A Supersonic Hair Dryer Blasts Ice and Snow Off Train Tracks

To assure a locomotive engine pulling a heavy burden has enough grip when a wintertime ’s good time cover the tracks in ice and snow , engineers at GE ’s transportation divisionhave spent the last five years perfect what can be described as a ultrasonic pilus dryer that blasts path clean just inches in front of a train ’s front roulette wheel .

The ARC — or Advanced Rail Cleaner — uses a pair of nozzles maneuver directly at the rail just in front of a locomotive to clean off anything and everything using a blast of air travel at supersonic speed . It ’s the kind of matter you do n’t want to put your hand in front of when course at full power , but that ’s a moot distributor point because less then a 2d layer a multi - ton train would ensure you would n’t feel whatever injuries you keep — or anything ever again .

To date the ARC system has actually been install on over 300 locomotive as the design has been lento improved over its five years of ontogeny . And the last version will really utilise thinking software to detect when a caravan ’s wheels start slipping , and automatically change on the cetacean mammal . In test the system has been found to increase a lead locomotive ’s adhesive friction by up to 30 percent which signify it can not only drag even more cars , but can also take routes that were antecedently off - limits during sure part of the year due to cold atmospheric condition and severe experimental condition .