Nostalgia & History > Run 8 or Full Dynamics

After watching numerous train videos on youtube prompted this thought..which sounds better trackside, a train grinding uphill in Run 8, or a train in full dynamics descending?  Your thoughts are appreciated,

Kent in CArmel Valley

They both sound good.
ALLEN
 

Nothing better then the sound and feel of eight or ten Espee engines running in run 8 struggling to get to the top of the hill. On the other hand you get that Dynamic whine and smell of the brakes as they try to contain all that tonnage coming down the hill, knowing that it all may get away from them. I would say Full Dynamics.

Ed

SPED Wrote: > ... eight or ten Espee engines ...

(insert light-hearted chuckling here) You mean ONLY if they were SP engines?? (heh heh heh). I remember one morning in the dark wee hours sitting on a bench outside the Santa Fe wire office (on-duty point) in Emporia, KS. The wire office was at the west end of the 2-story, solid brick passenger station. With 3 or 4 westbound trains all called within about 30" of each other there several guys hanging around. I don't remember the train I was called for. But a Red Rock, OK coal load was coming in ahead of it. And when that particular train came into town and up to a stop at the wire office the inbound hogger had the entire 6-unit consist in full dynamic braking. I don't know if he was grand-standing, or if the stop just got away from him a bit. But the cacophony of 6 units in FULL dynamo bouncing off the solid brick depot became one of those career memories I'll never lose! Quite impressive. But......... even as a die-hard Santa Fe fan I cheerfully have to admit fully 1/2 of that consist was Cascade Green with black trim...

;^)

Locos in notch 8 sound different at different speeds. 4 locos starting a train on the side of a hill can be a sensory overload experience. Both trackside or onboard.

Likewise bring a train down a hill in full dynamic running 50MPH is like listening to a jet engine on some locos.

Inspired by an old Ed King story in trains magazine, one trip while working as a brakeman, I chose to sit out on the porch of a SD40-2 and listen to the sounds on a humid summer night. It’s an experience that I wish that I could re-live.

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