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?keywords=flying+scotsman+on+tour&qid=1572314746&sr=8-2. Includes the USA tour and a few other Scotsman DVDs (not sure if its the same you saw)

The Baofeng UV-5R blows everything else out of the water at its price point of $24: https://smile.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-Dual-Radio-Black/dp/B007H4VT7A

You might want a different antenna, but otherwise it works great. Splurge for the programming cable if you don't want to manually dial in frequencies, but it's not totally necessary. Not sure if it would work for police scanning or not, but should be easy enough to check. I doubt it, though.

A book I bought many years ago as a child, pretty outdated but great for identifying anything made before the early 2000's

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/a-field-guide-to-trains-of-north-america-peterson-field-guide-series_gerald-l-foster/561242/#idiq=3879752&edition=2577403

Something a bit more mainstream and in-depth, also includes more modern stuff.

https://www.amazon.com/Guide-North-American-Diesel-Locomotives/dp/1627004556/ref=asc_df_1627004556/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312111868535&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15887961187191043840&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&a...

Heresy! I command thee to Know Thy Hudsons!!!

https://www.amazon.com/Know-Thy-Hudsons-4-6-4s-Central/dp/0692643540/ref=sr_1_3?qid=1669248046&refinements=p_27%3AThomas+R.+Gerbracht&s=books&sr=1-3&text=Thomas+R.+Gerbracht

I’m not sure if it might be a little much for an 11-year-old, but there’s always this - history of trains around the world across the last 200 or so years. Lots of photos, some amazing information. On the link you can see some sample pages, might be worth looking and seeing if you think it’ll be alright for your nephew? Rails Around the World: Two Centuries of Trains and Locomotives

I guess you didn't read this book as a child.

Brakemen were serious dudes back in the day.

Not shilling for Amazon, but this is a terrific book if you like O. Winston Link or just photos of trains. The Last Steam Railroad in America

Pennsy Power, Vol 1. The original copies are from the 60’s, hard the find, and pricy. However, you can buy a pretty good reprint for like $40 on Amazon. Here’s a link: Pennsy Power: Steam and Electric Locomotives of the Pennsylvania Railroad, 1900-1957 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1635610176/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_6VM1TYGR9ACTNYRQSZ92

I’m in philly and I can’t recall it getting into single digits (F) this month prior to wind chill. A quick accuweather check supports that but who knows maybe it’s wrong.

What day was this?

Accuweather monthly highs and lows: https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/philadelphia/19102/january-weather/350540

Found an old book (1872) debating narrow vs broad gauge. I'll have to save some time tomorrow for reading it.

The one you see in the pictures above is not just a crossing, it's a 90-degree crossing. Those are especially prone to derailment and therefore have to be passed at a very low speed on at least one of the two tracks involved. Usually, at least here, the most important / faster line got physically-uninterrupted through rails whereas the other had its rails cut and laid a bit higher so that trains could climb over the uninterrupted rails of the former and pass it while rolling on their wheel flanges. In other cases all rails are cut thus imposing a slowdown on both tracks but not as serious as the one required on the cut track as explained above. The electric overhead wires pose serious problems too... :)

If the two tracks do not meet at right angles then it's just inconvenient from a scheduling point of view and therefore whenever possible such diamonds are replaced by junctions at stations, flyovers, and so on.

In Italy there were two, both around Mestre (i.e. the mainland part of Venice) on the double-track freight belt line that bypassed the passenger station and connected all the main lines around there. I have found this old work-in-progess map, it's not the best but at least shows quite clearly how it was. The belt line was the gray one, bivio means junction, attraversamento means crossing: those two mark the position of the right-angle diamonds. Its name was Linea dei Bivi, i.e. Junctions' Line. The maximum speed allowed on the crossings was 6 km/h (3.7 mph) for the belt line and I believe about 100 km/h (62 mph) on the radial lines. In recent years it has been partially rebuilt and reopened both for freight and commuter trains, to segregate them from high-speed traffic, but without the diamonds.

Thanks, looks like Glarus Nord, in particular 8874 Mühlehorn. The single track definitely helped.

Amazing lake, it was already in my to-see list. :)

The main problem is that Agrigento is on top of a hill and Agrigento Centrale is up there. In fact the line from Porto Empedocle joins the line from Agrigento Centrale in Agrigento Bassa (literally Low[er] Agrigento).

