CATENARY DANGEROUS????
ERIKG3
Anything with the power to move a multi-ton railway train tends to be powerful
(and dangerous to humans, just as drinking diesel oil or jet feul)
>I imagine if you touched the wire and were not grounded you would be ok
(or hung from it freely for that matter).
Until the Electric train (with pantograph) came by at 100+ mph.
>But let's say you were
>standing atop a boxcar and grabbed it, how dead would you be?
Ask the twits who "surf" the trains in Brazil
Human bodies tend to conduct electricity well, but usually only do it once.
>Even if
>you didn't grab the wire, but were ontop of the boxcar, I think there
>would be enough electricity running through it that it would arch
>(trying to find ground) and go thru you anyway.
I'm not sure, but I'm not going to try it.
>Think you could live thru that?
No.
-Erik
Lukas Rosenthaler
DAVE D wrote:
>
> Just how safe is the catenary above the rails (like along the NEC). I
> imagine if you touched the wire and were not grounded you would be ok
> (or hung from it freely for that matter).
Many birds have tried this with success. For human beeings the
critical phase is attaching and detaching from the "hot" wire,
since flying and landing on a wire requires at least some
acrobatic skills.
> But let's say you were
> standing atop a boxcar and grabbed it, how dead would you be?
It depends: Here in Switzerland, where 100% of the RR network is
electrified by catenary, the are many accidents where the persons
involved survived. However, in order to survive, the electric tensions
in the wire mut be large enough ( > 10 kV, here we have 16 kV). In
this case , the momentary current is so high, that body part touching
the catenary will *burn off*. So You will certainly loose an arm or
a leg and have severe damage to the nerveous system, but You *may*
survive, because the time the current flows is very short (in fact
Your arm, leg, finger etc. will act like a fuse blowing).
In this respect, the most dangerous tensions lay between 100V and
2kV. You don't burn off, in contrary, the muscle force triggerd by
the electric current will attach You even more to the wire and You'll
get electrocuted quite slowly... bad thing, which - by the way - makes
me a opponent of the death penalty...
> Even if
> you didn't grab the wire, but were ontop of the boxcar, I think there
> would be enough electricity running through it that it would arch
> (trying to find ground) and go thru you anyway. Think you could live
> thru that?
This depends on distance and weather conditions. I don't remember
the arching distance dependant on voltage, but You should find it
in sime electrical engineering handbook...
So, just keep off every live wire, or You may enter heaven or hell
quite quickly and effectively...
Lukas Rosenthaler
John Wilson
>
...
> Many birds have tried this with success. For human beeings the
> critical phase is attaching and detaching from the "hot" wire,
> since flying and landing on a wire requires at least some
> acrobatic skills.
This is actually a standard line maintenance technique in the electric
utility industry. Employees work from an insulated bucket, with the
conductive parts of the bucket (the metal liner, etc.) bonded to the
conductor, so they are at line potential and insulated from ground. I've
also seen arrangements for large high-voltage transmission lines in
which employees can work from a platform that is actually suspended from
the conductor and can move along the conductor. These techniques allow
work to be done barehanded, with ordinary tools. It might take half an
hour to do a job this way that takes a whole shift working with hot
sticks, and it's a safer way to do the job as well. (Fewer ways for the
employee to be electrocouted.)
I received a "Bird on a Wire Club" card after participating in a
demonstration of these techniques at an IEEE meeting years ago. The
demonstration involved energizing a platform at 46kV, approximately the
line-to-ground voltage of a 69kV subtransmission line. You just have to
stay away from conductors at other voltages than the one you're
connected to.
>
> > But let's say you were
> > standing atop a boxcar and grabbed it, how dead would you be?
