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CSX tests distributed power, brakes over C&O’s Alleghany grade
200 car trains save no money . It takes 2 crews to get over the road. All it takes is 1 lost car on a manifest train due to a lost customer to pay for the crew. Save money today lose customers and money tomorrow . You don’t really even save money today.
220 car loaded unit coal trains CAN save money !! With distributed power technology, I believe the two center locomotives do not have a manned crew, they are controlled by the crew of the lead engines
. Besides, this TEST run was conducted to mainly ensure that ALL the loaded cars have ADEQUATE AIR for their brake systems in VERY COLD weather conditions.
Distributed Power has been used out in the western mountains for years, with great success, so why not try it back east ?
I wasn’t saying there was a crew in the other units. Distributed power does have its place especially on coal trains. Believe me I’ve recrewed several of the latest 200 car trains . They also screw up a yard since none are designed to receive that many cars
The DP technology has been used for decades at railroads like BNSF and UP, it obviously works well.
However, infrastructure often limits the benefits of long trains. Passing sidings are not long enough to hold them, and in some terminals, those trains are longer than the distance between control points. They also are often too long to fit in yards, meaning that part of the train sits on the main line while the train is being built or yarded. All this offers the potential to foul network fluidity, and it’s a common pitfall at roads such as CN and CP, who implemented long trains before the infrastructure was ready to accomodate them.
So, I think we might be agreeing that 220 car trains CAN save money under certain circumstances, like adequate infrastructure,unit trains etc., back here in the east, but there’s work to be done, correct ?
This is a(roughly) 9000 ft train. Are there sidings that long for meets? And are the yard tracks big enough to handle these trains. You can run big trains but can the railroad handle them.
Canadian national was run 150 car loaded coal trains with just two ac units one on the the head and the other on the tail 8200 ft 22000 tons
These Cross trains used to go through Erwin TN, but we all know what happened to operations there!! Wonder where that congestion in Richmond came from?
Richmond has been a bottleneck for years. Trains are frequently left standing on the mains both north and south of Acca yard. This effectively leaves a one track railroad from AY Jct. through West AY and on to the Meadow interlocking, across the James River on the old ACL. Often, northbounds are stacked 2 or 3 deep waiting for a crew change. On the north end the Amtrak station is a choke point, especially between 5 and 7 PM, with trains 90, 91, 66, 53, the Norfolk trains, other SB’s that either continue to Newport News or deadhead through Acca to “spin the wye” and park overnight at the station, added to the mix of freight traffic. The yard throats are very narrow, and even though a “Passenger Main” single track was added in the 90’s, through freights are routed over it, with southbounds stopping frequently to change crews. Acca Yard is pretty cramped, and I’ve witnessed days when two opposing trains that were too long to fit in the yard were routed in a manner that allowed neither to get through. They had to send a switch engine out and around one train, make a cut, and shove it into a yard track so that the other train could pass.
Recently, a northbound train with 200+ cars broke a coupler knuckle while diverging from the North End Sub to the Bellwood Sub (SAL) at Centralia, about 10 miles south of Acca, tying up both routes for hours.
Eastbounds on the C&O have to pull into Acca, put engines on the rear which then becomes the head end, and then head west back to Rivanna Jct., near the Triple Crossing, to swing north around Main Street Station. From there they use the connector to the former SAL trackage up a very steep grade, usually with helpers. Once they reach South AY Jct., they are routed onto the old RF&P James River Branch which becomes the North End Sub to Rocky Mount, NC.
The big problem with long trains is the amount of time it takes to locate and fix problems when things go wrong, especially if a conductor has to walk nearly
I didn’t realize that Richmond was such a bottleneck for CSX. Is that a consequence of losing Potomac yard south of DC twenty years ago?
I. Narita, the 220 car train with four units is 12,890 feet in length and does not take into consideration the slack between cars. The tonnage would be 31,200 tons (cars + engines). A train that size is difficult on some track to be stopped and not block crossings. While DP does help with slack, a broken air hose or knuckle(s) would tie up a main line for a period of time. Delays account of hours of service law requirments can mean for long delays.
Going back to broken trains, in cold weather getting the air restored from the head-end to the EOT can be quite lengthy depending on the ambient temperatures. Never a dull moment.
And here is an interesting historical note on DP…back in the day the Milw. Rd. used DP over the mountains on Lines West, both electric and diesel, utilizing a controller nicknamed “Sputnik.”
220 cars - 2.4 miles long - over 31,000 tons … REALLY?! Even with DPU’s, handling a train of such dimensions must be challenging.
Not really difficult. Once you have split the tractive effort and reduced the risk of break-in-two, the biggest factor from a train handling standpoint is total brake system volume. DP can handle that. Brake pipe length, on the other hand, is at the upper limit even with DP for a coal train of this length unless the rear end helper is operating as a second DP consist on grades. My personal experience is with 240 cars, about 40% of which were relay brake system equipped with each car having more than 3 times the reservoir volume of a coal hopper. These are iron ore trains of the same relative tonnage as the coal train in question that I speak of, with 8200-foot brake pipes. Brake pipe length was not a problem, brake response in cycle braking was. Total brake system volume was identified as the problem.
Improper use of the brakes without compensating for the pressure differential created when cycle braking can cause sticking brakes and lead to expensive wheel thermal damage. The problem is the pressure differential between brake pipe auxiliary reservoir at each car. Conventional wisdom says go 2-3 psi deeper on the next brake application if the brake pipe is not fully charged. This should read ‘‘brake system’’ rather than ‘‘brake pipe’’. I have seen a study which demonstrates that car reservoir pressures can lag behind brake pipe pressure by as much as 3 psi three to five minutes after releasing an initial 10 psi brake pipe reduction from a fully charged brake system with long unit trains.
With the additional volumes, air replenishment in release and charging adversely affects the accelerated service release function of the car control valves after a service brake release. The limitation is related to port size in the control valve itself. On the CSX trains this should not be as much of a problem as the length of the brake pipe itself, which does have an impact of air flow with similar results. Once you are aware of the problem as a locomotive engineer, you le