US vs European air connection arrangements

3 December 2018

A quick update on the differences between US and European arrangements for placing air-pipe connection and lights on the front of a train. This is the result of my ER (equally retired) BiA (brother in arms) David Sell from California, ex-Santa Fe & Amtrak pedigree, someone worth to hold on to. He replied to my inquiry about the array of air lines between loco and train. His answer was revealing in a number of ways, as it deals with technical matters as much as what is considered necessary for keeping up public safety when operating trains. Europe and North America differ on a number of issues there and I thought you might like to hear about it. For what is coming now you’ll need Amy’s picture of the Amtrak AEM-7 and PRR GG1 number 4800, the black one with the riveted skin, published earlier.

Point is that this picture actually gave me a chance to have a good, detailed look at the buffer beam of modern US traction for the first time since the 1980’s. Incidentally, in the new book I mention the restricted forward view from the driver’s windscreen on the GG1. The minimal windscreen that you see on this machine is the one that the driver sits behind. Good thing that the fireman, now the shunter and the one with the responsibility for the oil-fired steam generator, sat at the left hand side of the cab when travelling. No way this loco could be used without two pairs of trained eyes in the cab, the situation as on a steam engine.
Let’s first look at the brake/ main reservoir pipe arrangement on the GG1, as the differences between de European set-up and the US array are not yet that obvious here. On the lower right hand side, next to the coupler, we see the brake pipe and the  main reservoir pipe. Properly stowed, incidentally; not doing that is a problem everywhere one goes and visits railway premises with a knowledgeable eye. On the left side of the coupler the steam heat connection, above the coupler the coupler-release levers. Nothing that much different from what we can see here. The six covers are for m.u jumpers and the like, pretty much standard on the Pennsylvania Railroad in their days. If we now turn to the AEM, we see that the coupler release lever sits uncomfortably low and that there are grab handles higher up to aid the shunter to use force without doing his back in. The brake and main res pipes are in fact right there where the GG has them as well, which should have given me a hint. So the four shiny new pipes hanging down have a different function.They do indeed. As David reports from scorched California, the two pipes directly either side of the coupler are Multiple Unit Main Reservoir Equalizing pipes and the ones outside either side are application and release pipes for the independent brake, or in British Rail parlance they connect the Straight Air Brakes on coupled up locomotives with each other in order to be able to use the independent/ straight air brakes on all available loco’s from the working cab. Which answered another question I had for a long time: why did locomotives of the first post WWII generation in The Netherlands have an extra brake pipe in the centre of their front above the coupler. The answer turned out to be a M.U. straight air brake pipe connection, especially useful when Netherlands Railways started to use four in m.u. on the coal and ore trains from the coast into the German Ruhr Area. The US influence on Dutch details in the operating area breaking surface; even the French built Alsthom electric and DE locomotives had them here, but not in France in France or elsewhere where they were used (Russia, as the case is, possibly replacing the GE “Little Joe’s” that never were sent over).In the US case, the equalising main reservoir equalising connection probably has to do with ensuring that compressors and brake control installation on the loco’s behind the controlled one will not start to charge the brake pipe when the driver up front is using the brake and therefore lowers the pressure during braking (Dave?). It is that I remember similar but electrically controlled arrangements in the UK on Southern DC multiple unit trains.The brake release pipe is interesting as I worked with brake valves in the UK that could be used to give an overcharge when attempting to release the train brakes on a long train. You could temporarily blow a higher pressure into the brake pipe to induce the triple valve or other air brake control units to give up being a nuisance and move other to release the brake block or pads from the wheels/ brake discs. Handy if early in the morning you had to prepare locomotives after a night standing around with working engines and the brakes didn’t come off easily. Or you had to use the air brake on stock that had been sitting around for a long time.
The head and tail lights. As we see on the GG, the headlight is very obvious and the tail (marker-) lights can be found in the Raymond Loewy arrangement up there either side of the nose, with the loco-number (reporting-) lights in their sides. Then the AEM from top to bottom. In the USA it is mandatory that a train entering a public area makes its approach unmistakeably clear to the congregated public. Hence the “sexy” horn array and the two white coloured strobe blinking lights on top, often bells are added. This is no longer mandatory in Europe and with the amount of trains entering and leaving stations it would probably lose much of its use indeed. The red light between the reporting light boxes above the windscreen is an emergency indicator; it flashes when used and indicates to a train on an adjacent track that it is not allowed to pass the train showing this signal due to potential fouling equipment or people on the track. Similar function to steady or flashing red and white all-light indications on a vehicle this side of the Atlantic, therefore. The two red lights, steady indication when switched on, under the windscreen are the marker/ tail lights. This adheres to the rule that when the loco forms the tail of a propelled push-pull service, its passing must be clearly indicated as much as that people working on the track are aware that the train is moving away from them. The white double light is the same as seen on US-built loco’s in the UK, which is called the headlight here. Like we can see over here, the light can be switched to a bearable brightness with one lamp lit, or a foul-language inducing brightness if the driver forgets to switch the second lamp off or bears a grudge against you (East Robinson in the book). The two white lights low on the front have the name ditch lights in the US and Marker Lights in the UK. Normally they show a steady indication and form a triangle with the headlight as we see over here, but they can flash as a wig-wag to once again form a warning to people on level crossings, platforms and along the track to look out for the approaching train. Not something seen in Europe but most certainly in many African and South American countries, Australia and New Zealand.
In the book I talk about Budd rail vehicles with their characteristically ribbed sides, we had them in Europe (France, Portugal) as well. The coach behind the AEM is such a Budd cladded coach in stainless steel.
The picture: The bogie/ truck of an AEM. The lose hanging wire is a negative bond between the loco-body and the axle/ wheel to conduct static, stray and Earth Fault electricity to the track to avoid it causing hazards on the loco like malfunctions or unjustified indications  On the axle box of the front axle we see what looks like the speedometer connection. The primary suspension is made up of rubber and steel laminate springs, nothing wrong with that but as can be seen here tightly caught in the truck to avoid uncontrolled side-ward excursions like it was possible with the GE floating bolster in the secondary suspension.  The sizeable vertical motion dampers point at a similar tight control in that direction, actuating between the big grey bolster-box that is not fitted to the truck frame but to the loco-body and covers the no less than three doubled secondary suspension spiral springs either side that carry the loco-body on the truck. Notice the levers that hold the forward/ rearward and traction power bolster-arrangement in place between the top end (grey box) and the bottom-end (plank under the secondary suspension springs. Have a good look inside the outside springs to see the springs inside them. There are steel wires under this box, fitted to ensure that the truck will not break away during a derailment. Something that was much discussed in Britain after the high-speed Ufton-Nervet derailment, where broken-loose air-sprung Bt-10 bogies caused severe damage to the stricken train. The wheels are interesting: they are Swedish SAB resilient wheels. Inside the rusty looking tyre with the bolts that hold them to the main wheel there are elastic blocks that enable movement of the tyre on the main sections of the wheels. Failure of this set up was what caused the terrible Eschede high-speed accident with 101 fatalities in 1999 (see the book).

