photo: AudreyH

Besides being a weekend chore for the homeowner, autumn leaves also provide a substantial problem for trains. As the trains travel over wet leaves laying across the track, it produces a gelatinous material which makes the tracks quite slippery.

For trains, slippery tracks can cause the wheels to slip, triggering the emergency brake, which causes the train to skid, and creates flat spot on the wheels. It’s a real problem, and caused 75 hours of delays in November 2006.

To address the problem, Metro-North attacked their colorful nemesis on multiple fronts – by scrubbing and power washing the tracks in problem areas, applying anti-lock brake programming on the trains, issuing slow speed orders in problem spots, and keeping operators up to date by radio on problem areas reported by other operators.

As a result, delays caused by slippage was reduced to just 24 hours last month, a 68% decrease.

If you ever wondered what a rail scrubber looks like, there’s a pic after the jump.

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Rail scrubbing kooks like a tedious and dangerous job where you really need to keep your eyes and ears open. But if it still looks appealing, you can buy one here.

More on this story at ProgressiveRailRoading.com