Howdy To All, When I lived in my home town of Newcastle, Wyoming (1974-1976) occationally there would be BN trains come through town hauling coal that had 3 locomotives, one tank car (I assume for diesel fuel for the engines) then three more locomotives followed I thimk with about 100 loaded coal cars after which came another 3 more locomotives, one tank car with three more locomotives and another 100 cars. My question are does anyone know what locomotives were used, SD-40-2s?, or something else. Also what size were the tank cars and coal cars? When did BN drop their cabooses at the end of the trains? I know I saw this on many occations due to having to sit at he railroad crossing on mian street wainting for the train to get through town. I can’t seem to pull up any pictures on the internet, any Ideas? Magoo
Those were fuel tenders, used to extend the range of the locomotives to places where fuel was cheaper. I saw them on all rail pellet trains hooked up to both SD40-2’s and various GE’s. Probably the same on coal service. The tenders were abandoned when it was discovered that they couldn’t couple frameless cars between locomotives per FRA or someone’s rule.
The coal cars we saw back in the day at this end (Duluth/Superior) were a mix of GN, NP, and BN 53ft steel bottom dump 3 bay hopper cars.
Wyomign during the 70’s the BN power would’ve consisted of a few locomotive types: SD40-2’s & U30C’s.
The power shortage during that time would have Old Alcos and EMD’s operating in the pacific northwest, and newer locomotives operating in the coal fields which were the BN’s most profitable trains.
edit: The fuel tender frames often took more stress than it was safe to be operating at because the tender would be placed between the lead loco motive and trailing units, in 4 unit consists the fuel tender would be in the center of the 4 units.
In looking at photos of the BN fuel tenders, it looks to me that they all had frames.
BN started the program in October of 1982. I am finding no evidence of BN using fuel tenders in the '70’s. They were still in use in 2001.
Ed
The April 1988 Model Railroader had an article “Build an HO scale Burlington Northern fuel tender” on page 65. The author, Keith Mangels, kitbashed the tender from an Athearn 62’ tank car. I’d agree the tenders weren’t used in the 1970’s - the article notes that the MR staff started using one on thru-coal trains on their MR&T layout to give them an “up-to-date look”.
With Athearn introducing Genesis GP50’s, I would hope that when they do BN tiger stripes, they’d also do some accompanying fuel tenders. They’ve done them before. It’d be nice if they added the piping and corrected the handrails around the top–sorta Genesising 'em. Like the new tank train cars.
Ed
Mostly SD40-2s, U30Cs, and C30-7s. Occasionally SD40s, SD45s, F45s*, U25Cs, U28Cs, U33Cs, and U23Cs were used.
*One video on youtube shows an F45 in a helper set with a C30-7 and U30C.