After Metro-North’s demonstration of its new Waterworld campaign to fight slippery rail, the railroad offered a little more detail on the plan. Metro-North will dispatch “rail wash trains” to “blast” the offending leaves off the tracks with “high-powered jets of water and rail scrubber trucks that use steel brushes to clean the rails.”
Metro-North also shares that the leaf residue is “iron pectate,” which is produced when the pectin from the dead leaves mixes with rail steel.
The railroad will also look to combat the problem by tweaking its computer system so the trains don’t brake as soon as they start to slide. It will also reduce speeds on rainy days.
A Yonkers Youth Was Stabbed Daily…I mean the Journal News…has some more detail, such as Waterworld’s twin 10,000 gallon tanks of water mixed with alkaline soap, shooting a stream that’s strong enough to cut off your hand. Reporter Caren Halbfinger also mentions how the problem was so bad last year that the Metro-North had to lease an extra “trueing machine”, which gets wheels back to their preferred round shape.
Where would one ever find a trueing machine?
I like that Metro-North is taking these steps to make life less awful for riders. I just question the wisdom of naming the campaign after one of the greatest flops in Hollywood history.
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