High School SMILE Meeting
1997-98 -- 05-06 Academic Years

10 September 2002: Fred Schaal (Lane Tech HS, Mathematics) Observations on Famous Trains

Empire Builder: Chicago ® ® ® Seattle
Cascades: Seattle ® ® ® Vancouver BC
Coast Satellite: Vancouver ® ® ® Emeryville CA
Southwest Chief: Emeryville ® ® ® Los Angeles
Sunrise Limited: Los Angeles ® ® ® Dallas
Texas Eagle: Dallas ® ® ® Chicago


22 October 2002: Fred Schaal [Lane Tech HS, Mathematics]    Riding the Rails --- Again!
continued to describe his rail travels around the country, indicating that in a number of passenger stations there engines of ancient vintage on display.  He saw the legendary Union Pacific Big Boy 4884 steam locomotive in one station; for details on that engine see the Union Pacific Big Boys website http://www.steamlocomotive.com/bigboy/.  There were also a number of diesel locomotives of ancient vintage on display.

Fred asked why there were different couplers on tank cars, which were much higher off the ground.  It was suggested that such an arrangement would decrease the likelihood of punctures of tank cars during train wrecks, since hazardous materials are routinely transported in tank cars.  Porter Johnson mentioned that the coupling mechanism on American trains [from Tierra del Fuego to Valdez; automatic coupling] is different from that on European trains [mechanical coupling with hydraulic plungers to maintain stability], whereas Lego®.Trains use magnets for coupling [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Trains].  For additional information see the website Military Traffic Managementhttp://www.tea.army.mil/DEP/TRANSPORT/modes/rail/nylon.htm.  You seem to enjoy hearing the squeal of the train wheels, Fred!

10 December 2002: Don Kanner [Lane Tech HS, Physics]     Questions Concerning the Motion of a Toy Train
 set up a toy train, consisting of an engine operated with dry cell batteries along with a coal car and two other cars,  which  moved on a circular track about 60 cm in diameter.  He handed out a Surprise Quiz, consisting of these 3 questions:

    The toy train on the front table is moving forward with speed v.
  1. At any given instant, what part of the train has an instantaneous velocity of 2v in a forward direction?
  2. At any given instant, what part of the train has an instantaneous velocity of zero?
  3. At any given instant, what part of the train has an instantaneous velocity in a backward direction?
The answers, respectively, were (1) the top of a wheel (2) the bottom of a wheel, and (3) a point on the flange of the wheel just below the top surface of the track.

Don attached a paper circle of larger diameter to the end of a large can [say, a coffee can], and rolled it along the front edge of the table with the paper circle sticking over the front of the table.  One could see quite clearly that the point at the bottom of the circle was moving backwards as the can rolled forward without slipping on the table.  Don, we we don't love a surprise quiz, but we do love  The Little Engine That Could ... Make Us Think! Keep the ideas rolling!

Porter put a red diode laser pointer [with the switch held in the "on" position with an alligator clip] on the coal car of the train.  As the train moved around in a circle, the laser produced a "headlight" beam that went in the direction of motion of the train.  When the lights in the room were turned off, the sweeping headlight swept dramatically and somewhat eerily around the room.  Porter pointed out that this system is a good model for the Advanced Photon Source [APS] [http://www.aps.anl.gov] at Argonne National Laboratory, in which the beam of electrons goes around and around the ring for hours and hours, and that the synchrotron radiation comes out strongly peaked about the instantaneous direction of the ultra-relativistic electron beam.  To be more realistic, one should get a blue laser diode, since the visible component of Synchrotron Radiation increases with decreasing wavelength.

09 September 2003: Fred Schaal  [Lane Tech HS, mathematics]        Tank Cars and Mars

21 October 2003: Fred Schaal [Lane Tech HS, mathematics]        Railroading on the Great Divide
traveled extensively on the Union Pacific Main Line last summer, during which he noticed that a number of the tank cars were "sway backed".  He wondered why they were built that way.  During the discussion, the following points were raised:

  1. It may help to avoid over-filling, since tank cars are normally filled from openings at the top center. 
  2. It may serve to damp out sloshing, because of the low spots in the middle of the tank.
  3. It may keep the tank from exploding, if excessive gas pressure builds up with volatile fluids.
Or, could this be the first stage of collapse of these cars?  Tanks for the memories, Fred!

14 September 2004: Fred Schaal [Lane Tech HS, Mathematics]           Green Line Adventure

Very exciting, Fred!

13 September 2005: Fred Schaal (Lane Tech HS, mathematics)          "VIA Rail Canada" vs "Amtrak"


18 October 2005: Don Kanner (Lane Tech, physics)           Physics with MSTS: Microsoft Train Simulator
projected an image of the instrument panel of a locomotive on the screen at the front of the class.  He used the MSTS locomotive simulator, which can be run on a computer to teach physics in class.  Two (brake) pressure gauges, a speedometer,  a digital clock, a Train Status indicator, and a Force Gauge were visible. Don highly recommends the Print Screen™ software program on Windows™ to save images at time intervals from this (or any other) program to a folder of your choice.  See also this URLhttp://www.download.com/Print-Screen-Deluxe/3000-2094_4-10356546.html?tag=lst-0-2.  In addition, see the (free, downloadable) Picasa2 Picture Editing Softwarehttp://picasa.google.com/index.html.  These screens then can be used as a data set to help with problems involving, for example, speed and distance versus time, for uniform linear acceleration, variable acceleration, and circular motion. In particular a decrease in acceleration for a certain locomotive automatically occurs at a speed of 45 m/s, with a corresponding decrease in force, explained by Newton's Second Law.  This locomotive is programmed to accelerate more quickly at low speed, and less quickly at high speed, to stay on schedule.  Good stuff! Thanks, Don.

18 October 2005: Fred Schaal (Lane Tech HS, mathematics)                RR on the GD  (RailRoading on the Great Divide)
handed out a sheet he had gotten concerning the American Orient Express [http://american-orient-express-train.com/trips.shtml], which is now bankrupt.