Three more pictures from Amy Varias

29 November 2018

Three more pictures from Amy Varias in the Strasburg PA railroad museum. Made for the book I’m touting to publishers at present, whilst I have also offered the manuscript for serialisation in the magazine “Op de Rails” (on the tracks) of the Dutch organisation for railway interested folks called NVBS. They just emailed me they like the idea, so at least we can grow interest in the book that way, which is the sort of certainty of sales that publishers crave. I can see their point, in all honesty.

Photo 1) A detail of the bogie/truck of a General Electric built Amtrak class E-60 Co’Co’ high-speed (intended) electric locomotive. We clearly spot the connection for the speedometer and possibly wheelslip monitoring equipment on the axle-box cover, with a small-mile counter with a horizontal slot to see the accumulated miles fitted behind it. I saw this very detail earlier on the truck of British Rail class 84 number 001 in Bo’Ness Scotland, incidentally, never seen that before on rail rolling stock. But yes, keeping track of the miles travelled makes sense and this is one way (from those days before satellite tracking, remember those?) to do it. Above the axle box we see the coil springs of the primary suspension between the axle and the truck frame. Travel upwards and then to the left and we spot something that looks like layers of black rubber between sheets of metal. That is what had to act as the secondary suspension between the truck frame and the 126 tons of locomotive body above it. Four of these rubber/steel sandwich “springs” per truck. Above it we see the protruding heavy cast steel support incorporated in the bolster, whilst part of the view on the spring is blocked by something sticking out without an immediately obvious function. It had one, though, that is where a yaw-damper between the body and the truck was fitted. Equipment that nowadays is standard issue on any piece of high-speed rail equipment let loose on the tracks. Anyway, this is what GE marketed as the “floating bolster”. Four of such rather squishy and in their motion uncontrollable stacked sets of rubber pancakes between sheets of metal. Another peice of later kit are the rubbery black looking bits with the two white eyes. To see that you have to go down to the bottom of the wheel and see a sort of nut with a handle sticking out to the right. If you undo that bit both sides of the wheels and axle the whole assembly holding that axle in the truck frame falls out, in fact the way to drop the axle and traction motor assembly out of the truck frame. You now see how the so-called horns, keeping the axlebox in place whilst allowing them to move up and down, work. These had to be tightened up without seizing up on the axlebox. That is what those black thingies with the white fasteners are all about. There also were motion dampers fitted between axle boxes and truck frame, but only on one side of each truck. It nevertheless didn’t save the loco for its intended job, read on.The story behind it all? Amtrak needed to desperately replace the ageing GG1 2’Co’Co’2′ machines due to plummeting reliability and paucity of spares. The usual reason to ditch ancient equipment, incidentally, is exactly that: lack of particular spares. During a quiet night-shift of moving stock around Stewart’s Lane depot in Battersea (next to the Pink Floyd four-stacked power station and the Battersea dog’s home) I’ve helped Gatwick Express mechanics fashion a wooden clamp by hand from a block of wood for that precise reason: to take the three heavy dc traction current cables from the loco on to the traction motor of one of my beloved class 73 ED’s. So new locomotives were required, and GE used the situation to put forward this class E-60 to cut the necessary delivery time to one year with the argument that European locomotives (probably better suited for 125 mph/ 200 km/h work) would require at least three years for agreement on the necessary alterations for running in the USA and most of all to get past the bureaucracy that would fight spending federal money on expensive foreign-built public transport kit. So Amtrak, in serious time-trouble, agreed to initially purchase thirty E-60’s. From day one it was clear that these machines were fine up to speeds of 50 mph, 80 km/h, but that 125 mph, 200 km/h, was outside their remit. Not only did the trucks hunt terribly, whilst powerfully accelerating the whole loco set up a fore-and-after side to side motion. Like the Pennsy P5’s did before them, it was a bit a matter of back to the future there. The derailment at Elkton MD at 106 mph/ 169 km/h due to the loco spreading the track gauge stopped running E-60 at high speeds in its tracks. NTSB came on the scene and found serious problems with the floating bolster arrangement and the weight of the locomotives. GE set to work to alter the loco’s and found that really, they’d have to put different trucks under them and cut a serious lot of weight, which basically amounted to redesigning the machines. This is what led to the invitation to test European machines and to the eventual arrival of the “Swedish Meatballs”, the EMD built AEM-7 Bo’Bo’ based on the ASEA Rc-4. Lighter, rather more powerful and eminently able to quietly run at 125 mph. A few E-60’s, among which this one, were retained and used at 145 km/h on night services. They were retired in 2003, one went to Strasburg museum where Amy took this picture.

Photo 2) Remember the black and slightly rusty Number 4800 GG1 called old rivets last ramble? This is what Raymond Loewy added; a smooth welded skin with his trade-mark streamlined reporting-light clusters either side next to the headlight and a rather fetching Burgundy green with five line gold pin-stripe livery. Remember, this is when people in the paint shop were skilled: they set this out and then painted these lines, didn’t stick them on. I also would like to point out the folded down step and the hand-holds in front of the nose door. Number 4935 belongs to the last machines built during WWII, Old Rivets 4800 was from 1937. I guess that the Army veteran next to the loco is part of the celebrations around the termination of WWI.