I didn't check before that the whole line is electrified. I have absolutely no idea as to why they closed an electrified line, or electrified a closed line. There is even a small halt serving the archaeological park of the Valley of the Temples...

Thank you for the link to the OpenStreetMap! It seems this is a much better tool to use for my hunt for railway lines that Maps.

I would agree with your double loop assessment; I would like to mention the Sauschwänzlebahn (pigs tail railway) between Blumberg and Weizen in southern Germany which features both loops (several!) and an actual spiral: https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=blumberg#map=12/47.8315/8.5551&layers=T

(See what I did there?)

And finally, since I'm not a native Englsih speaker myself either I wouldn't know for sure which term would be most appropriate but "mythical" for me invokes notions of unicorns and dragons. Perhaps "legendary" indeed fits the bill better.

That depends on the critera. In France, there are less big towns along the lines, so they make fewer stops. If you copy the French system to Germany, many people would be excluded because the cities are closer together.

Additionally, in France there are now stations like Lorraine TGV, which are in the middle of nowhere whare you can only get by bus. I'd call that inferior.

No problem!

Well, I don't like that TGV livery anyway, so I think that the red stripe just adds ugliness to ugliness :P

The 652 is almost certainly hauling a train for Sardinia, given that those trainsets (ATR 365 and 465) and used only there. The caption says that it's an international express freight train (MRI, Merci Rapido Internazionale) bound for Bologna San Donato (S.D.) which once was Europe's second largest sorting yard (after one in Germany) and one of the largest in the world: since nowadays that kind of operation has almost completely ceased everywhere, a couple of years ago RFI converted the belt tracks around the Bologna S.D. yard into a test circuit much like the one in Velim: their idea is to compete with the Czechs in the rail testing market in all those cases in which the exensive Velim facilities are not needed, thanks to their more reachable location. Probably the one seen there was just being imported and about to undergo some break in before being delivered to Sardinia :)

This is probably a stock photo, like this one. Most of the ones I’ve seen have company logos removed to make it generic so they can be used in advertisements for other companies.

> None of the "rebuild an old design" designs have the benefits of computer-aided design, simulation, or modeling. They're also designed around the materials science of their day.

The project to build 60163 Tornado did improve on the design in some areas. Additionally it was fitted with modern braking systems, new radios, signalling and train protection systems.

The group building the locomotive took the original designs and plans and scanned them so they had copies of them as computer files. I think they were pdf or word files. Not a full CAD system I agree but a good first step when dealing with old documents.

> If a steam locomotive being designed for a launch date of 2020 looks like a PRR T1, it's clear that the nostalgics were in charge, not the engineers.

Or maybe they just want to stick to what a steam locomotive looks like? Doesn't matter if it's Chinese, American, British, whatever. They all share a similar design.

If you let the modern-day engineers have the reigns fully, then Tornado would have had a yellow front end as per modern British railway safety regulations.

I do like your idea of building a steam locomotive to modern-day principles and technologies though.

Looks to be a CR patched unit…while it was owned by GMTX, I don't believe that they ever repainted this unit before BNSF bought it. Those that GMTX repainted have a white nose, like the one here..

https://www.flickr.com/photos/26969361@N08/6247089564/in/pool-bnsfsmurfs

Sorry bud, you have to download the file and run it locally; I don't have a domain to host this.

Edit: here's the direct link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4igVfbj0kJNaGZXZTJOeVA5ZTg/edit?usp=sharing

Electric trains by Zhenya on Android

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ekindiegames.ElectricTrains&hl=en_IN&gl=US

Settle to Carlisle in England is seen as one of the great railway jouneys for scenery.

If its final destination is Milano Centrale, coming from Switzerland it seems the most sensible route. Actually I have no idea about their scheduled destination being Milano Centrale or Milano P.G. so it may be either a rerouting or its standard route...

Looked it up:

• This is the Čierny Hron Railway.
• The stadium is in Čierny Balog, Slovakia

You actually can have a one seat ride to St Petersburg, as seen here

https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/55.7840/37.6550

theres no particular reason to do it though, because the stations are right across the street.

Maybe not exactly what are you looking for, but this drop-shaped railyard is one of the largest in Europe, some say it's only second to Maschen Rbf, in Germany, which appears to be one of the largest in the world: they could be a good source for some interesting track layout :)

OpenStreetMap is often a little better than Google about the track layouts. https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/43.2861/-79.8940 In this particular case, OSM does seem to be missing the crossover visible in OP's pic, just beyond where the train is joining from the other line. Neither OSM nor Google have signal diagrams, though.

