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Nostalgia & History > Strolling Down Switch Heater Memory LaneDate: 10/30/14 06:05 Strolling Down Switch Heater Memory Lane Author: CA_Sou_MA_Agent I remember seeing these unique infared switch heaters at Canyon Diablo, AZ back in the late 1970s. The road leading into there from I-40 was a glorified cow path!
Does anyone else remember seeing these? Are they still in use? Did / Does anyone else use them besides Santa Fe / BNSF? Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/31/14 14:29 by CA_Sou_MA_Agent. Date: 10/30/14 06:53 Re: Strolling Down Switch Heater Memory Lane Author: eljay yep, saw them at williams jct. thanks for the kool post!
Date: 10/30/14 08:50 Re: Strolling Down Switch Heater Memory Lane Author: Out_Of_Service 58 years i never saw that contraption before ... yeah thankX for the post
Posted from Android Date: 10/30/14 08:57 Re: Strolling Down Switch Heater Memory Lane Author: Ray_Murphy I guess the design wasn't that hot...
Date: 10/30/14 16:30 Re: Strolling Down Switch Heater Memory Lane Author: davebb71 let's remember high school physics, heat rises... dave, out.
Date: 10/30/14 19:56 Re: Strolling Down Switch Heater Memory Lane Author: qnyla I saw them at Canyon Diablo and Williams Jct. They seemed to work well enough.
Heat does not rise, hot air rises. An infrared heater heats through electromagnetic radiation, and the long wave radiation will heat objects such as the track and ballast, not the air. Date: 10/30/14 20:15 Re: Strolling Down Switch Heater Memory Lane Author: qnyla Date: 10/30/14 20:42 Re: Strolling Down Switch Heater Memory Lane Author: mwarfel My experience with switch heaters was melting snow and ice off switches and retarders at the Indiana Harbor Belt Blue Island hump yard in sub-zero weather in the early 1970s, using a flame-producing device comprised of a long pipe fed by an air line and a kerosene line. Did the trick.
Date: 10/30/14 22:38 Re: Strolling Down Switch Heater Memory Lane Author: mcfflyer They are in place throughout the upper Feather River Canyon on the WP/UP. Matter of fact, the one at Sloat was recently rebuilt. The photo shows the picture I took in April 2010 at the east switch at Sloat. It's heated with propane in a tank off to my left and piped here to the switch. It must be used, but probably hasn't had much use the last three years!
Lee Hower - Sacramento Date: 10/31/14 14:22 Re: Strolling Down Switch Heater Memory Lane Author: CA_Sou_MA_Agent Switch heaters that are right alongside the rail are quite common, especially in cold climates.
The thing that's unique about the Santa Fe applications in Arizona are the heaters being placed high above the track and transmitting the heat straight down onto the track structure. A mention was made earlier about a switch heater, similar to the ATSF application(s) in Arizona, also being in Feather River Canyon. Is that truly the case or are they just "standard" switch heaters that are right alongside the rails, as shown in the photo? These ATSF-Arizona-overhead-infared things were installed before double-stack trains started running. I wonder how much clearance there is between the heater and the top of a container. If a double-stack train had a UDE right underneath one of those things, it could get quite interesting. You'd have some "hot" merchandise! |