Photo 3) “Old Rivets” 2’Co’Co’2′ GG1 nr. 4800 in its faded black ConRail freight livery next to its Swedish designed Amtrak successor, the ASEA/ EMD AEM-7 Bo’Bo’. This machine is clearly recognisable as from European stock, but has nevertheless a lot of details one would not normally find our side of the Atlantic. On both loco’s the various stairways to heaven, on the AEM-7 up between the windscreens with a sign on top warning to watch high-voltage. The GG1 appears to have a switch handle to the right, which I would not be surprised to find that it opens the air line to the pantographs and drops them. The array of horns on the AEM-7 looks seriously sexy, can’t help saying that and would love them to adorn my little Renault Kangoo van. The red lights can act as tail lights for a light loco and flash (as do the white ones on the top corners) when required for warning like when e.g. entering a platform track. The headlights can flash in wig-wag fashion when approaching a level crossing, something that is done in many parts of the world nowadays. Interesting is the array of sockets for electric connections and the air jumpers; the fat pipes next to the couplers are for the brake-pipe connection and the thinner ones next to them are those for the main-reservoir air connection. Notice that the brake pipe and the main res air connectors cannot be erroneously coupled, they face in opposite ways and are in fact constructed differently, the main-res connectors have star-valves inside that close them off when uncoupled. In the late 1920 Netherlands Railways started to run self-discharging freight trains with household waste (VAM trains, the train identity number of one of them 4711, after a well-known Eau de Cologne) from various cities to a composting plant in Wijster in the province of Drente, aka the middle of nowhere in those far-off days. The discharge doors of those vehicles were centrally unlocked and opened with air pressure from the locomotive and initially the arrangement of connections was pretty much like what we see here. Except that the connectors on the train were all facing the same way and could be freely connected with each other. It had to happen: a long loaded train had been assembled from various originating points for onwards travel to Wijster. I think it was the old Haarlem Leidsevaart yard, close to where the blue NZH trams had their depot, in fact. The steam locomotive comes up and is attached and the shunter quickly attaches the single pipe from the locomotive to one of the pipes of the train. It happened to be the outside one as here, but that turns out the one for the doors. So when the locomotive pumps air into the brake pipe to release the train brakes, the doors along the entire length of the train slowly and majestically open and dump the odorous contents wide and far on the tracks. That’s how NS Netherlands Railways learned the important lesson that we see implemented here. The couplers of the GG1 and the AEM-7 merit some closer attention too. Those of the GG1 are the good old AAR standard couplers, known as Buckeyes in the UK, pretty much as designed by Ely Janney sometime in the 1870’s (I think, have to check John E. White’s book). Janney’s purpose was on one side to provide a decently strong automatic coupler without loose pins that got lost time and again, as well as to stop the mayhem of crushed fingers of those having to couple up the link-and-pin couplers. The ones of the AEM-7 are a later version that do not actually allow different heights to couple up any longer. To that end it has a steel nose on one right side of the jaw and a pocket the other side to receive the nose of the opposing coupler. This variation is known as the tightlock and in fact allows things like coupler boxes for electric and air connections to be added, like you see on e.g. the Scharfenberg and BSI variations. We had these on the class 319 dual-current EMU’s. Whilst in this case the buckeye and the tightlock can be coupled without restrictions, those in England could not as they were of different size. It required quite a bit of preparation to enable coupling the two of them with quite a few loose bits; never good practice on the railway.
Question to my equally retired Santa Fe/ Amtrak colleague Dave Sell: What is that air pipe under the AEM coupler Dave? Independent brake by any chance?

And Dave’s answer was: There are 2 air hoses under the coupler, the brake pipe and the trainline main reservoir line.  The hoses on ether side of the coupler are the M.U. main reservoir equalizing hose (closest to the coupler), and the application and release hose for the independent brake. All of these hoses are of a different pipe size and have different styles of glad hand couplings so it is almost impossible to get them connected improperly. I say “almost impossible” because railroaders a creative lot. One of my old bosses put up a sign in our diesel shop that said “It is impossible to make anything foolproof, fools are too ingenious”.  But I digress…

As far as the lights go the 2 red ones under the windshield fulfill the requirement that trains have a “highly visible marker” on the rear and are continuously lit when the locomotive is in push mode. The red light between the number boards will flash when turned on and is an indication that trains on an adjacent track may not pass due to fouling people or equipment. 

On book and Pictures

November 23rd, 2018

My book about the Baldwin, Westinghouse and General Electric contributions to electric traction in The Netherlands, Spain and Chile has been sent to four publishers in The Netherlands and the pay for it yourself publisher answered my email within a day. I’ll not proceed with that expensive option, my bank-account is still badly smarting from the previous one, but it does indicate that they must spot a measure of quality in what was presented. Perhaps they’ll come back with a better offer and otherwise I’m still waiting to hear from the other three.

Above is a picture taken in the Pennsylvania Museum of Transport by a very good friend of mine, the history goes back to 1983 during my second summer in the USA. Amy Fordree, as her name was then, is now married to Stelios Varias, a Reuter’s Photography Editor, is occupational therapist, mother to two big sons and all in all very busy. She nevertheless listened to my honeyed arguments that it would be so good to go for a relaxing day out to that museum at Strasburg PA and take a few pics for me. One of the results can be seen here, General Electric, Westinghouse and Baldwin type Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 2’Co’Co’2′ number 4800 from 1937, the first really successful PRR 11 kV 25 Hz ac electric locomotive otherwise known as Old Rivets. That is what distinguishes this machine from the series built, which under the influence of PRR retained designer Raymond Loewy was welded and provided with a most tasteful livery of Brunswick Green and gold pinstripes. There is one in the museum as well and of course, Amy took a picture of it. Let me state immediately that transport museums anywhere in the world usually are the absolute pits to do a bit of photography and to come home with a smashing picture like this is a tribute to checking out circumstances. The double-locomotive behind it is 650 V dc 2’B+B2′ locomotive type DD1 from 1910, in fact the first successful PRR locomotive to bring trains from Manhattan Transfer station near Harrison NJ into the tunnel at Bergen, cross the Hudson River under water and end up at New York Penn Station. From there the empty stock would be brought to the massive cleaning and maintenance facilities at Sunnyside yard in Queens. Read all about it in the book I’m now starting to translate into English. Oh yes, the more modern looking machine behind the GG1 is an AEM-7 Bo’Bo’, the first successful machine to take over from the GG1’s in the 1970’s after the US home-made General Electric E-60 Co’Co’ tore up the track and caused derailments due to track-spreading. Her pictures of the bogies/ trucks of the E-60 reveal what General Electric meant with a floating bolster: four surprisingly small assemblies of alternating bonded steel and plastic layers on each truck as secondary suspension. That should safely hold and manage that massively heavy machine at speeds of 125 mph 200 km/h. As said, the book reveals it all. In any case: really sincere thanks Amy! Job wonderfully well accomplished.