>
> It depends: Here in Switzerland, where 100% of the RR network is
> electrified by catenary, the are many accidents where the persons
> involved survived. However, in order to survive, the electric tensions
> in the wire mut be large enough ( > 10 kV, here we have 16 kV). In
> this case , the momentary current is so high, that body part touching
> the catenary will *burn off*. So You will certainly loose an arm or
> a leg and have severe damage to the nerveous system, but You *may*
> survive, because the time the current flows is very short (in fact
> Your arm, leg, finger etc. will act like a fuse blowing).
>
> In this respect, the most dangerous tensions lay between 100V and
> 2kV. You don't burn off, in contrary, the muscle force triggerd by
> the electric current will attach You even more to the wire and You'll
> get electrocuted quite slowly... bad thing, which - by the way - makes
> me a opponent of the death penalty...
This is one of the peculiar facts about electrical safety. There's
another reason why the lower voltages are deadlier: 60Hz current across
the chest between about 75ma (that's milliamperes; thousandths of an
ampere) and, IIRC, 250ma, will induce fibrillation. That is, it will
stop the heart and cause it to vibrate randomly, pumping no blood. Brain
damage occurs within a couple minutes, and death happens within a couple
more, if the heart isn't restarted. Above maybe 300ma, the current
clamps the heart in a contracted state, and often, when the current is
removed, the heart will restart. However, as Lukas pointed out, these
currents cause severe burns that often result in loss of limbs, organs,
etc. Sometimes the victim dies immediately because something vital is
fried at the scene, but victims often die after weeks in the burn
hospital, or recover but end up missing an arm or something, with heart
and brain damage to go with it. Not a good way to go at all.
By the way, standard power frequencies of 50-60Hz are the most
dangerous. It takes about 5 times as much dc as 60Hz current to produce
a given shock effect, and at high frequencies, nerves and muscles get
less sensitive with frequency, until somewhere in the radio-frequency
range, like above about 1MHz, they don't respond at all. Above these
frequencies, the only effect is heat and burning tissue, which can still
kill a person, but needs a lot higher current than the shock phenomena
we're talking about here.
Re the electric chair, one of the electrodes is attached to the
prisoner's head, and the current flows through the brain. While the
whole procedure is ugly to watch, the initial shock causes instant
unconsciousness, and presumably the prisoner feels nothing. Electric
chairs go through a sequence of high- and low-current shocks intended to
both put the heart into fibrillation and do enough permanent damage that
the prisoner won't spontaneously recover. Personally, I don't know if
I'm for or against the death penalty. I do know I'm not in favor of all
the fancy ritualistic ways of doing it. If a state is convinced enough
that an individual must die for his crime, they should be willing to
stand him up against a wall and shoot him. If people don't have a strong
enough stomach to do that, they shouldn't do a death penalty at all. All
the business of electric chair, gas chamber, lethal injection, etc.,
strikes me as ways to officially kill a prisoner without feeling like
you're killing somebody, and I don't think that's good.
>
> > Even if
> > you didn't grab the wire, but were ontop of the boxcar, I think there
> > would be enough electricity running through it that it would arch
> > (trying to find ground) and go thru you anyway. Think you could live
> > thru that?
>
> This depends on distance and weather conditions. I don't remember
> the arching distance dependant on voltage, but You should find it
> in sime electrical engineering handbook...
The rule of thumb I've always heard is 10-25kV per inch. In other words,
an 11kV trolley wire will spark over a gap up to an inch or so. This is
actually one of the things that saves lives (sorta, see the injury
description above) of people who try to grab high-voltage conductors.
The voltage sparks over, causing muscle spasms that throw the person
back, before they get a chance to get a hand around the conductor. The
bad news is that, as the person falls back, the arc persists, so the
shock and burning continues at least that long. At low voltage, you can
be clamped on to the conductor.
>
> So, just keep off every live wire, or You may enter heaven or hell
> quite quickly and effectively...
