re: Update on my railroad career...

Ever encounter any train hoppers?

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i want to work on a train

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Union Pacific is hiring train crew right now in Livonia and Avondale fwiw.

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Does a wheel come off the train every now and then? It is my house, some woods, and then the railroad. I sometimes imagine a wheel come flying through the woods and wrecking my barbeque or something. Never heard of it happening though.

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If anything it would be an axle..it's not like a wheel on a car attached with some lugs..the wheels and axles are all one together..only heard one story that was from way back where a guy was in the ground in the siding doing a roll by on a passing train when he noticed something strange..he told the train to slowly stop. Went and checked it and sure enough the axle was missing..they shut down the railroad searching for it because they were worried the damage it may have caused..they traveled down the trail in a high rail truck and finally they saw some brush knocked down in a wooded area..almost like a vehicle had plowed through the woods...it was the axle..I think maybe a once in a lifetime story there..

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Went and checked it and sure enough the axle was missing

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You mean the entire wheelset... or just the axle? I don't see how you could lose just the axle. The wheels are pressed onto the axle so if you lose the axle then you lose the entire wheelset.

And the wheelset holds up the side frame and truck bolster. I'm trying to make sense of this story in my head but I can't.

I mean this whole piece right here..

That's the wheelset. If the wheelset comes off then you lose support on that side of the side frame. The side frames would drag the ground and probably end up pulling the side frames and truck bolster from under the car causing a derailment.

I really don't see how it's possible for a railcar to lose a wheelset and just keep on moving down the track. I don't even see how it's possible for a wheelset to come off (unless the axle snapped) with the weight of the car on top of it.

Now that I think about it I actually don't doubt it... the railroads always manage to do unbelievable shite to destroy cars.

And I did think of 1 possible scenario that I've seen pics of before... a wheel separating causing it to shift back on the axle. But I still don't see how that wheel wouldn't derail any cars behind it.

But like I said... never doubt the railroad's ability to frick shite up.

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Have to learn the territory before they put me out on my own.

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how hard is it to follow train tracks...can you really make a wrong turn and end up getting lost?