The second picture shows the type of Holland Railway Company (HSM) carriage that was pushed into the open drawbridge as discussed before. See the very typical British Fox bogies/ trucks, complete with the Maunsell type of wheels with wooden wheel-centres. Railway Museum at Utrecht.

Why I started on the 1200 Pedigree Book

November 7th, 2018

Finding a book about electric locomotives of the world in a charity shop (thrift shop, I guess. Excellent places to find such literature) here in Winscombe in Somerset, it set in motion a period of research about the Netherlands Railways class 1200 electric locomotives. That book mentioned that Baldwin and Westinghouse in Pennsylvania had had contact with Dutch builders Heemaf and Werkspoor in the 1920’s, to deliver know-how and manufacturing expertise for electric locomotives on the Indonesian island of Java. Then a Dutch colony, incidentally. It turned out that after that initial contact notably Westinghouse Electric was deeply involved with deliveries to Netherlands Railways, there was more history and fascination to those class 1200 DC machines then just their PRR E2c pedigree and their good looks.

1202 in the Utrecht Railway Museum.

Netherlands Railways 1.5 kV DC class 1200 Co’Co’. Photo shows number 1202 in the Prussian Blue livery as used between 1950 and late 1960. The truck was cast in Pennsylvania by General Steel Castings and is a true US trimount. The machine was conceived around the DC traction equipment of the PRR E2c and had the same 2.207 kW power as the PRR rectifiers. Switching was as usual with resistances. Photo on the right shows number 1219 at ‘s Hertogenbosch, sporting the livery applied from the later sixties till the end of their service with Netherlands Railways. It is my strong belief that these machines were taken into account when GE designed the 10 New Haven EP-5 Co’Co’ rectifiers. This machine was involved in the 1976 Duivendrecht tail-end crash in which it telescoped the entire length of an Italian coach. The roof and side walls of the coach were removed from this loco’s roof, after which it was taken for repair on its own wheels. Superbly sturdy equipment, this.
Number 1219 at Den Bosch as was.
Number 1219 at Den Bosch as was.

I started to trawl the internet for further information, got to know about similar Spanish DC electric locomotives based on the PRR E3b (RENFE class 7800, later 278, and ran into DC electric locomotives in Chile that, although turning out to have been built in Italy in the early sixties last century, had rather more than a whiff of the Pennsylvania (their E2c AC-DC rectifier) and the New Haven Railroads (especially their EP-5) about them. This trip through recent, mostly post WWII, history turned out to have roots in the earliest electrification of PRR and NH in New York after the accident in Park Avenue Tunnel under Manhattan on the 8th of January 1902. After WWII there is the change to AC-DC ignitron rectifier locomotives on trucks, which spawned the European built machines using the DC-side of the rectifier locomotives and then the demise of Baldwin and Westinghouse electric traction production in 1953/54. General Electric took over (in more than one way) but succumbed in the field of electric traction for high-speed application with the failure to perform of their floating bolster trucks, and there is where this Trans-Atlantic continuum finally ends.

The text in Dutch has been finished and I have started on the English translation to try and find interest in the Anglo-Saxon railfan fraternity and tell them that electric locomotives with Baldwin, Westinghouse and General Electric pedigree were still running until very recently and that examples can be found in museums in Europe, as much as that of the 8 machines preserved in The Netherlands about 4 are in running condition. The book mentions the relevant museum collections as an addendum.

Two Chilean 3 kV DC electric locomotives. To the right a class E-29, built by Westinghouse, Baldwin and GE, delivered in 1948. Probably the last representatives of the GE 2’Co’Co’2′ machines that started with the New Haven EP-3 and EP-4, the Brazilian (Paulista as well as Central) type V-8 and the PRR GG1 among its family. A true American locomotive. To the left a class E-30 3 kV DC Bo’Bo’, together with the larger Co’Co’ E-32 delivered by the Italian GAI consortium consisting of Breda and Marelli. For an Italian locomotive there is as good as nothing “true Italian” in it; The US equalizer bar AAR-B trucks contain PRR quill-drives, the ladders to the roof next to the cab entry door are forbidden in Europe but common in the USA and the single headlight with the very PRR/Loewy reporting light clusters mark this machine’s PRR/Baldwin/General Electric US pedigree. The shape of the body has nothing to do with the then angular contours of Italian electric traction but, looking at the E-29, a lot with US practice.

Spanish National Railways (RENFE) class 278 007 3 kV. DC Bo’Bo’Bo’ in the Vilanova museum about 25 miles South of Barcelona. Again a direct descendant of the PRR, Baldwin and Westinghouse rectifiers, this time the three-truck E3b version. Again the power is 2.207 kW. Next to it an Alco Co’Co’ diesel. May I point out the same ladders to the roof at the far end next to the cab door there, in this case curtailed to the extent that a climb to the roof is just about a difficult job. Have a look at one of the available pictures of the PRR versions, to European eyes a stairway to high-voltage heaven.