>
> Lukas Rosenthaler
I remember reading about an incident years ago where a group of drunks
dared one of their number to go on top of a boxcar on a stopped PRR
train, in the electrified area near Philadelphia. According to
witnesses, the guy climbed up, stood up on the top of the car, was tall
enough to contact the catenary, and "lit up". Two guys who were close by
and saw what happened climbed up and pinned the victim to the top of the
car, since he was regaining consciousness and trying to stand up. About
that time the train departed, and the three of them rode it for a bunch
of miles, keeping the shock victim down, until somebody got word to the
railroad and they got the train stopped and an ambulance there. The guy
lived, but I don't know what condition he was in. The two rescuers were
celebrated as heroes for saving the drunk's life.
There are also stories you don't even want to think about, about drunks
taking a leak off an overpass over an electrified railroad.
73,
JohnW
Roy
>
> Just how safe is the catenary above the rails (like along the NEC). I
> imagine if you touched the wire and were not grounded you would be ok
> standing atop a boxcar and grabbed it, how dead would you be? Even if
> you didn't grab the wire, but were ontop of the boxcar, I think there
> would be enough electricity running through it that it would arch
> (trying to find ground) and go thru you anyway. Think you could live
> thru that?
Once had the oppurtunity to repair a SIRC RR bridge over the NEC (PC
back then) at Linden NJ and we had to get the ET dept of Penn Central
to de-enenergize the catenary before we could begin work. They also had
to connect the de-energized wire to the rail below account the static
remaining in the catenary could kill you dead. They told me to stay at
least 3 ft away from any energized catenary wires.
Its very dangerous so Respect it !
Roy
Mike Stimpson
[snip]
> > In this respect, the most dangerous tensions lay between 100V and
> > 2kV. You don't burn off, in contrary, the muscle force triggerd by
> > the electric current will attach You even more to the wire and You'll
> > get electrocuted quite slowly... bad thing, which - by the way - makes
> > me a opponent of the death penalty...
>
> This is one of the peculiar facts about electrical safety. There's
> another reason why the lower voltages are deadlier: 60Hz current across
> the chest between about 75ma (that's milliamperes; thousandths of an
> ampere) and, IIRC, 250ma, will induce fibrillation. That is, it will
> stop the heart and cause it to vibrate randomly, pumping no blood. Brain
> damage occurs within a couple minutes, and death happens within a couple
> more, if the heart isn't restarted. Above maybe 300ma, the current
> clamps the heart in a contracted state, and often, when the current is
> removed, the heart will restart. However, as Lukas pointed out, these
> currents cause severe burns that often result in loss of limbs, organs,
> etc. Sometimes the victim dies immediately because something vital is
> fried at the scene, but victims often die after weeks in the burn
> hospital, or recover but end up missing an arm or something, with heart
> and brain damage to go with it. Not a good way to go at all.
>
> Re the electric chair, one of the electrodes is attached to the
> prisoner's head, and the current flows through the brain. While the
> whole procedure is ugly to watch, the initial shock causes instant
> unconsciousness, and presumably the prisoner feels nothing. Electric
> chairs go through a sequence of high- and low-current shocks intended to
> both put the heart into fibrillation and do enough permanent damage that
> the prisoner won't spontaneously recover. Personally, I don't know if
> I'm for or against the death penalty. I do know I'm not in favor of all
> the fancy ritualistic ways of doing it. If a state is convinced enough
> that an individual must die for his crime, they should be willing to
> stand him up against a wall and shoot him. If people don't have a strong
> enough stomach to do that, they shouldn't do a death penalty at all. All
> the business of electric chair, gas chamber, lethal injection, etc.,
> strikes me as ways to officially kill a prisoner without feeling like
> you're killing somebody, and I don't think that's good.
Well, my Dad once had an accident where he got electrocuted, and he
reports instant unconsciousness (he got power in both arms and out his
stomach, so he didn't even have an electrode on his head). In this
respect, electrocution would be more humane than the firing squad,
since, depending on people's aim, you might have time to feel a lot of
pain after being shot.
