Doing maintenance isn’t quite as glamorous as travelling
across the country by train, so the short story of the last couple weeks is
that the DGRMS, a system which pushes a set of wheels laterally against the
rail, was out for maintenance. It came back with more problems than it left
with, a support bar broken off, grease lines not connected, vertical
displacement measurements outputting wrong signals, software update bugs, etc.
After lots of work (18 days) in montreal, we finally did a shakedown, where we
go for a trip and test the software, and it all works. So we are leaving on
Monday, heading west, and if there are no more problems we should be going all
the way to Vancouver, which means a trip through the rockies!!
The longer story: (continued from the previous blog entry)
After finally getting a day off on Sunday (oct 28th), we got back to work on the train on Monday. We got kicked out of the shop late
on Tuesday, so we parked nearby and powered up the generators, and the GRMS
moved as it should. Unfortunately, some of the sensors weren’t displaying
proper readings. I worked for 4 hours to connect a 6-pin cord to its
appropriate plug, which was located in a spot where you could fit either a
mirror, or a flashlight, or a hand, but not all three at the same time. Once it
was finally connected, we moved the axle around to see what the readings were,
and the vertical displacements were completely wrong. After significant
troubleshooting and finally calling the manufacturer of the hydraulic
cylinders, we discovered that for some reason unknown to everyone, a different
sort of displacement transducer was used, and the signal output was no longer
being transformed properly. As replacing the cylinder would have taken about a
week, and re-wiring and writing a new transformation software would also take
about a week, we decided to order separate vertical displacement measurements
and attach them on the side of the DGRMS, as was done previously.
This was decided Thursday, and during the afternoon I found
out that it was cheaper to fly me home to Waterloo over the long weekend (CP
takes remembrance day off) than pay for hotel/meals. The flight was 550, and
the hotel was 150 a night, which that just by itself was cheaper. So I booked a
flight for Friday morning to Toronto, and bused up to waterloo. Hung out at
grebel for a bit, went rock climbing with my brother and some people from
church, went to a worship service with a good friend, played an awesome game of
ultimate (during which I found out that sitting for 2 months really takes a
toll on your fitness), and hung out with
family. Left late Monday, and got back to work on Tuesday.
The 2-inch support rod that was broken off in transit had
finally arrived, so that was installed Tuesday morning. We were still waiting
for the vertical displacement measurement devices, so we finished up smaller
tasks, tied up all the grease lines, replaced some light bulbs, refilled water,
and tried to keep busy. That afternoon a shipment arrived from the manufacturer
of the cylinders, and the contained transformers for the vertical displacement!
We connected it to the left cylinder, and the readings showed correct values!
That was a great turn of events. So we started making a box to secure the
transformers to the car. Everything we do has to be tied down and connected as
securely as possible, as the train shakes around all day long. For the rest of
the day, and Wednesday, we updated the joint bar detection software. After
noticing a lot of bugs and getting multiple updates, we got a crew late
Wednesday to run us around a bit. We put pieces of tape on some joint bars, numbered them 1 to 25, and ran
over them a bunch of times. The software took a picture of every single
one, which was a large improvement over the previous system, which would miss
some joints.
Thursday we hooked up the vertical displacement cylinders
and prepared for a final calibration, only to discover that the right cylinder
wasn’t working. After troubleshooting all we could, we determined that the only
possible explanation was that the transducer inside the cylinder itself was
malfunctioning. After a couple calls to the higher-ups, we decided that we
could run on just one measuring vertical displacement, as the chance of only
one wheel derailing is pretty slim. We then calibrated the whole system, and
the numbers were close to what it was originally set as, which was good news.
Friday was finally a shakedown, we got a crew to take us to a 20 mile stretch
of main track, and we tried forward and backwards, increasing and decreasing
mileposts, and checked every possible scenario of what we would be doing while
testing. After fixing a couple bugs, the system finally works well. We took a
break for lunch to eat out at a restaurant, and noticed a significant number of
people walking around. We realized that it was 4:30pm, and that that was the
time that regular people end work. And yet we were going out for lunch after
starting at 7:00am. But the system finally works!
We had done a lot of work that week, so all day Saturday was
spent gloriously doing nothing, mostly lying in my bed watching a movie or a Barcelona
game on my computer. I ventured outside for lunch, and stumbled across a santa
clause parade, which I watched for a while. Sunday morning was also resting,
and in the afternoon Anthony and I went shopping and cleaned up the train. The
fridge was pretty empty, and the total grocery bill was close to $1500 (we did
several trips).
The plan now is leaving Monday heading west, and if
everything goes well and there are no breakdowns or more maintenance, then we
should make it all the way to Vancouver, which means a trip through the
rockies!! It’s been nice having someone clean up after me and make my bed each
day (I’ve been staying in a hotel all this time), but I’m also really glad to
be moving again. Looking forward to some new scenery!
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