Pictures and Memories

November 2018

  • Amsterdam
  • Penzance
  • Penzance

Going through photo files I found three rather interesting ones that I wanted to share with you.
Pictures numbers one and two concern Penzance station in far away Cornwall. In fact the layout changed thoroughly since these pics were taken in the stormy 2004/05 winter, as quite a lot of track has been taken out. Clearly trains were not working during these scenes, the signalling appeared to hold out to the effect that every signal standing around with its feet in the water showed a red aspect. But that might well have been caused by short-circuits in drowned track circuitry. Anyway, clearly not the time to take the train to the English Riviera, as this area was marketed in-between the wars. Photo two is the sort of splash your train might have to negotiate at an earlier point in the trip as well, along the Sea Wall Between Dawlish Warren and Teignmouth between Exeter St. David’s and Plymouth. Don’t get me wrong, a lovely trip as far as driving trains is concerned; especially in summertime in the sunshine. In the circumstances as depicted here, however, you might find that your train is buffeted by green seas in likewise fashion. Quite exhilarating, to be frank, but not actually something you’re supposed to do to trains. The HST’s I drove took it stoically in their stride, as did the diesel-hydraulic locals or elderly diesel-loco hauled trains. The (then) new Bombardier-built class 220 and 221 “Voyager” trains employed by Virgin Rail, however, diesel electrics with rather sophisticated traction and dynamic braking equipment of which the resistance-grids were fitted on their roofs, didn’t like it at all and reliably failed in the circumstances. Their resistance-grids were short-circuited by the salty sea water (probably the amounts coming over didn’t help, when compared to a shower of rain) and so a particular kind of people had to get dressed up to help with the retrieval of the train. After which the grids had to be sprayed with clean, fresh water and brushed thoroughly during the process. Traffic, in the meantime, obviously came to a full stop. In the second picture there are grey sheds visible behind the wave: that is Long Rock depot where among others the diesel locomotives and sleeper carriages of the London to Penzance night train are serviced. Incidentally, both the footpath from Penzance to Marazion (behind the fence on the seaside) and along the Sea Wall from Dawlish Warren to Teignmouth are seriously excellent walks in all circumstances. Except they’re slightly hazardous during even moderate gales. If you’re going to walk the visible path along the coast here at the right time, you can even cross the tidal causeway on to St. Michael’s Mount, like you can do with the Mont St. Michel in Normandy. The monks who inhabited both places were of the same catholic order and no doubt liked the sea. If you miss the low tide and get stuck on the island there is a boat. But that is very expensive.
As far as those Bombardier class 220/221 Voyager trains is concerned, Lyn and I recently rode them from Bristol Temple Meads to Edinburgh Waverley and back. Booked as a 7-hour trip, outbound it took us 8 hours 30 minutes due to a set failure and awaiting the next service of an hour later at Bromsgrove, but inbound the trip lasted the booked 7 hours. My backside was very sore from both occasions nevertheless; the exquisitely uncomfortable Spanish Inquisition designed church pews that act as seats on these trains and my behind could not get to terms with each other and getting rid of the ache took about three days each way. Despite the joy being diminished by the train seats Edinburgh is a really worth while place to visit nevertheless, just use easyJet to get there. I went to the Scottish Museum of Transport in Bo’ness, on the bank of the Firth of Forth, and besides interesting Scottish stock found, much to my delight, two old wooden Norwegian coaches in use as a model railway exhibition venue. That was a totally unexpected bonus, even more so due to the fact that they rode on a version of the Prussian standard bogie (KPEV Regeldrehgestell) that so far I photographed in Spain, Switzerland, France, The Netherlands, Hungary, The Czech Republic, Austria and Norway (well, Scotland) but not yet in Germany. One day I might set myself to write about the standardizing influence that Prussia induced across Europe by setting up the VDEV. That is the Organisation of German Railway Administrations (Verein Deutscher Eisenbahn Verwaltungen). Whilst initially a German affair, after a while European railway administrations that had trains crossing Germany could become members and after that whoever felt it worth its while. If you did so, and you had trains travelling through Germany, the VDEV would put drawings and standards for railway equipment at your disposal at no cost, in order to ensure that your coaches adhered to the relevant Prussian (and soon thereafter international) standards. After WWII the West German railways managed to perform this same coup again: the UIC-X 26.4 metre/ 87 ft standard coach length is a German development that quickly became a European standard. As did the light-weight Minden Deutz bogie, which made it to a virtual world standard (even the first series of Shin Kansen high speed trains in Japan rode on a modified version with bolsterless air bellows rather than steel coil springs with a bolster for secondary suspension. A story referring to the dreadful Eschede accident with 101 deaths on the 3rd of June 1998 emanates from this issue) and still spawns further spin-off. Hence the reasons why especially international coaches have a tendency to look like German coaches no matter who builds them in Europe. Anyway, another bonus: electric locomotive 84 001 from the museum at York was at Bo’Ness, so I could finally see real solid-state silicon rectifiers, to benefit writing the Netherlands Railways class 1200 Baldwin/ Westinghouse electric locomotives book. But what an incredibly cramped machine was that BR electric locomotive! Fancy having to prepare one for a trip on a dark and cold winter’s morning! No way you’re going to avoid banging your head at some point: you had to perform a form of snake dance to get around equipment on corners and bend down as the roof was very low due to the pantographs on top. And how to disappear into the machine room quick in case your train is bearing down on a road-freight vehicle stuck on a level crossing, is a worrying prospect. As far as I’m concerned this experience puts the Hixon AHB level crossing accident, during which a similar locomotive hit a very heavy transformer on a special transport vehicle at about 120 km/h or 75 mph, in a new light and on a distinctly higher level of horridness. I really hadn’t realized that.
Picture three shows Amsterdam with the first version of the railway drawbridge that, as we know from previous issues of these rambles, has fairly recently been renewed and was made six-tracks wide. At the right hand top, under the digit 4, one can spot the Amsterdam Central Station locomotive roundhouse. Left of that is the revolving bridge to the Westereiland yard, the Western Island, with long shipping cargo sheds along the Westerdoksdijk (Western Dock levee) and with quite an amount of freight stock standing around. This whole yard has disappeared and has been built up with housing now (Amsterdam is quite desperately short of land for housing construction and is now going into the Western harbour area for that purpose), but that revolving bridge is still around. It is now permanently open and it carries a restaurant on top, which can be reached along a nice rickety little footbridge. This revolving railway bridge was infamous during its operating days because it had a tendency to seize up during hot weather. Thus trapping berthed passenger stock on the (by then electrified) Western island stabling yard with short-formed evening rush hour trains as the usual result. More or less opposite the locomotive roundhouse was the head office of the Holland Railway Company HSM, called the Droogbak (drying bin???). I can’t say why it ever got that name, I don’t know what a droogbak actually is, but the building does still exist. The space of this roundhouse at present is occupied by the Amsterdam rail traffic control centre. Follow the double-track railway line outbound to the left and you can see a double drawbridge. The water that it spans is the Prinseneilandsgracht, an area called the Zandhoek (sand corner). This canal turns into the Realengracht with a sharp corner. That is where in the 16th and 17th centuries dredgers from the Zuider Zee and beyond would deliver sand for heightening the areas between the city canals then being built, to enable developers to build the now so famous canal houses. In fact, between the Eilandsgracht under the railway embankment and the Realengracht, parallel to the Prinseneilandsgracht and the Westerdok, is a hidden little canal (you can see it if you look good) called the Bickersgracht. Venue of that sweet moment on a very cold 20th of March 2013, when my 60th birthday and my retirement were celebrated among friends with a very good meal in restaurant Bickers aan de Gracht. Shortly thereafter the train crosses a bigger drawbridge across a wider canal, known as the Singelgracht. The turning basin to allow vessels to enter the canal leading off to the left is obvious; that is the Haarlemmer Trekvaart. From there you took the horse-drawn boat to a place called Halfweg, Half-way, where you had to change into a Haarlem based boat for the rest of the trip. From that water a canal comes toward you, which is the rather meagre top-end of the Kostverlorenvaart. The canal leading off the Singelgracht, that’s the one from under the railway drawbridge, to the right in the direction of Central Station is the Brouwersgracht (Brewery canal). The triangular corner between the Singelgracht and the Brouwersgracht is a section of the part of Amsterdam known as the Jordaan (Jordan). Visible there is a broad road with trees in the centre, the filled-in Palmgracht (yes, Palm canal!). Whilst working the tourist launches in Amsterdam I quite regularly did the Singelgracht and the wider bit of the Kostverlorenvaart, but I have neither sailed the Haarlemmervaart nor, indeed, this section of the Kostverlorenvaart. Looking at the railway drawbridge, incidentally, there is no doubt that it is in fact rather new. Especially seeing the clean brickwork of its piers. One photo I sent before shows this area from the ground, but the bridge had by then already been doubled. I think that this military aerial picture has been taken shortly after this bridge and the railway embankment had been taken in use, there used to be a revolving bridge before. The drawbridge is of the type that we can see on pictures before the whole thing was changed again into the six-track configuration that is in use now. And, to top it off, look in the Singelgracht and see a tug with a dekschuit, loaded with what looks like dirt or sand. That’s the type we see under the coach that rests on it under the open drawbridge. 

