Davenport, Iowa, BNSF locos running in flood water

on30gn15

Active member
Am looking at this http://www.railpictures.net/photo/691910/ in Davenport, Iowa, with BNSF locos running in flood water and wondering a couple things.

Remarks & Notes Spring thaw means Mississippi River flooding in downtown Davenport. The CP will run trains through the floodwaters for as long as they can, until the River gets too high. Another engine was on the back of the train pushing the isloated lead engines through the water.

One: what specifically and exactly does the word isolated mean in this usage?
Is it isolated in location? Is it isolated in control? Have the traction motors been isolated electrically?
Two: might the programming in TANE have ability to model and show the bow wave?

Question 2 I can find out the answer for myself here in a little bit.
Question 1 will likely have to be asked of the photographer.
 
It's surprising this is possible. Having been in the business aside from the potential undermining of the track and roadbed structure that occurs from prolonged water exposure, usually traction motors experience ground faults when running though water thats an inch or 2 above the rail.
 
Having seen video of this from years past (same spot and all) CP might have invested in shoring up the ground there with extra ballast ect. To (again, maybe) answer OP's first question, from those vids it was said that they don't put power into the loco's that are actively in the water, but have the loco's on the back push them though it. Once they are done swimming they run the motors at high power but not actively putting power onto the rails, just heating the motors for a set amount of time to dry them out.

Video I was thinking of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR5Iz3kuV1g

If you search "CP in davenport flood" in YouTube there are many a videos from that area, I think CP just wants its loco's to have a bath every now and then :)
 
One: what specifically and exactly does the word isolated mean in this usage?
Is it isolated in location? Is it isolated in control? Have the traction motors been isolated electrically?

I believe in this context, the word "isolated" is referring to the Engine being a single unit at the front end of the train. As in, if I stand alone, I am isolated from others.
-It does also, though I do not know if it is intentional, refer to the two Engines having their controls isolated from each other, so that as stated above, one can be de-powered while the electric traction motors are submerged. Meaning: they are NOT in MU mode or DPU mode, but instead, each would need an Engineer to control the unit.
 
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