F.R.E.D.

Anyone know if it is illegal to own a discarded (by the RR), non working F.R.E.D.?
Thanks!

My GUESS is:

1. Have a receipt
2. Don't ever turn it on if it has telemetry

-Micah

56-57 wrote:My GUESS is:

1. Have a receipt
2. Don't ever turn it on if it has telemetry

-Micah

THIS. How do you know it was discarded? Most crews dump them wherever when theyre done with them. And telemetry markers have gps trackers in them.

Why would crews just 'dump' FRED's?

Usually they are dumped in the yards. If you take a train into a yard and you're shoving cars into a track, you take it off and drop it where you are. Some crews will bring it up to the locomotive but some don't. Some yards have utility men that will go around and pick them up.

As far as throwing them away, due to their high cost most railroads will just keep fixing them or rebuilding them. The only time I've seen one truly thrown away is when a crew destroys one by accident.

We do have them fall off the rear of the train occasionally. And when we go look for them, we can't find them.

When I was on the UP we were waiting to get into the Las Vegas yard after running from Yermo. After we had been sitting for about 25 minutes I was able to pull the train up to the next block and noticed that Fred was not talking to me. The conductor walked back and found that someone had taken Fred off of the train. I don't think they did much with it as it was an air driven Fred. The area where we lost Fred was also an area where the intermodal containers would be broken into quite a bit as well as we would sit there.

While I doubt anyone will coming looking for your Fred, you could be found to be in possession of stolen property as those Freds have the RR unit number and other identifying info. on them. I don't think you would find very many Freds for sale in salvage yards around the country.

Slchub: can we assume that they were kind enough to block the air when they stole your FRED?

10more years wrote:Slchub: can we assume that they were kind enough to block the air when they stole your FRED?

Oh yeah. They knew to turn the angle cock in order to get Fred off. I was surprised that the head end did not start chirping away at us when they cut off Freddie.

Another time I was working the Arden local (out of west Las Vegas) and as I release the brakes to start our move, I pull the horn, and nothing! Just the sound of air whistling through the horn pipe above the cab. Sometime between the midnight switching and our start in the morning, someone took the horn.

I've had the horn go bad while enroute, which was a little disconcerting, but never stole. We did have a train stopped down around the Pembroke NC area several years back and the locals blocked the air on the train while they unloaded some lumber cars,... and then cut it back in when they finished!

Why would anyone want one? I've never heard of any RR just tossing them out, they're expensive and can be rebuilt.

jr145 wrote:Usually they are dumped in the yards. If you take a train into a yard and you're shoving cars into a track, you take it off and drop it where you are. Some crews will bring it up to the locomotive but some don't. Some yards have utility men that will go around and pick them up.

Sometimes they get left in the back of a crew van, too…

slchub wrote:

10more years wrote:Slchub: can we assume that they were kind enough to block the air when they stole your FRED?

Oh yeah. They knew to turn the angle cock in order to get Fred off. I was surprised that the head end did not start chirping away at us when they cut off Freddie.

Another time I was working the Arden local (out of west Las Vegas) and as I release the brakes to start our move, I pull the horn, and nothing! Just the sound of air whistling through the horn pipe above the cab. Sometime between the midnight switching and our start in the morning, someone took the horn.

We can no longer leave engines at a quarry that loads ballast for company use because the 'locals' are routinely stealing horns off the locomotive(s). Company police periodically stake out the place, but so far they have been unable to catch anyone.