> >
> > > Even if
> > > you didn't grab the wire, but were ontop of the boxcar, I think there
> > > would be enough electricity running through it that it would arch
> > > (trying to find ground) and go thru you anyway. Think you could live
> > > thru that?
> >
> > This depends on distance and weather conditions. I don't remember
> > the arching distance dependant on voltage, but You should find it
> > in sime electrical engineering handbook...
>
> The rule of thumb I've always heard is 10-25kV per inch. In other words,
> an 11kV trolley wire will spark over a gap up to an inch or so.
Just working from memory, but I seem to recall 50 kV per cm, or about
125 kV per inch. This is to spontaneously *start* an arc, not to
*maintain* one, which takes less voltage.
[more stuff snipped]
> There are also stories you don't even want to think about, about drunks
> taking a leak off an overpass over an electrified railroad.
We weren't drunks, we were just railfans...
My Dad, my brother, and I were chasing the Milwaukee Road on Pipestone
Pass in Montana. We beat a train to the tunnel at the top of the pass,
and were standing on top of the tunnel portal waiting for the train. My
brother wondered what would happen if he peed on the cantenary (we were
teenagers, OK? Teenage males are just like that sometimes.)
Fortunately, my Dad talked him out of it...
--
Mike Stimpson (mst...@utsci.com)
Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the management...
The more I work as an engineer, the more I disbelieve the theory of
evolution.
P008167b
Mogens Pedersen
have ground connection and no current will pass throu it and kill it.
on top of a wodden boxcar you will properly survive due too the poor
conductive of (dry) wood.on the other hand a steel boxcar is an briliant
conduktor (you will be fried)
Technicians working on high voltage wire throw a metal chain too ground the
high voltage wire after they have make sure that the power is off too make
sure that the power is´t restored by mistake while working on the wire
Sincerely Mogens Pedersen
DAVE D wrote in message <36A6C00E...@david.st>...
>Just how safe is the catenary above the rails (like along the NEC). I
>imagine if you touched the wire and were not grounded you would be ok
>(or hung from it freely for that matter). But let's say you were
>standing atop a boxcar and grabbed it, how dead would you be? Even if
R. Makul K1XV
wrote:
>
>We weren't drunks, we were just railfans...
>
>My Dad, my brother, and I were chasing the Milwaukee Road on Pipestone
>Pass in Montana. We beat a train to the tunnel at the top of the pass,
>and were standing on top of the tunnel portal waiting for the train. My
>brother wondered what would happen if he peed on the cantenary (we were
>teenagers, OK? Teenage males are just like that sometimes.)
>
>Fortunately, my Dad talked him out of it...
We once dared a friend of ours to pee on an electric fence, the kind
used for livestock. Our friend did not enjoy the experience, but was
able to walk home.
Ray
Matthew Johnson
Lukas Rosenthaler wrote in message <36A7221F...@balcab.ch>...
>
>It depends: Here in Switzerland, where 100% of the RR network is
>electrified by catenary, the are many accidents where the persons
>involved survived.
I seem to remember a story about a Princeton student touching either the
power line or the train's pantograph at Princeton's train station and living
to tell the story. (So much for Ivy League stereotypes...) However, I
don't remember any details and I'm not even sure if the story is true...
vlbg
An interesting question to ask at this particular time.
Three men that work for an Intermodal contractor at
BNSF's Corwith facility in Chicago were electrocuted
last week.
They touched power lines that were above and outside
the RR's property fence with a container being lifted by
a loader. There was a mixture of salt and slush on the
pavement. As I read it the crane operator was killed when
he got out and the other two men were killed when they
either touched him or the crane while trying to assist.
Bad news,
VLBG
Michael G. Koerner
>
> > I seem to remember a story about a Princeton student touching either the
> > power line or the train's pantograph at Princeton's train station and living
> > to tell the story. (So much for Ivy League stereotypes...) However, I
> > don't remember any details and I'm not even sure if the story is true...
>
> and touched the wire and got badly burned.
