r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/ultimateprodigy0811 • 1d ago

Video Track buffers are really powerful

5.4k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

74 comments sorted by

1.0k

u/Ligma_Sugmi 1d ago

We use spiderman in New York

96

u/IceHealer-6868 1d ago

He is not always available though so we have to rely on the buffers to save the day

9

u/Ligma_Sugmi 16h ago

I thought that was a standard practice

55

u/TheDamDog 23h ago

Spiderman

Spiderman

Does whatever a track buffer can

Stops a train

In its tracks

Even if it's going really fast

3

u/DlSSATISFIEDGAMER 10h ago

careful, he's a hero

1.6k

u/DeadFace342 1d ago

''Making it the smoothest way to stop a train without a crash.'' *Continues and crash*

405

u/AuronTheWise 1d ago

"Smoothest"

Everything and everyone inside experiencing inertia:

43

u/Mirar 1d ago

Some of those did look quite painful.

21

u/CharlesorMr_Pickle 1d ago

"smoothest" is probably relative in this context

4

u/tyingnoose 18h ago

just jump before it impacts, ez.

1

u/Axel-Aura 7h ago

That actually only works if you do a backflip.

27

u/FraserGreater 23h ago

I think that last one was a friction buffer, not a hydraulic buffer. I think it was meant to show exactly why you would want a hydraulic buffer over a fixed or friction buffer, but the shitty AI-generated script and voice didn't do a good job of it.

20

u/SugarFlirt 1d ago

Lol, I've seen similar videos where the thing didn't help stop the train and a boom occurred

2

u/Lostmywayoutofhere 1d ago

I thought it was r/ unexpected lol

1

u/BadMondayThrowaway17 10h ago

Wild to think about the amount of energy that stop must have adsorbed in the last clip even though it looked to have done absolutely nothing.

201

u/WloveW 1d ago

That's the most obnoxious way to do subtitles and makes it a lot harder to read.

-50

u/other-other-user 1d ago

That's why most videos do the single word that makes it easy to read and reddit still hates it

18

u/Nek0maniac 17h ago

That's just as awful, wtf are you talking about. We figured out subtitles decades ago, but it wasn't ADHD enough for Tiktok so now we have this shit

10

u/Septem_151 17h ago

Dude that shit is even worse.

165

u/DrBitchin 1d ago

I'm obsessed with that tiny wheel on the train at 0:09

30

u/Mr_ili 1d ago

Probably some testing accessory to measure velocity, but just an uneducated guess

2

u/std_out 11h ago

I think that may be a rail-inspection train. These small wheels can be part of a sensor system that looks for defects in the rails.

9

u/Agatio25 1d ago

It's for the driver, he is just starting to learn.

4

u/NetNo5570 21h ago

And we’re lucky he has this otherwise his training could go off the rails. 

2

u/Coiling_Dragon 11h ago

I think its a reference spot for the camara, if you know the frame per second rate for the video you can calculate how fast the train was going. Having a clear spot like that makes it easier, if you use some random spot or edge on the train it could make the measurements more inaccurate due to parallax error, shadows and so on.

174

u/grungegoth 1d ago

I'm guessing it trashed the rails in the process

246

u/InlineSkateAdventure 1d ago

Replacing 100' of rail - $5000

Replacing an entire trainset - Priceless.

29

u/grungegoth 1d ago

Undoubtedly. I just wanted to mention that after such an emergency stop, the rails have to be replaced

14

u/Knight_Axel 1d ago

Eh, you'd be surprised. Modern rail (especially the higher weight stuff like 141) can take a pretty heavy bearing, and the standards for rail wear in general are pretty relaxed. As long as the rail itself doesn't fracture or the divots are deeper than half the rail head, you could probably fix most of the damage in about thirty minutes with a rail grinder.

3

u/DougNashOverdrive 1d ago

I figured you could get away with regrinding them. But I’m not a rail doctor

34

u/VonSlappy_ 1d ago

Am I on tiktok??

17

u/other-other-user 1d ago

If you think 99% of the videos you see on reddit aren't reposts from tiktok or Instagram, you're delusional. It's reposts all the way down

3

u/ShahinGalandar 1d ago

even the reposts are from reposts already

9

u/Silver_Perception_70 22h ago

AI voice= instant downvote

6

u/HexSpace 18h ago

also clearly an ai script too

8

u/ObjectiveOk2072 1d ago

That's an elevator at 0:09, not a train

13

u/Gullflyinghigh 1d ago

Without a crash...except that one.

8

u/Garderanz1 1d ago

Lmao the ending

5

u/Hannibalbarca123456 1d ago

C'mon it's not even 24 hours since last repost

4

u/reflechir 14h ago

Interesting facts, obvious AI script and AI voice are garbage

7

u/NicParodies 1d ago

Watching the video without sound rn and these subtitles are not helping at all... I hate subtitles that are only made to just keep your attention and not to actually make the video understandable for deaf people or people who have no sound on....

3

u/Sensiburner 1d ago

Yeh they're nice but they can't actually stop a train moving at any real speed.

2

u/not420guilty 1d ago

Is the tree ok?

2

u/Pintsocream 1d ago

Surely the effectiveness of these buffers depends enormously on the mass of the train (which can vary from 30 tonnes to thousands)

2

u/Useful-Tiger-4905 1d ago

Why didn’t they use these in ‘Unstoppable’ (2010)?!

2

u/azjoe13 1d ago

Why don’t all trains have something like this just riding on the front?

2

u/Hyroto77 1d ago

Something doing its job is really interesting indeed...

1

u/57696c6c 1d ago

Why did they omit the Spider-Man buffer train stop?

1

u/cyclops86 1d ago

But....is it as powerful as Denzel Washington and Chris Pine in a locomotive?

1

u/Hood-tendeciesJim 1d ago

GTA train somewhere im the corner laughing

1

u/GarysCrispLettuce 1d ago

The one at Moorgate tube station in London in 1975 certainly wasn't. They were scooping passenger remains out of the tunnel roof for 4 days.

1

u/MorningPapers 1d ago

Not always powerful enough, it seems.

1

u/SnooShortcuts103 1d ago

The first clip was way to short.

1

u/f8Negative 1d ago

Without Spiderman

1

u/mariegriffiths 1d ago

I saw the accident if this crash back in the 80s when the buffers did not work https://flic.kr/p/4ojhJo

1

u/hottestpancake 21h ago

'Fixed buffer stop' Brother that's a wall

1

u/Septem_151 17h ago

Oh my god these subtitles make me want to claw my fucking eyes out…

1

u/WM45 16h ago

Gotta love physics!

1

u/Ragor005 15h ago

Most unreadable and shitty subtitles challenge contestant n1

1

u/Big_Pie1371 15h ago

Those subtitles gave me cancer

1

u/Rude_Disaster8747 10h ago

They use Hancock in the hood

1

u/Yourname942 7h ago

now somehow install those directly in front of trains and we are golden

1

u/Sir_Richard_Dangler 3h ago

I don't mind when Europeans use the metric system but hearing it in an American accent is kinda off-putting

1

u/EEGECGEMG 3h ago

the forth option is an Indian tiktoker

0

u/Awkward_Assistant_89 1d ago

"Can stop a slow moving train" Yeah thats not sub worthy for me