I found the NS Harrisburg Division timetable online (http://www.railfanpa.com/timetable/), so I can answer my own question. The hotbox detetctors on the Southern Tier Line and the Buffalo Line are usually about 20 miles apart. Maybe an axle can go bad in 5 to 10 miles, but someone obviously came to the conclusion that you minimize your risk to reasonable levels by putting HBDs every 20 miles or so. Many bearings must be warm a long time before they fail.
It's way more than 20 miles from Union City to Salamanca. Seems to me that we're being too laid back about the possibilities here. This car started fires as far back as Steamburg and chopped up ties most of the way through the city of Salamanca before destroying the switch at the east end of the siding. On its way it passed through a large bridge over the creek on the west side and over two underpasses. If it had dropped coal cars into Main Street or Wildwood Avenue, the tort lawyers would be crawling down WNYP's neck demanding explanations why management halted hotbox detector installations after the first two. That's just our world today. Better not to learn the hard way.
It's way more than 20 miles from Union City to Salamanca. Seems to me that we're being too laid back about the possibilities here. This car started fires as far back as Steamburg and chopped up ties most of the way through the city of Salamanca before destroying the switch at the east end of the siding. On its way it passed through a large bridge over the creek on the west side and over two underpasses. If it had dropped coal cars into Main Street or Wildwood Avenue, the tort lawyers would be crawling down WNYP's neck demanding explanations why management halted hotbox detector installations after the first two. That's just our world today. Better not to learn the hard way.