>
> He SUCCESSFULLY sued the University, the place that served him, and
> NJ Transit and got millions of dollars.
>
> IMHO, that sucked. I'm sorry he got injured, but it was his own fault
> he got drunk and went to the trouble of climbing up to the roof of a
> railroad car. IMHO, when you have to go to trouble to get yourself
> injured (ie getting drunk, climbing a fence, trespassing, etc), it's his own
> fault.
A few years ago a Korean immigrant got 0.35% drunk, climbed past some
barriers and 'relieved himself' onto the third rail on a street level
section of the 'Ravenswood' CTA line ('Brown Line') on Chicago's middle
northwest side (the neighborhood is heavily immigrant Korean). His
survivors SUCCESSFULLY sued the CTA for several millions of Dollars
because the CTA did not post signs at the grade crossings warning of the
dangers of the third rail...
...**in KOREAN**!!!!!.
Go figger....
--
____________________________________________________________________________
Regards,
Michael G. Koerner
Appleton, WI
***NOTICE*** SPAMfilter in use, please remove ALL 'i's from the return
address to reply. ***NOTICE***
____________________________________________________________________________
John McCoy
>>But let's say you were
>>standing atop a boxcar and grabbed it, how dead would you be?
>Ask the twits who "surf" the trains in Brazil
>Human bodies tend to conduct electricity well, but usually only do it once.
Actually, no, human bodies make very poor conductors of electricity.
Unfortunately, the amount of current needed to kill a person is on the
order of 10 to 15 mA, so you don't need much of a conductor...
John
Lisa or Jeff
Carl Zwanzig
[..]
>Technicians working on high voltage wire throw a metal chain too ground the
>high voltage wire after they have make sure that the power is off too make
>sure that the power is´t restored by mistake while working on the wire
Safety grounds are a big part of procedures in working on HV power
equipment. You have to either ground the normally-hot lead, OR effectively
insulate the worker from the ground. I understand that the power distro
workers in the New York subways weld -live- 600vdc thrid rails. They
simply spread the area with rubber mats, and stand on them.
FWIW,
Recently San Francisco CA suffered a -major- power outage when a safety
ground lead wasn't removed before power was restored. I noticed a sag
in Cupertino, 40 miles away. It took PGE (is that pacific graft & extortion?),
the utlity, over 6 hours to fully restore power. The ground lead was
vaporized.
z!
Bob Scheurle
>I seem to remember a story about a Princeton student touching either the
>power line or the train's pantograph at Princeton's train station and living
>to tell the story. (So much for Ivy League stereotypes...) However, I
>don't remember any details and I'm not even sure if the story is true...
Yeah, they climbed on top of the train and got themselves zapped (I
guess Princeton students aren't very smart). But they sued NJ Transit
and won! Now NJT stores the single MU car in a fenced-in area to keep
the stupid Princeton students and their greedy lawyers away.
--
Bob Scheurle
sche...@z-eclipse-z.net
sche...@z-avionics-z.itt.com
NJ Transit schedules at http://www.nj.com/njtransit/
dave pierson
>...wooden boxcars....
None left, at least not in revenue service in the USA.
thanks
dave pierson |the facts, as accurately as i can manage,
Compaq Computer Corporation |the opinions, my own.
334 South St |
Shrewsbury, Mass USA pie...@gone.enet.dec.com
"He has read everything, and, to his credit, written nothing." A J Raffles
"....the net of a million lies...." Vernor Vinge
ctil...@my-dejanews.com
> I seem to remember a story about a Princeton student touching either the
> power line or the train's pantograph at Princeton's train station and living
> to tell the story. (So much for Ivy League stereotypes...) However, I
> don't remember any details and I'm not even sure if the story is true...
Story is true. Name of the individual was B.J. Miller, event occurred in
November 1990. In an advanced state of inebriation he climbed the ladder on
the front of the "Dinky", touched the pantograph and lost both legs below the
knee and his left arm below the elbow.
