While less frequent than heat kinks, severely cold weather can cause rail breaks fron contraction. I was on the EB once and they had to send a hi-rail ahead of us to check for breaks. Also switches can freeze. Finally, while code lines are less common today than in the past, if there is one there can be problems with it. On that same EB trip we had to flag by all signals between Grand Forks and Fargo because an ice storm had coated the code line in ice, causing it to break and all signals to fail. It was a long trip.
Cold weather and snow doesn't impact the train itself very much. What it mainly does affect is the track structure and possibly the signal system.
True, I was thinking Superliners. Horizons apparently have issues with plumbing freezes, too.
And air hoses freeze up, despite the best efforts of the spitters; it can become impossible to water the train or drain sewage; if really cold and they've come close a few times on the EB route, diesel fuel can turn to jelly; doors can freeze up; and if you have to do any switching work for any reason it can be a nightmare. Just to name a few other problems that can happen to the train.
For over 50 years, aircraft have been flying at altitudes where the temperature outside can be as cold as -60 C. There is no excuse for trains' systems to get frozen. It's not much more expensive, and it doesn't take that much more power to run a simple heated wire around waste tubes and valves. When was the last time you rode a plane and as soon as you crossed 10,000 feet, "I'm sorry, but the lavatory is frozen. Please wait until we get back on the ground"? Yes - the lavatory on an airplane is in a balmy 72-degree cabin at an 8,000 foot pressure altitude. But the majority of the system - including the waste tank itself - is located outside the pressure vessel and subject to ambient temperatures. Those lines don't freeze. And these same aircraft that fly into Anchorage in the Winter still have to be serviced when they land.
Heat tape requires power in order to create heat. During switching operations there is NO power.
I haven't noticed any pipes or tanks outside the aircraft mounted to the skin. Everything is within the "pressure vessel if it weren't, then pets in the cargo hold would die.
The point being that in an aircraft all of those systems, save fuel tanks, are still within the skin of the airplane. Save Superliner's, pipes on the other train cars are outside the body of the car. That means that even residual heat quickly bleeds off when power is lost. On an aircraft there is still some insulation to help hold heat in when power is removed, which is rare.
I haven't noticed any airplanes being separated resulting in a loss of power.When it comes to mechanical operations, both aircraft and trains are treated to similar yet unique challenges. Ice on an airplane wing? Bad. Ice between couplers on a train? Bad. You can probably use a blow torch to melt the ice on a coupler, though.
Batteries, my friend. HEP keeps batteries charged and heat tape energized. Separate the cars, and the batteries sustain a residual amount of heat until HEP can be hooked back up. Ideally, no NEW accumulation would occur during that short period of time.
I hope that you would take it on my word as an aircraft engineer that there are many places on an aircraft that are not pressurized that hold system equipment. There is a fairing that blends the wing to the fuselage that is very cavernous. This area often holds the vacuum waste system - in ambient temperature and pressure. Many other systems are routed through here - outside the fuselage, but in the fairing, including wire harnesses, hydraulic lines and fuel lines as well as waste lines. Yes - the cargo hold of a commercial aircraft is pressurized. But not under the floor in all cases. Nor in the boiler room. Keep in mind, the pressure vessel is for the comfort of the passengers and cargo. Where are all those wires and tubes? Where passengers and cargo are not - much are outside the pressure vessel.
That's my whole argument. Starting with the Superliners, some consideration was given to the location of pipes. Someone working the Viewliner I's seemed to forget half their life is in the cold. There should be no excuse for any train car built after 1970 to have freezing issues. These problems have already been worked out, but cost and a lack of engineering discernment has allowed the problem to continue.
Space, my friend. Space that they don't have for still more batteries.
There was no consideration given to the Superliners regarding the location of the pipes due to cold weather. The consideration was the bi-level nature of the car which left no room for anything under the floor and totally exposed to the elements. Seats & rooms exist in the space that in a Viewliner would be given over to storage tanks.
In fact, it is cars built after 1970 that tend to have these problems. Cars built for the railroads in earlier yeears for use in cold weather were built with that in mind, with insulation, etc over the pipes, and also had mechanical forces to fix any problems enroute. It was cost cutting designs of the Amtrak era that had the problems. The railroads knew they were working in cold weather, Amtrak doesn't seem to, and my opinion is they tended to throw away the lessons learned in the proven designs of years past.
How did the Hi-Levels deal with this?
Same as the Superliners, whose design was based on the Hi-Levels. Mechanical units and tanks that would have been under the car in a regular car could not be due to the "sowbelly" design. Equipment placed inside the car at the ends of the lower level.
