I saw a train of engines today

Mar 2, 2026 4:12 AM

Im sure the conductor and engineer were pretty stoked knowing everyone that saw their train were going "oh cool, its all engines!"

Shouldn't it be going like, _really_ fast?

6 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

On Galveston Island in Texas the railyard has been a storage area for old BNSF locos. There's even a couple old red and silver Santa Fe "War Bonnet" engines there.

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

this train is on its way to your moms house! /s

6 months ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

Ticket to Ride Style

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

often known as a "power move"

6 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

@acetylcysteine this looks at least tangentially relevant to one of your interests.

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Yes, would love to see this live!

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

6 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

I too am a trains woman

6 months ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 1

still not allowed to go above 25mph

6 months ago | Likes 29 Dislikes 0

Each engine weighs about 200 tons. I'm surprised it can go 25 mph

6 months ago | Likes 12 Dislikes 1

They routinely pull revenue at 70 mph.

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Japanese shinkansen trains are 715 tons for a 16 car train and travel at a max of 160-190 mph depending on class and track.

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

we use units that weigh 328t and max speed is 250kph.

6 months ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

6 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

🔊

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

The developers of the Matrix are really getting lazy

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

If you waited a bit longer, you'd see that they were actually pulling just one car of cargo.


Your mom.

5 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

that's snarfing awesome!

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

I really wanted there to be one cargo car at the end of it.

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Locopede!

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Only the first is pulling, (ok maybe the first two) the rest is just payload

6 months ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

80 megawatt

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Did you count them?

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

20

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Good job!

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Would have loved if they put the smallest freight car they could find at the back

6 months ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

In the old-days a caboose would have been legally required.

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Or an Old School Caboose.

6 months ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

9 million whp!! https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1aXJiY3ZqdDZuMno1dWh1Mmo2NHhjOWdnaXhvN2lleGVrbmw0aWlyMiZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/qqD2dzGdJTmda/200w.webp

6 months ago | Likes 70 Dislikes 0

A little high, but it’s got to be at least 100,000.

6 months ago | Likes 10 Dislikes 2

I counted 22 from the start of the gif. At 4,800 HP/unit, that’s 105,600 HP.

6 months ago | Likes 11 Dislikes 0

Same hp as a one of the big container ships like the emma maersk

6 months ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 0

I just finished rebuilding my CB350 motorcycle engine (4 cylinders and 2"/5cm diameter pistons) when my future FIL took me to his company. I saw a 3' / 1m diameter round metal thing on a pallet and said: hey, looks like a piston, but it can't be because it is way too big. Spoileralert: it was a piston... (He ran a shiprepair business, later also saw 200lb/100kg burned out valves that they rewelded, did a rewiring of a 500kW generator for him while sailing from NL to UK in rough weather, etc.)

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Yeah... a friend of mine worked on massive ship engines. You could literally walk around inside them.

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

How many Whale power does that convert to?

6 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 1

Looks like you could expect to get sixty barels of oil out of a whale, which is a hundred MW/h

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

6 months ago | Likes 19 Dislikes 0

Thomas was an asshole that cut off the wheels of an engine that pissed him off by going on a vacation. Thomas cut his wheels off and 1/2

6 months ago | Likes 9 Dislikes 0

sat the engine in a shed, making him the generator for the train house, never able to leave that shed again. The real TtTE is dark af. 2/2

6 months ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 0

slave labor.

6 months ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

For real, though: this is what they call a "power move". Railways do this when they have too many engines in one place, and not enough in another place. So they'll literally move "power" (aka locomotives) from one rail yard to another.

6 months ago | Likes 15 Dislikes 0

Now that's a fun fact

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

If all the engines were contributing, what is the steepest grade this train train could climb?

6 months ago | Likes 22 Dislikes 0

Somewhere between 9 and 10% incline

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

90 of your Earth degrees.

6 months ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

Yo Mama.

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

As long as they have traction

6 months ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 0

Sounds like the last line to a question in a Mathematics or Physics textbook.

6 months ago | Likes 23 Dislikes 0

A nasty one where the slopes change so some engines have excess traction and some are part their limit and it's all differential this, integral that.

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Oooooo! It sounds as tho you have seen the beauty of Mathematics, especially The Big C.
... or at least been traumatized by tests to the point of occasional recurring nightmare.

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

The same steepness grade one engine alone could climb?

6 months ago | Likes 30 Dislikes 0

It's not about power, it's about traction. You can have 4 billion horsepower and it's worthless if you can't get the power down. Train wheels have a smaller contact patch than a bicycle tire, and they're solid steel. They have very little grip.

6 months ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

What if we wired them in paralell

6 months ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

*eye twitch*

6 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

This. Each engine is only pulling its own weight so they don't stack. Steepest grade is mostly limited by traction anyway, not power output

6 months ago | Likes 23 Dislikes 1

But what if the engine train is longer than the incline? The ones not on the incline could push the composition while not being dragged down?

6 months ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 1

Oh. Yeah, you are absolutely correct, that would increase the max gradient a fair bit!

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

I like that at 50 I can appreciate it and the fact that a boy-will-be-boys person recorded and shared it.

6 months ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 3

I'm glad that I can appreciate it as a woman and ignore any attributions to gender that are made in the comments.

6 months ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

How is the passive aggression, this morning ? You could have noticed that I didn't write I appreciate a boy, nor a man, recorded it, but a boys-will-be-boys person (not gendered).
If we expect phrases to reflect reality, I'm not that biased, as more than 90% of train drivers are actually males (source : https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-68921391). If we wish phrasing to encourage change, I should have said, enthusiasts will be enthusiast.

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Male to female employment (per jobtype or otherwise) ratios surely have nothing to do with gendered social constructs that literally start before the human is even out of the womb. 'Reflecting reality' doesn't work here if our reality causes the bias (especially when our language continues to affirm it).

5 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

This really isn't a hill on which I'm willing to die. I think you are right, and I was probably wrong when I felt more aggressed and schooled than enlighted. So I stand corrected. But I didn't find a whimsical equivalent of boys-will-be-boys. Enthusiast will be enthusiast doesn't ring very well to me. Maybe : fun-kiddie energy ? Care to share what your job is ? I am full stereotype : statistician and data scientist.

5 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 1

I work in cybersecurity.

5 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0