After the incident warning signs multiplied at the station, with one reading
"Danger, High Voltage, Do Not Climb on Top of Railcars". Someone had appended
"you moron" with a permanent marker.
He got $6 Million in settlements.
Clem Tillier (Princeton '94)
ctil...@my-dejanews.com
Mountain View, California, USA
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
R. Makul K1XV
<migk...@diatiaeiixii.com> wrote:
>A few years ago a Korean immigrant got 0.35% drunk, climbed past some
>barriers and 'relieved himself' onto the third rail on a street level
>section of the 'Ravenswood' CTA line ('Brown Line') on Chicago's middle
>northwest side (the neighborhood is heavily immigrant Korean). His
>survivors SUCCESSFULLY sued the CTA for several millions of Dollars
>because the CTA did not post signs at the grade crossings warning of the
>dangers of the third rail...
>
>
>
>
>
>...**in KOREAN**!!!!!.
I was in Italy around 10 years ago and there is an electrified
commuter rail service that runs around the Naples area. Anyway, it
has overhead catenary and on every supporting post is a very obvious
large skull and cross bones, with electric lightning bolts. It was
obvious to me what it meant, despite the fact that I speak and read no
Italian.
However, my favorite electrocution accident/litigation story is some
guys who got electrocuted as they tried to cut down and steal overhead
electric distribution line. Their survivors sued, but I don't think
they won.
Ray
Joel G. Kirchner
crew was running 600v trolley wire to an industry. The repair car's only
existence is to provide a non-grounded working platform. The crew had no
problem grabbing hold of the 600v wire and suspending it. I was asked if I
would like to touch the wire and I declined.... Not much of an adventurer
here,,,,,,
David E.
> Just how safe is the catenary above the rails (like along the NEC). I
> imagine if you touched the wire and were not grounded you would be ok
> (or hung from it freely for that matter). But let's say you were
> standing atop a boxcar and grabbed it, how dead would you be?
Very dead. So I would advice you not to do this.
David E.
David E.
>
> (ad rem Brazil:
> and thats 1500 or 3kvdc. Low Voltage, by comparison.)
though I still wouldnt touch the cables there....
David E.
Go93
>In an advanced state of inebriation he climbed the ladder on
>the front of the "Dinky", touched the pantograph and lost both legs below the
>knee and his left arm below the elbow
>He got $6 Million in settlements.
I cannot believe that this idiot got 6 million for something that was totally
his fault!
LaVerne Andreessen
>
> Just how safe is the catenary above the rails (like along the NEC). I
> imagine if you touched the wire and were not grounded you would be ok
> (or hung from it freely for that matter). But let's say you were
> standing atop a boxcar and grabbed it, how dead would you be?
Isn't dead, dead? Are there degrees of being dead? Oh yes, brain
dead - that is what you would have to be to grab the wire.
LaVerne Andreessen
> However, my favorite electrocution accident/litigation story is some
> guys who got electrocuted as they tried to cut down and steal overhead
> electric distribution line. Their survivors sued, but I don't think
> they won.
>
> Ray
With less lethal results, reminds of the story the old timers used to
tell in Manchester Iowa - some fellow decided to steel locomotive coal
from the ICRR. Placed his pickup under the coal chute, pulled down the
chute, and as the coal started to pour out, was unable to get the chute
up and buried his pickup truck and emptied the coal chute. Only bright
part he was on the siding side of the chute and not on the mainline.
Steve Kraus
> Actually, no, human bodies make very poor conductors of electricity.
> Unfortunately, the amount of current needed to kill a person is on the
> order of 10 to 15 mA, so you don't need much of a conductor...
Let me amend that to say that dry skin is a rather poor
conductor and is the primary barrier to current passage
(and one that is easily overcome by high voltages).
Once you're passed the skin the body is mostly salt
water (also known as an electrolyte) which is a good
conductor. Note the tingle you feel when touching
your tongue to a mere 9 volt battery.