Drawbridge Incident Location

October 2018

I discovered that the two-track version of this bridge across the Papenpadsluis, where the coach was pushed into the lockpit on to the barge, was situated at the location where these days the double track semi-split level junction between the Zaandam-Uitgeest lines and the Zaandam-Hoorn & Enkhuizen lines is situated: the semi-split bit has to do with the fact that the Zaandam-Hoorn line still has a one direction only Automatic Half Barrier crossing across the straight and very busy 70 km/h-45 mph dual-carriageway that parallels the main line there. Whilst reading up I discovered that Netherlands Railways -for eminently sensible reasons as it turned out- always wanted a normal split level junction with a double track viaduct across that road, but that the local municipality opposed it for unclear reasons with probably a whiff of NIMBYism from nearby residents. The situation that developed, whereby trains from Amsterdam via Zaandam to Hoorn and Enkhuizen negotiated the level crossing but trains from Enkhuizen to Zaandam went across a single-track viaduct, succumbed to the accident gremlin occasionally spooking this place: On 24-12-1993 a propelled NS DD-AR double deck push-pull set from Amsterdam to Enkhuizen had left Zaandam at 21:01 and negotiated the right-hand curve in which the AHB is situated three minutes later. A 55-year old car-driver, on his way in the direction of Zaandam whilst being well over the alcohol limit, decided to overtake the substantial line of cars waiting for the crossing of which the barriers had been down for 27 seconds already and then zig-zagged at speed past those barriers . Following this manouevre he hit the 4-tonne rear bogie/truck of the leading double-deck driving trailer/remote control car at 55 km/h-35 mph and derailed this vehicle, whereby his car was thrown back about 30 metres into the direction from which he came. He had to be sawed and levered out of the wreck, badly injured, to be convicted to serve 18 months in prison and lose his driver’s licence for 5 years. The train, however, derailing at speed in a sharp right-curve, fared badly. The entire set plus locomotive 1768 was derailed, the driving trailer hitting a pier of the viaduct in the opposite track and being damaged severely. Clearing the wreckage took two days and was finished on the 26th of December, the cost about 7 million of the then Dutch guilders. The train driver was one of the 31 injured, ten of whom suffered life-changing injuries. One person died.Somewhat unfortunately the same heated discussions about the safety of push-pull operations and the stability of double-deck rail vehicles developed that flared up every time since push-pull operations and travel with double-deck (imperial) vehicles developed in France way back around 1870. Sad, people who scream doom and misery loud enough to be of interest for the media but do not appear to have any relevant knowledge. Even in this case the double deck coaches stayed largely upright, none ended up on their sides and stability was not an issue. During the high-speed derailment of a pushed set at Polmont in Scotland on the 30th of July 1984 the single-deck coaches also did not end up on their sides. This level crossing at Zaandam, incidentally, is for a number of reasons now rated as among the most dangerous in the rail network in The Netherlands.

Shunter’s Brake Valve

October 2018

photographed at the Bucharest Gara de Nord (North Station) terminus. Observe the shunter brake valve connected to the left side brake pipe and clamped between the interconnection doors. This was how this set was brought into the terminus, the shunter standing in the entrance lobby with those doors more or less closed but not locked and the train propelled by the locomotive that will take it out. The board on the coupler is the tailboard, the red tail lights appear to not be used in the daytime. Between the buffers the following UIC standard connections can be seen from the left: Main reservoir pipe, Brake pipe connected to shunter’s brake valve, coupler with tailboard, brake pipe, main reservoir pipe, on the outside the hotel power electrical plug with cable. The opposite socket for this connector is behind the left hand buffer, watch out the hotel power is switched off when handling this equipment. The power transmitted through the train may be anywhere between 1 kV AC to 1.5 to 3 kV DC whilst the door closure signal uses this connection as well. The on board public address system uses a connection within the rubber inter carriage connectors, the receiving socket can be spotted in the top left corner above the doors whilst the opposite cable connector is invisible on the right-hand top near the doors.

Double Deck Coaches

October 2018

1) Netherlands Railways DDM first generation standard double deck coach as preserved in the Utrecht railway museum. The second generation of this type of vehicle, called DD-AR,  was involved in the Zaandam level crossing crash. Only the later DD-AR type is still in service, after a rebuild into Inter City rather than local stock configuration.

2) the front end of a DD-AR driving trailer/remote control car. My friend Stan Hall took this picture at Utrecht CS to show the obstacle deflecters retrofitted to both front ends of driving vehicles leading sets. This came as a result of the frequent level crossing crashes taking place. It would not have been of use in the Zaandam crash, however, as that vehicle hit the rear bogie/truck of this vehicle at high speed and started a total derailment. Remember in this case also the way the Kerang level crossing crash in Australia developed.

