Heated switches

T

TrainNut

Ditat Deus
Sep 15, 2004
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I found this and thought it was interesting enough to share...


[SIZE=+1]Switches[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+1]On November 30, 2000 the Alaska Railroad installed the first set of 80 heated, radio-controlled switching systems at Hurricane. No longer will a member of the train crew have to get off the train, chip ice and sweep snow off the switches and manually set the switch. The switches are activated by the engineer on board the train and will no longer be activated by hand. These switches are kept free of snow and ice by a heater powered with a combination of wind and solar energy. All switches will be installed by 2004 for a total cost of $60 million.[/SIZE]



Hurricane is about 100 miles north of Anchorage.
Courtesy of this site.... http://www.alaskarails.org/ARR-snow-fighting.html
 
Back in the 60's ,when the laid off all the sectionmen that had to camp out in little sheds and keep the switches clear ,CN converted the switches to heated units. Since I went west about this time and while I was away they took out the siding I can't tell you any more about it except they were operated from Moncton.
 
I watched the episode on the Alaska Railroad on the RFD program "Trains & Locomotives" and I think the reason the Alaska Railroad operates the switches from the cab is that rather than using ctc, they dispatch a train from each end of the railroad, and the first one to the passing siding halfway to/from Anchorage pulls in and waits for the train from the opposite direction before proceding.
 
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