Clarence Boddicker
Back when I was a police officer I got a call for an injured subject next
to the Amtrak line. After investigating the incident it was determined that
a local student had gotten drunk, climbed up on an open auto rack, and been
electrocuted. The shock threw him from the car onto the gravel further
injuring him. However his worst injuries were caused from the electricity
finding a ground through the kid, it exited through his penis which was
destroyed. I never asked but always wondered if he was up there pissing
when Darwin caught up to him. 18 years old and no johnson, made me nervous
just to think about it.
Go93
>climbed up on an open auto rack, and been
>electrocuted. The shock threw him from the car onto the gravel further
>injuring him. However his worst injuries were caused from the electricity
>finding a ground through the kid, it exited through his penis which was
>destroyed. I never asked but always wondered if he was up there pissing
>when Darwin caught up to him. 18 years old and no johnson, made me nervous
>just to think about it.
At least this dope won't be able to re produce!!!!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
David S
Who: Mike Stimpson <mst...@utsci.com>. Why: who knows? What:
>My Dad, my brother, and I were chasing the Milwaukee Road on Pipestone
>Pass in Montana. We beat a train to the tunnel at the top of the pass,
>and were standing on top of the tunnel portal waiting for the train. My
>brother wondered what would happen if he peed on the cantenary (we were
>teenagers, OK? Teenage males are just like that sometimes.)
Very interesting when you put that together with your sig. line...
>The more I work as an engineer, the more I disbelieve the theory of
>evolution.
David Streeter
--
opinions expressed are probably not those of
Little "Q" Model Railroad Club
Aurora, Illinois
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/8114/littleq.html
if replying by both newsgroup post and email, please say so
"Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints."
Henning Schanz
Hi,
> Safety grounds are a big part of procedures in working on HV power
> equipment. You have to either ground the normally-hot lead, OR
> effectively insulate the worker from the ground. I understand that
> the power distro workers in the New York subways weld -live- 600vdc
> thrid rails. They simply spread the area with rubber mats, and
> stand on them.
Where I live, maintenance work at streetcar catenary (750 V DC, IIRC) is
performed from trucks with insulated platforms on the roof. The ladder
leading there is made of wood. However, I don't think that any worker
standing on the ground would ever hand a wrench to his colleague on the
platform...
> FWIW,
> Recently San Francisco CA suffered a -major- power outage when a
> safety ground lead wasn't removed before power was restored. I
> noticed a sag in Cupertino, 40 miles away. It took PGE (is that
> pacific graft & extortion?), the utlity, over 6 hours to fully
> restore power. The ground lead was vaporized.
I was told a story which must have happened some decades ago in a german
factory. A master electrician led some apprentices to a large three-phase
transformer. He said to the apprentices: "We'll have to fix this
transformer. It's switched off, of course. I asked the operators, checked
and double-checked it. And yet there's a tiny chance that somebody might
have erred. For this case, we have this!" He lifted a large, rusty iron
chain from the ground, and hurled it across the three phase rails...
W H A A A A M !!!
cheers
Henning
Matthew Johnson
Clarence Boddicker wrote in message
<01be46d8$4ffccb40$129da4d1@oemcomputer>...
>
>
> Back when I was a police officer I got a call for an injured subject next
>to the Amtrak line. After investigating the incident it was determined that
>a local student had gotten drunk, climbed up on an open auto rack, and been
GrSchultz
touches the third rail?
a CONDUCTOR
Also, how many of you have seen the movie Running Scared with Billy Crystal? My
favorite line is when they're chasing the bad guys on th EL in Chicago and he
warns the guy driving to watch out for the third rail because it has a thousand
volts running through it. The driver replys that it's not the volts it the amps
and the fellow in the back seat (being totted off to jail) asks how many amps?
and he replys, enough to push a train!!!