3

Drawbridge incident update

October 2018

As far as the shunting incident on the 14th of January 1939 at around 12:00 is concerned: I haven’t found the accident report as yet, but read quite a number of newspaper reports on the subject. Unfortunately the text of these articles appeared to have been sourced mostly from one press-agency, as it was virtually the same text for all newspapers. There was quite a glut of other, probably more important news, like a German liner that accidentally hit and damaged the Dutch frigate Tromp somewhere near the Iberian peninsula. Moreover there were a surprising number of road traffic accidents and level crossing collisions at the same time.But this is what I could gather: It was a complete set of Holland Railway Company (HSM) wood-built compartment coaches, propelled/pushed from the direction of Zaandam station. This sort of train, usually hauled by a surprisingly small 2’B1’/4-4-1 tank engine, was typical for the probably cringingly slow services along the at the time single-track line from Zaandam to Hoorn and Enkhuizen. Why they were propelled as a main line shunt, from what track to which other track and whether the signalling actually allowed the shunt to happen I can’t say as yet, but if the shunt took place with permission then there cannot have been interlock between the drawbridge and the signalling; which for 1939 is a very strange thing to find out indeed. Also, who gave permission for the shunt to be performed? If that was the stationmaster at Zaandam, who, as in German orientated signalling systems like that of the HSM, was the person in charge of station-staff, signallers and in this case the bridge operator. How come he gave bridge operator Mr. Dolleman permission to open the bridge for the wood barge, as well as apparently giving the driver of the shunting train permission to start the shunt? And why did no one appear to spot the high over the landscape raking open bridge in this notoriously flat landscape? And why was there no shunter on the rear coach of the train, as boatman Mr. Geene noticed before he jumped off his vessel and reported during the inquest after the accident? Such long main-line shunts are by no means rare, incidentally, they can be seen on many networks, especially between sidings and a main terminus. Often the manoeuvre is controlled by the shunter standing at the front of the rear coach, who operates the train brake with a portable brake valve that he connects to the brake-pipe. I have included a picture of a coach at the Gara de Nord terminus in Bucharest in Romania. I heard about an incident with such a shunt hitting the bufferstops at Helsinki main station in Finland about a year ago and I saw trains being brought in at German stations and at Innsbrueck Hbf that way in the seventies. Nothing special, long history, but why was there no one on this set? Incidentally, the bogie/truck that can be seen on the cargo of wood on the barge rolled off and had to be retrieved from the bottom of the lock pit after it rolled off when the coach was lifted to be cleared the same day 5 hours later.

Drawbridge incident

October 2018

Yesterday I sent round a reasonably polite request for information to Dutch contacts about the railway drawbridge, in the hope to finally find out where this three-track railway drawbridge was located. This was after two weeks of trawling through internet files and having seen virtually all of the rail- and road drawbridges in The Netherlands. Some truly inspiring ones did pop up, I confess, especially with regards to the variations within the actuation gear of the bridge movement. But I could not locate this particular bridge which, as we know, I will try and recreate in 1:160 on my N-scale model railway. Yesterday evening I finally found where the bridge once stood. Once, this is The Netherlands, remember, unlike e.g. Britain a nation of fanatical cleaner-uppers of stuff no longer in use and to the average eye unlikely to bring in more tourists. These two drawbridges could be found at Wormerveer. They have fairly recently been scrapped and replaced with higher positioned modern bridges to the best of my present knowledge. The three-track one was located close to the West of Wormerveer station and the two-track one of the same Netherlands Railways standard type near the Papenpad, which loosely translates as the Papists Alleyway.


The really interesting one is this one though. I couldn’t get it any bigger so enlarge it on your screen if necessary.
The location was in the Zaanlijn from Amsterdam via Zaandam to Uitgeest and Alkmaar, in fact the first route Stanley Hall and I travelled in the year 2000 on our quest to find out about Automatic Train Protection in The Netherlands. And also part of the last trip (2005) ever that I made at the controls of a train, from Nijmegen via Arnhem, Utrecht, Amsterdam, Zaandam and Alkmaar to Den Helder and back. Furthermore, going through my slide and negative files I actually found the contact prints that proved I had already noticed this bridge before and took colour pics, sometime in the early 1980’s. Unfortunately, in the course of several moves within NL and the UK I must have lost those negatives. Never mind, a tot of single malt calmed the resulting frayed nerves and there still is enough material to work with. These pics come from the municipal archives of Zaandam, the Gemeente Archief Zaanstad (GAZ).
To start with we can see that the Zaan line had been electrified. Notice the stanchion of the catenary in the right margin and the “fingers” of the wire contacts for those across the bridge sticking out from the left margin above the coach. The electrification went into service in 1931, when main line traffic became operated with sets of 1924 EMU stock. The vehicle involved, however, is an 1890’s vintage steam loco-hauled 3rd-class typical HSM Holland Railway (no clerestories) wooden vehicle on Fox type “English” bogies (trucks). There is, incidentally, precisely such a vehicle in the Railway Museum in Utrecht, they were in service till about 1950. This picture therefore in all likelihood concerns steam-hauled stock of a train for the line to Purmerend, Hoorn, Enkhuizen and Medemblik; the section from Hoorn to Medemblik nowadays operating as a museum steam line. The picture of the green drawbridge at Medemblik I sent previously, with the diesel hauled teak-built tram crossing it, comes from that particular line. It is clear that there is no non-wired gap in the catenary across this Papenpad drawbridge, similar to the three-track version of this bridge near the station on pics two and three. On this picture the 1.5 kV DC “ladders” along which the pantographs slide in happier circumstances can be made out between the bridge deck and the arms of the balance lift equipment. What can be seen clearly is the “Panama-Wheel” actuating gear in its opened position, very typical equipment for these Netherlands Railways standard bridges according to the railway engineering manual from the 1930’s. I haven’t found any other example of this type of bridge away from West Friesland, the area between the Zuyder Zee and the North Sea to the North of Amsterdam, which was HSM Holland Railway territory. Compare that with the same equipment on the attached other two pictures of this type of bridge in the closed position.
The reason these Panama Wheels were used is that they allowed the use of cheap and simple 50 Hz three-phase AC electric motors. Which, however, had no speed-controls as DC motors allowed, for which reason they could not be varied in speed in those days. That would require expensive stuff such as Ward-Leonard equipment, but to spend on installation and maintenance of that crane equipment was nonsense when thinking of how often this bridge would be operated in comparison to, say, a harbour crane. Ans so, to enable a well-controlled operation of the bridge, the Panama-wheel. If you follow the movement of this Panama Wheel then you can imagine that right at the start (0 degrees) and at the end (180 degrees) of the movement it performs slowly, its full speed with the bridge deck only occurs at half-way point (90 degrees) through the half-circle. At the end of its 180 degree turn, because it slowed the movement right down again, it is easy to stop the movement with buffers and an automatic switch. Additionally, the bridge deck can’t go anywhere, an arrangement that can be noticed in the way that in the open position the whole excellently designed assembly fits flat together. For road bridges of this type the stretched Panama Wheel “pre-loads” the bridge deck on to its seats when down, and thus will prevent it from dancing on its stops in case of heavy traffic passing over the gap between road and bridge deck. This was different on the railways: they demanded that the closed bridge deck behaved as a fixed bridge and additionally they took measures to ensure that no vibrations could pass from the bridge deck into the gear above. In the case of these particular types bridges they had steel cables between the balance beams and the bridge deck that would go slack in the down position; these can be vaguely seen in this photo. The big old four-track bridge in Amsterdam that started this all had a slotted connection which, when unloading from hanging tension after seating the bridge deck on its stops, physically disconnected the hangers from the balance beams to the bridge deck. Wonderful stuff, really, instantly understandable for anyone with a little bit of a technical eye.