It looks like OP's picture was taken from the foot bridge just south of Plains Road, looking southwest.

Sometimes you can find maps in employee timetables, but I did a quick Google and I couldn't find one that covered this area.

Sometimes OpenStreetMap is good for things like this: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/4290854847#map=19/52.37890/4.90058

Keep in mind that it is a third-party site, and can be edited by anyone. However, I think a lot of the European infrastructure operators make their track maps available as GIS data (or will give it to you that way if you ask), so sites like OpenStreetMap can use "official" data if they like.

I'm kind of partial this one, because it was written by my favorite professor from college- The Fallen Colossus, by Robert Sobel. (Good writer, nice guy.)

https://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Colossus-Robert-Sobel/dp/1893122883/ref=pd_sbs_2/141-4824495-1722267?pd_rd_w=VzQcg&pf_rd_p=690958f6-2825-419e-9c16-73ffd4055b65&pf_rd_r=XQF1SXN9X12FMA5XRJJ8&pd_rd_r=387105b9-bf5f-4abb-8bdc-76d2e50aa2ac&amp...

The first one I read on the subject is also excellent, The Wreck of the Penn Central by Binzen and Daughen.

https://www.amazon.com/Wreck-Penn-Central-Joseph-Daughen/dp/1893122085

They both look pretty pricey on Amazon but I'm sure you get them on interlibrary loan somewhere.

For modern traction, you'd be well served by the Rail Guide books, they're released annually and cover the traction operating on the UK network well.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rail-Guide-2020-Colin-Marsden/dp/1910809594/ref=sr\_1\_2?keywords=rail+guide+2021&qid=1636982668&s=books&sr=1-2

Do they really still have this (high wycombe to london paddington) route once a way? You can't buy ticket for London Paddington at all, and their rail map showes it as a "occasional services".

Also, no idea why this route have such small passage number for this particular rail company, because quick Google shows there are very freuquent routes between them: https://www.thetrainline.com/train-times/high-wycombe-to-london-paddington (from other companies, I assume).

It's as simple as a 30 second exposure.

I was out shooting this timelapse while observing with my telescope. As a train nut, I specifically chose a spot next to the tracks, and since Amtrak crosses Nebraska at night, the stars literally aligned for me. :)

It's a shunting signal, see this archived page with a list of Romanian signals. So it basically says if you can pass the signal while shunting or not.

Well I got this book for Christmas last year. It’s really interesting but also very technical and maybe hard to understand for a non native English speaking person. I’m not a native English speaker, and sometimes I had to read thinks twice and so on.

But all in all a great book also including lovely pictures.

Kalmbach'es Diesel Spotter's Guide perhaps? If you want a particular area, look to historical societies which would organized on a specific area or railroad.

For instance: https://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Burlington-Quincy-Color-Vol/dp/1878887327

If you want to go to the originator of the form, there are Lucius Beebe's many books.

@thenewyorkgod there's a even easier solution to listening to it check out scanner radio it's a pretty good source to listen to transmissions of the trains working

Scanner radio

This coffee-table book is a classic of the genre and enjoyed by any rail enthusiast in the US.

What kind of antenna have you got? The stock antennas that come with scanners are usually pretty crap, I got a 40" antenna mounted on the roof of my truck, and now I can hear trains at least 15+ miles away, much further on clear days. If vehicle-mounted isn't an option, this antenna has been recommended by railfans I would trust on the matter.

Beyond that, definitely recommend the FB groups for train info. Most of the ones I'm in will post heads-up that include the train symbol and leading engine number on top of what time/place the train was seen. Just be sure to pay it forward with your own info when you can =)

Set up and running is fantastic. RR history and old routes https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/Set-Running-Pennsylvania-Engineman-1904-1949/dp/027102741X&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwigkPnAsYrrAhUWhHIEHQjNBDYQFnoECAUQBA&usg=AOvVaw0pAs9iyJDzHvd79SbZX2LK

FYI use your local library for inter library loan

Perhaps something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Train-Eyewitness-Books-John-Coiley/dp/0756650321/ref=sr_1_51?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442541927&sr=1-51&keywords=trains+in+books

It has a lot of pictures and isn't a lot of reading.