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Fri, 21 Dec 2007
Innovative uses of bobcats
Ordinarily Rail car movers (aka HiRail trucks) are either enormous ugly yellow painted beasts (which are inevitably maintenance nightmares) or are glorified pickup trucks (which, while great for zooming around to fix a remote signal, that haven’t much hope of actually moving anything). This week, though, I came across an unusual approach to dealing with moving small numbers of cars in an private industrial rail yard that might do the trick. A Canadian company called Brandt Equipment markets a vehicle called the “Rail Yard Boss” which is nothing but a John Deere front loader adapted with rail wheels and a coupler. Photos from their website (I don’t live where there is so much grain, you know?):
The interesting part is that it uses its hoist to transfer some of the weight from the car its pushing to itself, thereby increasing the friction between its wheels and the track, improving its traction as a result. That’s smart.
The advantage over a real switcher, of course, is that it can just up the steel wheels, pivot, and drive out of the way.
On the other hand, given that this thing can only push a max of 5 loaded cars, you’ll probably end up needing a real switcher sooner or later anyway (and what yard doesn’t have a spur as a switching lead to get things out of the way?). Still though, pretty neat.
AfC
Longevity
Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, etc has now become the longest-lived monarch since the union, having today surpassed¹ her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria, who lived to 81 years 7 months and 29 days. Congratulations, Ma’am!
Given the legendary determination of our Sovereign, I would imagine the real goal she is aspiring to reach is 10 September 2015. Should she still be alive then the length of her reign will have exceeded those of both King George III and Queen Victoria.
It’s always a bit weird to commend someone for having gotten older. “Congratulations, you’re not dead yet. Well done, there.” seems a bit odd, really, seeing as how there are so many things that just aren’t in our control. Celebrating birthdays remains fun mostly because it’s an opportunity to exchange presents, get sloshed, etc. But birthdays aren’t the only milestones of longevity, and this particular mark is a bit more exclusive than most!
AfC
¹This according to an article at Wikipedia listing British Monarchs by longevity. Hard to know who has time to dig up and collate this sort of data, but hey.
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