Dispatches from a Cargo Cultist

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

That's so very technical that I just love it... thank you for the expanded info.

I'm experiencing a brief moment of geek nirvana....

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I don't know at those amps and voltages but I wouldn't be surprised if the ozone produced by the arcs reached a fair amount of toxicity. Do you have a mask, and if so how frequently do you use it?

[Swatopluk]

From my own experience ozone levels become intolerable before they become really harmful (short time exposure only). Even rather small amounts are so unpleasant that noone will stay long enough (unless trapped) to get a lethal dose.
Longtime exposure to low levels is something different of course.
Not sure, if there are ozone masks. They would have to decompose the ozone in the filter (it's oxygen after all and keeping that out altogether would defy the purpose ) but the formed radicals would be extremly aggressive.

[Lindorm]

I don't know at those amps and voltages but I wouldn't be surprised if the ozone produced by the arcs reached a fair amount of toxicity. Do you have a mask, and if so how frequently do you use it?

Considering that the engine room is about 12 by 3 by 2 metres, and ventilated by 12 high-power fans for the air cooling of transformer, converters and traction motors (the waste heat from the main transformer alone is on the order of 400 kW), I'd say that dangerous concentrations of anything would be very unlikely.

We do have an escape hood]=http://www.srsafety.com/product.aspx?p_id=10320] escape hood in each cab to use in case of fire, though -all that cabling and fire-retardant insulation can get quite nasty when it finally burns, and while the transformer oil isn't PCB-laced anymore, it's still a far cry from a vegan acai berrry and soymilk smoothie. 

[Lindorm]

So, what have I been up to lately?
As mentioned elsepost, I have been involved in a fair bit of training of drivers-to-be at a training centre in Stockholm. Recently, I was there as a sort of guest lecturer to give a talk on goods wagons, how they work, how to perform functional and safety checks and so on. While the lecture was quite long, and sometimes a bit heavy, I got the impression they liked it a lot. I did give them some colourful examples of what can go wrong, and what happens then, which did get their attention. I think I have been having a certain influence on the trainee group, too -literally all the girls in the group want to go to a freight operator for their practice period, whilst most of the guys are thinking about either high-speed passenger trains or raking in the cash at the airport express company. Wimps! 

I'll have them over for some practical sessions next week, doing a bit of practical instruction on brake testing, coupling and similar stuff. I intend to let them get very, very dirty!    And the week after that, they will be heading out for their first four-week practice period, which two of them will be having at my home depot. I will have one of them as a student driver, and I will also handle the practical stuff surrounding their practice period -booking lodging rooms, tickets, next-of-kin details and all the other minutiae. This is their first period of practical training, so it will mainly focus on them getting to see a lot of the theory they have been studying fall in place, get a taste of driving and teach them some basic survival skills when it comes to shunting.

I'll be very busy for the upcoming six weeks or so, but I am also looking forward to doing some training again and having a student driver. Then again, since we basically will be living together for a month, I hope I will get one that I get along with outside of driving, too -otherwise, it might be a bit boring or loooong awkwards silences. Nah, I'm sure it'll work out OK -most of the students in that group seem to be quite keen and alert. I'm not sure how I'll be able to handle a foaming trainspotter, though, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

[Lindorm]

Yesterday afternoon, we had a very nasty reminder that working on the railway can be a quite dangerous occupation. Two workers doing work related to the new Citytunnel connector in the north end of the goods yard where I am based were struck by a passing commuter train. One died on the scene, the other got his legs cut off. While not exactly colleagues or friends, the guys from that contractor have their temporary shacks next to our crewing base, and often pop in to our break rooms for a coffee and a chat, so they are hardly unknown strangers either. I don't know the exact chain of events leading up to this accident, but the persons involved were all trained in PTS and procedures for working on-track, and experienced in doing that kind of work. Still, yesterday something went very wrong, and now someone has lost their son, their father, their husband or their fellow worker.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I'm very sorry to hear that, one thing is to hear about occupational hazards and a very different thing is to deal with an incident. My thoughts to the families and the survivor.

[Sibling DavidH]

Nasty.  I can imagine it makes you feel pretty down for a bit.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Ever vigilant we must remain, with regards to safety-- and gentle reminders are not only a good idea, but a must--
...sometimes, I find myself growing complacent around high voltage electricity, mainly because I've not been shocked in a long while.

So I have to force myself to remember that it is not only painful, but deadly.

I think it is in the nature of humans to forget that they are literally one tiny misjudgment away from maiming and death-- and no, I am not blaming the victims, here-- it could've been someone else's signaling error as easily as complacency.

<I> Feel sorrow for the families of the one bloke, and sympathy for the other one--who while alive, his life has unexpectedly made a 90 degree left turn...

... and right now, I can appreciate sudden, unexpected sharp turns in life, having just experienced one myself (although mine was not injury-related, it is an upheaval).

