A couple of days ago, I was watching a train of empty ballast cars on KCS between Minden, LA, and Shreveport in Bossier City. There were two locos, then about 5 ballast cars followed by a flatcar with a stationary diesel engine mounted on it. The engine was painted white with a number stenciled on each side. This was followed by 30 or 40 more ballast cars.
Does this engine play a part in unloading the ballast or was it just along for the ride?
It’s possible it supplies air or hydraulic pressure to open/close the hoppers. You don’t want to use trainline (brakes) air. If you try to open/close too many at once you’ll put the train into emergency and end up with a pile of ballast where you don’t want one.
The engine was painted white?!? Gasp! It must be on of them there FEMA engines.
[(-D] Did ya see any shackles? [;)]
i doubt that the engine did anything for the ballest cars and you dont use train line air for the ballast cars. but if unloading cars you can empty as many as you want with out putting train in emergency.