CONTROLLING SLACK ACTION IN A UNIT TRAIN

Slack action in long railroad trains can give rise to damaging longitudinal forces. This paper develops criteria for the occurrence of unplanned slack action in a unit train on a gradient change. It is shown that remote-controlled locomotives at the rear of the train can substantially reduce the incidence of such slack action. This is achieved by maintaining a unimodal draft force profile throughout the train. From these results it is suggested how a train driving schedule could be determined for a particular run by considering the train parameters and the profile of the route.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Contributed by the Rail Transportation Division of the ASME for presentation at the Joint ASME-IEEE Railroad Conference held in Washington, D.C., March 30-April 1, 1977.
• Corporate Authors:

  American Society of Mechanical Engineers

  Two Park Avenue
  New York, NY  United States  10016-5990
• Authors:
  • Kerr, A J
• Publication Date: 1977-3-30

Media Info

• Features: Appendices; Figures; References;
• Pagination: 8 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Couplers; Force; Slave locomotives; Train operations; Train track dynamics; Unit trains
• Old TRIS Terms: Grade operations; Slack action
• Subject Areas: Railroads; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00152433
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: American Society of Mechanical Engineers
• Report/Paper Numbers: Paper 77-RT-12 Conf Paper
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: May 11 1977 12:00AM