[Darlica]

I have the deepest sympathy for these men and their families.

Still, I'm very happy because L was not involved in anyway. My heart stopped for a beat when I heard about the accident on the news. Thankfully L called just minutes afterwards so I didn't had the time to get really worried.

This has been a really black year for railway maintenance contractors so far, as late as in April three workers also working on the "Citytunneln" project got hit by a underground train in the tunnel between two stations, one person died immediately one was seriously wounded and the third person was physically unharmed but in shock after witnessing his colleagues accident. The driver of the train was also shocked and brought to hospital.

(((((((((♥)))))))))

[Swatopluk]

There are grim statistics that the average train driver will run over people several times during his/her career, in most cases suiciders that do not care about the effect on the driver (and despite abundant info have not checked that it very often is neither a secure nor quick way out, especially not close to stations where the train is not at full speed). But even without these cases I am actually surprised that rail workers are not run over on a daily basis esp. on the metro (underground). Not a job I would want to have.

[Lindorm]

Suicides are indeed a problem for train drivers, but there are also those who take short-cuts across the tracks, ride on skateboards right on the platform edge, try to ride on goods wagons or on the couplers of trains as a dare, people who use the tracks as a toilet and countless other examples. There are also those who try to beat the train through a level crossing, or who can't get themselves to leave their car if they get stuck on a level crossing, or try to use the railway as a bike/car/skiing/snowmobile path. Or a convenient place to walk their dog. Or another of the countless of excuses I have seen and heard.

Nevertheless, it is indeed a traumatic experience for all those involved. For example, someone has to clean things up and sanitize the train, and someone has to talk a walk along the track in the darkness, looking for the pieces that once was a teenage boy but now are strewn across a kilometre or two. 

At least here in Sweden, the caretaking process of those involved in such an accident has improved a lot the last 15-20 years or so. Most companies only require the driver to make an emergency call, stating the nature of the accident and the position, and that's it. You are not really supposed to do anything else, apart from securing your train, since you are definitely under high stress, and stressed-out people tend to make stupid mistakes.

When help arrives at the site, a "kamratstödjare", "support buddy", an experienced fellow colleague with some basic training in emergency psychology and caretaking takes care of the driver, and gets him or her off the site as soon as possible. They make their way to some suitable place -nearby company offices, the home crewing base, whatever, and sit down and try to relax and unwind a bit. Depending a bit on how the afflicted driver feels, they might meet up with a company representative and start writing up a report on what happened. Likewise, the police sometimes want to interview the driver as well. Due to some unfortunate incidents with very insensitive actions by the police, most companies have a policy of instructing staff to not agree to any interviews etc with the police unless they have a "stödkamrat" and/or company representative present. 

Eventually, the driver is taken home, and care is taken to ensure that the driver is not alone at home, or at least has an easy means of contacting someone if need should arise. Manly men sitting at home, turning things over and over and over again in their heads whilst staring into the wall with a bottle of booze at their side is thankfully not considered a desirable solution anymore.

Most companies also operate on a policy of not granting sick leave to persons who have had such an incident (unless they are physically harmed, of course). Instead, they are relieved of their normal duties, but expected to pop into work and meet fellow colleagues and a manager, in order for them to get back to their job slowly but surely. After a few days, they might tag along with a colleague for a ride on a train, and then start driving on their own, often with a stödkamrat accompanying them for the first few tours.

This is of course the ideal situation, and unfortunately not always the outcome. Likewise, while most companies are good at taking care off the immediate emergency and aftermath, the long-term follow-up is often sorely lacking. Medical research (actually performed on train drivers from my former place of work) showed significantly increased stress hormone levels even a year after a person under train incident. Various incarnations of PTSD are not unheard of, either. The system of care is far from perfect, and it is unfortunatley a case of mostly being something for drivers with other staff getting very varying levels of post-incident care. Some companies are very good at dealing with the whole train crew and others affected, other operators are less than stellar.

Still, it is a vast improvment "Take three days off, and get a bottle of vodka" and Real Men Don't Cry, which was the norm not so very long ago. However, anyway you look at it, it is still one of the major occupational health problems we face as train drivers, and one that has the potential to affect any and all of us. While you can certainly learn to live with your experiences, they do affect you and change you, and they are impossible to forget.

[Sibling DavidH]

We had a shocking incident in our village, just about the time I joined this forum. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1243758/Woman-driver-dies-train-ploughs-car-level-crossing.html

Both cars were waiting at the crossing.  Buildings prevent drivers from seeing a southbound train until the last second, but people trust the barriers, so when they went up the cars moved onto the crossing, just as a fast train came through.  The westbound car was hit square-on and thrown maybe 150 metres.  The eastbound car had to cross the empty line first and was almost able to stop in time; it seems the car hit the moving train and was thrown clear without much damage.

