Top products from r/trains

We found 26 product mentions on r/trains. We ranked the 29 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.

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Top comments that mention products on r/trains:

u/42DimensionalGoFish · 1 pointr/trains

While it's not the most scholastic source (the owner sometimes writes subjective things on objective topics), AmericanRails is probably the most comprehensive easy-to-navigate free site and is a great way to learn about general North American rail history for free. Wikipedia is hit-or-miss as always, with some very comprehensive articles and some that are just a few lines and a picture, but the fact that it's free makes it worth a look.

You mention the east coast, do you mean the Northeast Corridor specifically or the entire coast? If you mean the NEC, the line was operated for most of its history by the New Haven RR and the Pennsylvania RR, which would later both become Penn Central before Amtrak took over operations of the NEC. If you mean the entire coast, I'll need another comment for that.

Unfortunately this hobby's best information about historic railroading is almost entirely book-based, so to get everything you'll have to invest in some books. Anything by Kalmbach will be accurate, comprehensive, and hopefully not too hard to read, this is a good historical summary. I have this book, and I think it's a good summary; the language isn't difficult and there's plenty of pictures. I've seen people recommend this one, it's less of a history book and more of an encyclopedia of nearly every major North American railroad. These books cover general topics; there's been scores of books written about every railroad that exists/existed. If you can help refine the location/area, we can try to find more specific information.

u/Blackfloydphish · 4 pointsr/trains

The seemingly paradoxical characteristics of flexibility and strength are pretty impressive.

Rail used to come in 45 foot lengths that were bolted together. Those bolts come loose periodically and need to be tightened. Railroads used to have section gangs spaced regularly along the mainline to patrol and maintain the tracks. Those gangs made up a very large workforce that often lived in micro communities in the middle of nowhere that were made up entirely of railroad workers and their families.

Nowadays, rail is imported in 90’ sticks that are welded together into quarter-mile lengths. Those quarter-mile lengths of rail are distributed by special trains then welded together on site. That’s called continuously welded rail (CWR) and represents a major breakthrough for the railroads. There is much less maintenance required, which means a much smaller maintenance of way workforce. CWR saves railroads money through both lower costs and improved reliability.

I can’t recommend any YouTube channels, but I can recommend the book The Railroad: What It Is And What It Does. It’s an excellent book that explains, in detail, almost every aspect of railroad operations.

Edit: fixed link

u/jrz126 · 4 pointsr/trains

Locomotives: The Modern Diesel and Electric Reference
This one has a good history on the progression of modern Diesel locomotives in North America.

The Railroad: What It Is, What It Does
Borrowed this one from a co-worker many years ago. Pretty sure it had quite a bit of engineering related details.

u/pwnedbypontz · 1 pointr/trains

I have a book that I think you'll really enjoy. it the Model Railroader Steam locomotives cyclopedia- vol1 edited by Lynn H. Westcott. This book not only diagrams entire steam locomotives and explains how each part works but it also contains pictures and blueprints of almost every american made steam locomotive produced or prototyped. This book includes locomotives from Penncy, UP, Southern Pacific, Norfolk Southern, Reading, NYC, Northern Pacific and more. Here is an amazon link to an example of the book just to show you what it looks like.
http://www.amazon.com/Model-Railroader-Cyclopedia-Vol-Locomotives/dp/0890240019

u/ickybus · 9 pointsr/trains

so typically you'd go by number of axles, nose style, and fan and radiator position and size. however, even within a single model there can be a lot of variation because every locomotive is custom-made to some degree for the customers.

for example, these are all SD70s, but they look pretty drastically different.

this book gets into a lot of the nitty gritty of trainspotting. published in 2015 so should still encompass at least 95% of currently operating equipment.

u/BigBananaSouffle · 5 pointsr/trains

This man wrote some very fine books. I had this in the 70's as a kid growing up. I read it a lot...

His name was OS Nock. he was a railwayman in England. Any of his books would be a good start or addition to any collection.

https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopaedia-Railways-S-Nock/dp/0706406044

u/beldel142 · 1 pointr/trains

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/027102741X?pc_redir=1414103908&robot_redir=1
I'm doing this from mobile so hopefully the link works. And the book is non fiction this is a real account of what life was like from 1904-1949

u/crucible · 2 pointsr/trains

Three series have been broadcast so far, with another currently in production. The first 2 are available on DVD and you can even buy a reprint of the Bradshaw Guide.

u/nikolatesla86 · 3 pointsr/trains

http://www.amazon.com/Steam-Locomotives-Really-Popular-Science/dp/0198607822

Very technical and goes into thermodynamics and the engineering behind a lot of the functions. Based on British locos

u/totallynaked-thought · 3 pointsr/trains

HSR is a complex economic model(?). As speed increase, track forces increase equalling greater wear on the railhead. So read how the French, Japanese, and Germans for example came up with many solutions to achieve better economics.

The French for example started their HSR project in the 70's with gas turbine powered trains riding on a cushion of air. OPEC oil crisis drove them to electricity (plus some other interesting developments). They also figured out a way to make their trains run on conventional track in and out of cities and built new lines just for the TGV between city pairs. Japan started off slow with moderately HSR and overtime achieved greater speeds.

I'm smelling that you're looking to show someone or perhaps yourself that the CA HSR project is stupid or ill-advised etc because track maintenance will somehow be astronomical. Track is a sunk cost.. without it you can't do anything. Why do you think that the procurement process with Amtrak has sought to seek a European or Asian equipment vendor to supply non tier-3 compliant train-sets (light weight)? Equipment designed to our standards has been a failure (Acela) in that those train sets are too heavy, require too frequent maintenance (weight related wheel cracks), and can only achieve moderate speeds (160 mph)

You can find the similarities in highways.. the weight of freight trucks has increased damage to freeways and state arterials to the point that some states ban tandems and triples for example. Highway trust fund is broke, repairs are being made out of general funds...

Have a look at Europe’s high speed trains : a study in geo-economics / Mitchell P. Strohl ; foreword by Michel Walrave.. Its a very good book by an american in Paris who knows his stuff. You can get this book at any library. I also suggest TRB too for scholarly research on the matter as well.

Until superconductors are available for cheap and work at room temperature MagLev is a dead end. Its too expensive, too limited, and too one trick pony. You can't operate anything else on a maglev track.. Maglev track is different in its entirety

u/geared4war · 2 pointsr/trains

Red for Danger.
History of british rail disasters.