A different kind of article …

Antescript

Several times, in the last ten years, I started to write articles with this title. The only draft I kept is so convoluted and confusing that I might even decide to publish it.

I have a few answers to this question.

There is one I hesitate to put in writing …

There is another I already published.

This one is the third.

Should we change the virtual transition length?

From time to time, I hear, or I’m asked this question.

The most common “justification” for considering this is that 10.06m, 12.2m or even 15m, 17.5m, 20m and 35m virtual transition lengths “are no longer an accurate representation of the modern rolling stock”.

Sometimes a calculation is presented, with results that presumably don’t make sense. But, look, if we change some figures they suddenly look better, comforting. Safe?

Some other times one old article of mine is quoted as justification … and then …

If you are a regular visitor here, you probably know by now that I’m not the kind of guy that treats the railway track engineering rules as sacred revelations that are never to be challenged. Engineering is not a religion!

Challenging the Virtual Transition rule, or any other, is not blasphemy!

However…

It is not the length that is the problem with the virtual transition and changing the length will not solve it.

The thought that we need to change something is important, very important. More important even that the solution we quickly run to – stretching the length.

The thought that something doesn’t work, that something with the virtual transition needs changing is … critical thinking in action.

Stay with it! Don’t look for a solution! Not yet!

To be continued  … someday …