The only possibility is that the signalman opened the barriers too soon.

I hear from a credible source that at the critical moment a farmer phoned the signal box to ask for a private crossing further north to be opened so he could move some sheep across, as the train had just cleared that crossing.  The signalman leaned over to do this and hit the wrong switch.  He instantly realised his mistake, but too late.

All kinds of nonsense is still being talked in the village but my feeling is sorrow for the poor bloody signalman.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Is why such things ought not to be left to fallible humans.

[Lindorm]

Working on the railways, you get to pass through large parts of the Swedish countryside. It's interesting to see the differences in landscape and climate when you travel to a remote part of the country, or for that matter to do a bit of reading-up on the history of some of the places you pass through. Often, the economical and social history of a place can be quite interesting and something to ponder  as you pass through a closed-down rustbelt small town or realize that traisn have been running to this harbour for more than 150 years.

And sometimes, the modern socio-historical conditions of a place can be quite colourful, even exotic or, dare I say it, burlesque.

As I have mentioned in several posts, there is a town in Sweden called Hallsberg.
Hallsberg has in itself more or less no redeeming values whatsoever, but as it happened, it became a junction between several of the major trunk lines when the Swedish railways were built during the 1800's. Thus, Hallsberg became a very important railway town, with a huge goods yard and marshalling yard to go with it. As a driver working for a freight operating company, a fair bit of my time is spent on trains either towards or from Hallsberg.

Now, from Hallsberg there is a branch line going south-east towards Motala and eventually Mjölby, passing through such interesting places as Åsbro, Mariedamm and Rönneshytta. You have never heard of those places, you say? Most Swedes haven't either -they are small villages, once having had an industry of some sort, now relegated to a interlocking and a passing loop in the middle of nowhere, and the few remaining inhabitants are either small-scale farmers or commute to Mjölby or Örebro to work.

Although Åsbro gained a bit of infamy recently -the one surviving industry there is by the way a large wood treatment plant, where wooden construction objects, including railway sleepers, are treated to make them impervious to rot, insects and weather. it has actually been deemed cheaper to keep the plant in operation than to pay the costs for the environmental clean-up after over a hundred years of continous use. That was not the source of the infamy, though.

The old manor of Åsbro was put up for sale some years ago, after the farmer who owned it went bankrupt. Part of the old manor buildings were purchased by a sort of new-age group doing healing therapy sessions with indian yoga, sun-dancing and odd diets. They also offered courses in how to stop eatign and only subsisting on sunlight and pure water. Considering the presence of the wood treatment plant, one did not have to be overly cynic to wonder where they would find pure water in Åsbro, but each to their own I suppose. The creosote treatment is proven to be effective against psoriasis at least, though it might lead to cancer in the long term.

Another part of the manor was purchased by a norwegian businesswoman, who had plans to open a "conference and event facility", specialising in providing clients with unique team-building experiences and events. As it turned out, the clients were members of a certain association in which the businesswoman also had a prominent position.  In fact, the association was a BDSM association, who finally had found an object to rebuild into the castle of their dreams on the lines of many a lurid bodice-ripper, complete with dungeons, stocks, suitably drafty attic chambers and other implements necessary for the discerning sadist with bad literary taste.

Now, imagine what happens when the BDSM association one merry day decides to have a little "slave hunt" on their grounds, with the poor slaves allowed a (small) running start, escaping into the forest, with collars and piercings and shackles and what not all merrily jangling, followed by their cruel masters and mistresses, brandishing riding crops, whips, snares, large butterfly nets and unbelievable amounts of black leather.

Consider also the nice little yoga clan, deciding to go on a small pilgrimage to a secluded clearing in the woods, there to do some naked yoga exercises, meditating on leaves of grass or little droplets of morning dew and generally subsisiting only on sunlight and mumbling some mantra or other in peaceful and quite harmony.

Now consider what happened when the twain met, perhaps not with a physically loud clash, but certainly a monumental clash of Weltanschaung. Who was trespassing upon the land of whom? Who had most severly jangled the delicate sensibilites of whom? Tempers ran high, some of the peaceful meditators turned out to be lawyers with suprisingly shark-like attitudes, and eventually, fists started flying.

Imagine what the local population thought of seeing the fight spill over into the village itself. Including the remnants of the old station, by the way -though none of the combatants tried to chain another to the track. Perhaps they have a specially equipped room for such purposes at the manor, complete with suitably modified Märklin model trains?

Imagine the field day the more lurid tabloids had. "Secret club for violent sex engage in public displays of deviancy", to quote a headline.

Oh, and won't someone think of the children?


(Links to Swedish tabloids filled with righteous moral indignation furnished upon request. Link to webiste of said kinky manor, complete with pictures of memmbers engaging in, well, activities also supplied upon request. Chlorine bleach for eyeball-washing you have to supply yourself.)