Now, the interesting bit: what happened here? This bridge was clearly opened for the well-loaded barge, a type of a historical and present day still much used vessel known as a dekschuit in Dutch. You can tow or push them with a tug and, as probably was the case here, have the crew use poles to punt them along in narrow waters: they didn’t often come in motorized versions, certainly not in the scores of fairly shallow rural waterways found in the West of The Netherlands. Between the prescribed regular dredges to ensure they are usable as drains (see the lock door in the foreground) these may be abundantly filled with weed and snag your propeller. Such vessels have no holds normally, all cargo is stowed on deck and they are used for a wide variety of jobs. The picture I sent of the former bow-string bridge and its renewed drawbridge across the Spaarne at Haarlem show a few dekschuiten used by the contractor working on the piers for the new bridge. By the looks of it the skipper on this one, standing aft, was just about midway sailing the gap under the railway when this attack on his tranquil existence occurred. Was he smoking a pipe, as tales intimate was what skippers did? If so, what happened to it?Looking at the underside of the bridge deck we notice that the reinforced bit for the tracks is actually behind the coach, so the coach could not have been rolling on a track that would cross the bridge. Also, the absence of a steam locomotive, poised to take swimming lessons instead of this coach, indicates the fact that this coach was propelled, pushed. All together this points at the fact that the coach was pushed into a siding and rolled fairly violently through the bufferstops on the left side of this picture. Its speed, and probably the mass of the vehicles coupled to it, are indicated by the fact that it jumped the gap and hit the bridge deck at the other side, then, having lost its bogie, started to come down towards the water but -luckily- found the dekschuit and settled on its cargo. This, therefore, undoubtedly is the result of a rather iffy shunting/switching move. The question still to be asked being whether the locomotive was attached and the driver made a cock-up with the brakes. In that case probably using the locomotive brake rather than the train brake; we all did that when we didn’t want to have to pump the brake pipe back to pressure every time a vehicle was removed or added. Or, worse, the loco crew and shunter “kicked” the set (afstoten, fly-shunted it) and the shunter and his steel brake scotch (remschoen) on the track, assuming that was the idea to stop the movement of the set in that case, was insufficient to get it to stop in time. It happened before and probably still happens these days if there is no inspector near. Would really love to read the crew reports on this one but anyway, it wasn’t a glorious moment with regards to railway efficiency. Sincerely hope the skipper was OK, probably besides a smelly trouserful.
Removing the 35 tonne coach probably was a mite more difficult than at first sight imagined, as floating derricks or cranes could in all likelihood not be brought in proper position near the stricken vehicle resting comfortably on the bales. The only viable place to put some effort in lifting probably is the gappy bridge track nearest the coach, where a railway crane could be positioned at half way next to the coach. You can only hope that vehicle gets scotched to prevent it rolling according to all applicable regulations.
The things that may upset your working days on the tracks; eh? This one, stemming from a silly small shunting/switching incident, is fascinating. Wonder what all the accompanying sounds were like. Especially hopping off the track, hitting that bridge and the cursing and swearing of the skipper.

Utrechts Volksblad of Monday Jan 16th, 1939, dating the accident to the previous Saturday:
At about 12 o’clock, whilst shunting an empty passenger train, one of the carriages ended up in the passage of the bridge over the Papenpadsloot, which bridge was opened to allow a wood barge to pass through. The man on the barge was still able to put himself in time in safety, so that no personal accidents occurred. The fall of the passenger carriage on the barge, which has now largely sunk, gave a blow, which was audible far into the circumference. The damage to the passenger carriage and probably also to the bridge, is considerable. The train traffic in the direction of Alkmaar and Enkhuizen is experiencing this accident, which is a few hundred meters north of the station Zaandam, as a major nuisance. The railways have rushed in buses, which will transfer the travellers from the direction of Alkmaar from the station Koog-zaanstad to the station Zaandam, where they can continue their journey to the capital by Train. Only on the interlocking between the stations Zaandam and Koog-zaanstad there can be no trains, but as a result the train traffic on the sidelines to Enkhuizen is Impossible. The railways consider that the passengers, who have to make use of this line, have to transport buses from Purmerend to Zaandam and Vice Versa. Work cars from Amsterdam will come to start the clearance Work. The bridge-keeper, who has opened the railway bridge for the Wood-barge navigation, was not blamed for it. He had the message of the signalman that this could be done safely. Contrary to the rules, the rear car of the long passenger train, which was to be shunted, does not seem to have had a man who could warn the Machinist.

That rider at the far end of the train would have had the air brake to stop the movement by either pulling an emergency brake handle in his carriage or, as is done on many networks, attach a portable brake valve to the brake pipe connection to stop the move from his end. Furthermore, what surprises me is the fact that an opened drawbridge of this type and size is not exactly invisible as such, especially in flat countryside as the Zaan area is. So non-adherence to given rules by staff as well as an apparent lack of bother to observe signals and the state of the road ahead of their train (however difficult that probably was) once more strongly appear to have been the root-cause of an incident. I wonder, incidentally, how come the requisite signals such as the platform starting signal apparently did not obviously enough show stop or cease all shunt-movement aspects to protect the opened bridge: the driver or his fireman should most certainly have observed those before starting the movement.