https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2456231908034089 Didn't know where else to leave this vid
When your over weight but absolutely positively have to be there overnite.. Lol.!!! Very Kool video..
Must have a little better than average air compressor... among other things.
And... that was my first thought also.
I am or was certified to do brake test on RR cars. We had a big screw compresser at the shop i tested one car at a time but one time i tryed to air up 2 and couldnt. I have wondered why but there was no one i could ask because they went thought help so fast i was the senior guy after one year on brakes. I liked testing brakes and took time to do it right but some guys did a test in 15 minutes that took a hour if done right.
Looks like a compressor on the truck tray
They do it in N America as well apparently..........
Some info courtesy of Wikipedia.... The RTL is a semi truck with railway wheels that can be lowered when operating on the railway tracks. It was pioneered by in the early 1990s by Australian National and later refined in Victoria. The idea was to have a locomotive that could transfer from one branch line carrying mainly wheat to another parallel branch line, where the rail connection is very roundabout. The RTL suffered a number of disadvantages. Loads were severely limited when the track was steeply graded. The rubber traction wheels slipped on the steel rails when wet. The life of the rubber tires was rather short. The Canadian company Brandt has also converted large truck tractor units for use as locomotives that can move by road to where they are needed. Still mostly used for permanent way maintenance, they can also be employed as thunderbird (rescue) locomotives or even used in normal service, where they are suitable for smaller operators. In East Germany some Fortschritt ZT 300 tractors were used in road–rail service.
How big was that compressor? I used to run an old Alco Locomotive for a short line that was equipped with a 275CFM Gardner Denver air compressor. The 275 rating was with the engine running flat out at 900 rpm. Some places where we used a lot of brakes but not a lot of pull, you would shutoff the generator field and pull the throttle out to number 8 notch for air. I also got to run a little GE 44 ton center cab that had the lousiest air pumps in the world. One good road crossing horn blast (2 long, 1 short, and a long ) would dynamite the train brakes. Later I crawled down under the cab and found out only one air pump was working... no belts on the other. It had two 40 CFM pumps and took the better part of 15 minutes to pump up a 4 car train. I did like that Alco, it had a Westinghouse 6SL brake stand, very easy to operate. The GE had New York air and I wasn't so crazy about that.
I was thinking around 30hp.I was glade to get to work on them i had worked on trucks but couldnt under stand how one hose did it.
Kind of like the old semi trailers where the air tank sets the brakes when the red line reduces pressure. You drop so many pounds of air to set up the train brakes. Or dump it all in an emergency.
Then when air is gone brakes release.
I am so envious! Almost went work for the BN.... on the morning I was supposed to start school, the mine called and asked me to head to Colorado... I never made it to train school.
That is why the engineer has to be very careful not to cycle the brakes much without a chance to pump the air back up to full pressure (usually 120 psi). Trains on steep grades will use "retainer valves" those are set manually and prevent full release of the car brakes until the train pipe is fully recharged. Or in the full setting they keep the brakes from releasing until they are turned down to "normal" setting. I set a bit too much brake on a grade once and had to drag it down to where we could stop and knock down the retainers. Oops.
For the shortline my schooling consisted of working with a couple three old timers that got their start shoveling coal. Sadly they have all passed now. But those guys had some great stories. Two of them were ex Milwaukee, and the third was ex Northern Pacific from Sunnyside... Frank Scobee. His oldest son Dick was the commander of the Space shuttle Challenger on it's last trip.
I saw an article on the Brandt trucks, upgraded air compressor/ air dryer system automatic transmission and regular train controls for brakes and throttle when used as a locomotive. Probably still has the mini fridge and stereo. Train with an 18 speed and jake brakes, that'd be something.