Greg Schultz
Columbus, Ohio
GrSc...@aol.com
Randy Knaub
new. He yas carrying (swinging)a steel rod and walking between MU cars. He
was coming within inches of the third rail shoes. (3rd rail was on other
side of car). Someone yelled at him, Then told him the third rail shoes on
the other side are electrifed also. Needless to say the guy left work and
was never seen again.
The princeton electrification was not the first. A Guy and gal climbed
up back in the 70's and got zapped. They power dispatcher saw the power go
down, and reset it, and Zapped them a second time.
On the New Haven Wire Train they had panograph on a car that was
grounded, and then hooked a ground to the rail above them. They then worked
between grounds on the wire!
I also heard a story about a man who was boarding a metroliner in Penn
Station with ski equipment. He had the ski pole (metal) above him and hit
the base of the pan. Lucky for him it was also touch the car body. He need
new ski poles after that.
Another story I heard about the NYC Subway. A another friend was a
signal Maint. One day he was working with a younger man and they had a quick
job to do on a signal. The other man said lets not brother to put the
blankets over the third rail. The other man dropped a tool. It landed
between the 3rd rail and the running rail. They were ducking the shrappnel
from the exploying tool!.
Randy
GrSchultz wrote in message <19990128233958...@ng11.aol.com>...
John Wilson
>
...
> A Guy and gal climbed
> up back in the 70's and got zapped. They power dispatcher saw the power go
> down, and reset it, and Zapped them a second time.
The power dispatcher didn't do this; it happens automatically. Overhead
lines are subject to a lot of faults that clear themselves almost
immediately, caused by lightning, tree limbs, etc. Power is fed to most
overhead conductors, including, I believe, railroad catenary, through
devices called "reclosers". These are circuit breakers that interrupt a
short circuit, then "retest" the line by reclosing several times, with
increasing delay between each try, until the line either holds voltage
or the number of retests reaches a setpoint, after which the recloser
"locks out" and has to be manually reset.
This, by the way, is why you don't ever go near a downed power line
(from a car accident, storm, or whatever), even if it isn't sparking and
looks dead. A recloser could be counting seconds to its next test, and
the line could come hot at any time. If the wire has come down on a car
and you need to get somebody out, or something like that, wait until
somebody from the utility gets there, puts a ground on the line, and
tells you it's safe before you have any contact with it.
> On the New Haven Wire Train they had panograph on a car that was
> grounded, and then hooked a ground to the rail above them. They then worked
> between grounds on the wire!
This is the only safe way to work on a line that you are going to treat
as "dead". If you just isolate the line, it will pick up enough voltage
by induction from other conductors (on the adjacent track, transmission
conductors overhead, etc.) to still be dangerous, and probably lethal.
It only takes about 0.07A to kill a person.
It is also possible to work on a line while it is energized using
insulated gloves, sleeves, blankets, and other personal protective
equipment; hot sticks; or an insulated bucket or platform, with the
linemen at line voltage like a bird sitting on the wire.
> I also heard a story about a man who was boarding a metroliner in Penn
> Station with ski equipment. He had the ski pole (metal) above him and hit
> the base of the pan. Lucky for him it was also touch the car body. He need
> new ski poles after that.
Sounds like whoever was at the door wasn't paying attention. Aren't
trainmen supposed to look out for this kind of thing?
> Another story I heard about the NYC Subway. A another friend was a
> signal Maint. One day he was working with a younger man and they had a quick
> job to do on a signal. The other man said lets not brother to put the
> blankets over the third rail.
A candidate for the Darwin Award. It's amazing how many people think
this stuff isn't for real.
> The other man dropped a tool. It landed
> between the 3rd rail and the running rail. They were ducking the shrappnel
> from the exploying tool!.
> Randy
> GrSchultz wrote in message <19990128233958...@ng11.aol.com>...
> >reminds me of the old saying, what do you call a railroader that accidently
> >touches the third rail?
> >
> >
> >a CONDUCTOR
The deceased.
> >
> >
73,
JohnW