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Scott,
All these diesels are loud, especially in the cab. I'm starting to hear ringing when I'm actually in near dead silence.
Nobody sets sails on trains
...but the wind affects them quite a bit. The worst offenders are empty coal trains. It's like having over a hundred parachutes out behind the train and it doesn't seem to matter which direction it comes from. An empty train with two 4000 HP locomotives will slow from 60 mph to mid 30's in 30-40 mph wind. Thus the trip is both full throttle and longer.
I once worked as top climber for Wright Tree Service (
WELCOME ). The reason I quit was that we did drag wood quite a ways by hand and the last year (1968) snow was waist deep on the Minnesota/North Dakota border.(Dec/Jan 1968-69 one of the stormiest winters with six separate blizzard warnings in the state and total snowfalls ranging from 30 to 50 inches in northern counties from the six storms.)
I was a young man in great shape and could climb a rope hand-over-hand, up 40 feet in seconds. But I couldn't take dragging that brush for a half mile or so through that snow. Most was not full tree removal, just branches. I know, I'm a wuss.
I kind of wonder if we won't go back to coal fired steam engines sometimes.
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