this looks like some of my track.

[RAM]

This video was recorded in 1995 in Albanian lignite (brown coal) mine. This mine is located in the national park called Bredhi Drenovë. As you can see, these coal-miners do not care about labour protection.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unhXEQQk8G8.

[WoundedBear]

I love the hi-tech electrical pickup system on the loco. At least I know now that there is a prototypical railway that sparks like my layout does...

Great vid.

Sid

[Jim Banner]

I though the engine driver was being very careful - a non conductive hard hat and a glove on his stick hand.

Did you notice how he controlled the acceleration of his mine motor?  Instead of just holding his stick against the overhead wire, he tapped it against the wire, holding it on longer each time, until the motor was up to speed.  But I did not figure out what he was doing for brakes.  And you have to love that single point switch.

Jim

[az2rail]

Rotary coal dump"cool". I see the rain clouds rolling in at the end. Do you think they keep the train running?

Bruce

[OkieRick]

Aw heck, this aint no union shop.  Even if OSHA could pronounce the name of this place a sawbuck in the inspector's palm once a month would keep the wheels rolling.

I'm sure that feller was hollering, "This sure beats walking" or "we've come a long way.  Donkeys used to have to pull these loads."

The sad thing about it is all countries at one point or another were all this high on the Technology scale.


In 1970, my first year attending a junior college in Miami, OK, I took a $2.00 ride 300 feet down to an abandoned lead & zinc mine to see horses, mules and donkeys that had been bred from the original stock first used in the mines in the early 1900's. These animals, while being cared for and fed regularly had never seen the sunshine or grazed on green grass.  As a horse owner I found all this interesting but sad at the same time.  Provisions for removing the livestock were done away with once a mine became operational.  The area the mine was located in is now the polluted superfund cleanup site called Tar Creek.



Hey Jim!

Doesn't that little electric buggy earn the title of locomotve?  I'm sure he'd appreciate the job title raise from "engine driver" to "locomotive driver." 


Rick

[Guilford Guy]

I though the engine driver was being very careful - a non conductive hard hat and a glove on his stick hand.

Did you notice how he controlled the acceleration of his mine motor?  Instead of just holding his stick against the overhead wire, he tapped it against the wire, holding it on longer each time, until the motor was up to speed.  But I did not figure out what he was doing for brakes.  And you have to love that single point switch.

Jim

About 20 seconds in there appears to be a brake wheel of some sorts in the locomotive.

[Jim Banner]

Actually, Rick, I have never heard those electric locomotives for mines called anything except "mine motors" which I suppose would make the operator a "motor man."  But I will bet there are a lot of other names he gets called, including some special ones when he runs over somebody's foot.  But yes, "engine driver" was a poor choice of terms considering the machine in question has no engine, only a motor.

GG, After yet another look at the video, I saw the hand wheel just after the shot of the rotary contactor speed control laying sideways in its box.  But the wheel looks like it has not been used in a long time.  The rim in dirty, not polished clean as one would expect if it were in regular use.  Later on in the video the motor man does turn the contactor, so maybe it still works.  In this case, braking might be by shorting the motor or even by putting it in reverse and giving a few taps on the wire with the stick.

RAM, thanks for posting this thought provoking and really interesting video.

Jim

[Terry Toenges]

Jim - I wasn't aware there was a difference between "engine" and motor".

[Jim Banner]

Basically, a motor is a machine for converting any form of energy into motion.  An engine is a type of motor that converts thermal energy into motion.  If you like, engines are a subset of motors.

Thus the big thing under the hood of your car is a motor and more specifically is an engine.  But the thing that starts the engine when when you turn the key is a motor.  Being electrically powered, it is not an engine.

In railroading, that huge machine belching smoke and steam at the front of a train is a locomotive or more specifically a steam locomotive.  It consists of four main parts - a boiler, an engine, some running gear and a frame to mount it all on.  The engine includes the pistons, cylinders, valves, valve gear, rods, and drive wheels.  The drive wheels, or sometimes just those on the main axle, are included because they form both the crank and the flywheel.  In common usage, the whole thing is often referred to as an "engine" but to be technically correct, it is a "locomotive."  Calling it an engine because it has an engine as part of it is just like referring to your automobile as an engine.  But then again, we talk (or used to talk) about going "motoring."  To me, that evokes images of bouncing down the road, sitting atop a car engine with no body, no seats, no wheels.

Jim

[the Bach-man]

Dear Terry,
To add to Jim's post, in electric railroading a locomotive is called a motor. The New York Central, for instance, had P Motors, R Motors, S Motors, and T Motors, among others.
Have fun!
the Bach-man

[Hamish K]

In Britain, and countries that follow British railway terminology such as Australia, "engine" is often used for locomotive, hence Thomas the Tank Engine . This applies to diesel and electric as well, so electric engine is common. Electric motor would mean the power motors themselves, not the locomotive. Just one of the many differences between American and British terminology.

Hamish

[Guilford Guy]

Traction freight hauling locomotives are often called "Freight Motors."
Diesel Locomotives have a Diesel Engine, which turns a Generator which powers the Traction Motors, which are not to be confused with a Traction Company's Freight Motors!

[Terry Toenges]

Interesting conversation. I've always used engine or motor interchangably to describe something that created power.
Some guys work on the "motor" in their car, some work on the "engine".
In my younger years I liked steam engines (Still do). I had an Aurora Model Motoring set. I use to belong to the National Motoring Club or something that.
Driver, operator, motorman, engineer...does a feller have to carry a dictionary with him to figure out what he is at any given time.
I use to have a job where my title was "push broom operator".

[Yampa Bob]

I hear "General Engines Corporation" is filing for bankruptcy.  Seems "Ford Engine Company" is still solvent.

Would Google be a "Search Motor" since it is electronic and doesn't burn fuel? 

[Jim Banner]

Seeing engines are a sub set of motors, then "General Engines" and "Ford Engines" would make sense, as long as neither started building electric cars.  But I suspect they both chose the term "motor" because it was commonly used at that time, as in "motor car."  Like people today, many had trouble using the whole term for anything, so they shortened motor car to just "motor."  I suppose this was appropriate as the whole machine turned alternate forms of energy into motion.  In those days, the energy was not just thermal - it included the guy cranking and the other guy pushing.  Maybe even a horse pulling... "you get how many miles to the bucket of oats?...

What motion does Google create with its "Search Engine/Motor?  As far as Search Engines are concerned, they fit neither the set nor the sub set.  I suppose the first programmer to call any piece of software an "engine" did so because it sounded more manly and had better sales appeal than calling it a "Search Thingy"  or "An Applet for Simplifying the Retrieval of Online Data" ("ASTROD" for short.)  Don't ever underestimate the power of a product's name.  Why else did Photoshop succeed and Picture Publisher fail?  Who even remembers Fauve Matisse?