Hi, If a train needs 4 locomotives for its journey and the locomotives are spread throughout the train (i.e. 2 locos on head end, 1 in the middle and 1 on rear) would this train tend to stay that way for the whole trip? I am assuming that helpers are added and subtracted in areas of grades (i.e. Johnstown - Altoona). I just saw a big coal train go through Rochelle with 3 locos, 2 on the point and 1 on the rear and was wondering if the hind end is a helper that will be taken off or if the unit is just distributed power that will remain there for the entre journey. Thanks for any info you can give me.
Manned helpers are becoming less common. The situation you saw at Rochelle is probably DP in use through the entire trip since there don’t seem to be any grades requiring a helper in the area.
The Western carriers tend to use Distributed Power and the locomotives will stay in place for the duration of the trip.
Eastern carriers tend to use manned helpers, although, they are testing and using Distributed Power in selected areas. Helpers are attached and detached where necessary. When Distributed Power is used, it stays with the train for the duration of the trip.
Another way to think about this is how long and how steep is the steepest grade the train will encounter, compared to the whole trip, and how fast does the train need to get over the road.
DP works great if there is no really steep grade in an otherwise 1% or less route and if the train needs to keep more than drag speed over that route. A Los Angeles to Chicago stack train will see 2.2% in and out of LA basin. The rest of the route is about 1%. Running DP through makes sense because the train needs to maintain good speed across the rest of the route.
The ruling grade on the east slope above Altoona is 1.8% or so, but is only a few miles long. Here it makes more sense (that is minimizes engine miles and engine fleet) to use helpers only for the few miles they are really needed.
In steam days there was a strong tendency to either using bigger engines on steeper grades or helpers as necessary, and drag along everywhere else. Today the trend is toward DP and away from helpers, and use the extra power for more speed and better dynamic braking capability all over, but especially on the occassional steep downgrade.
The different responses Balt mentioned is due to generally short bad grades in the east.
Mac
BNSF’s Transcon Mainline has tough grades all the way from San Bernardino to at least Riordan, AZ. In addition to the climb out of the LA Basin, you have Ash Hill and Goff’s Hill with grades of just under 2% followed by descents of over 2% to get to Needles, CA. Then you have 2 long tough slogs to climb from the Colorado River bridge at Topock, AZ at 475’ asl(Above Sea Level) to Riordan, AZ at 7,025’ asl. The two grades Topock to Kingman, and Williams Jct. to Riordan, AZ both feature sustained grades of 1.43%
Beaulieu,
You obviously know the former Santa Fe main better than I do, and your details illustrate why DP rather than helpers. I would not be surprised to find one or two units come off/go on somewhere around Belen.
It is all about grades, horespower and speed.
Mac
Eastward to Ash Hill and eastward to Goffs are both 1.0%. Descent to Needles is 1.4%.
I had it in my head that Riordan was just east of Flagstaff, AZ, but it is just west of Flagstaff and the summit elevation is 7,350’ asl.
Timz has the railroad been realigned over Ash and Goff’s Hill? As I remember it there are separate tracks used by Eastbounds and Westbounds, with descending trains using the older and steeper grades, though Bi-directional CTC allows DS discretion.
Please keep in mind that Distributed Power isn’t only about grades. (Help me out here, Jeff!) It’s about better train handling and slack control, and faster brake applications (making longer trains safer). I don’t know of too many long, pusher-requiring grades between Proviso and North Platte, but DP is very common between those points.
It used to be that one could tell when the end of a freight train was approaching by the banging in the couplers–a slight level adjustment where the drawbar forces were about equal. That doesn’t happen with DP–you know the end of the train by the sound of an approaching locomotive!
Balt, I hope CSX will be using DP on those monster freight trains I keep hearing about. Unlike nearly everyone else, I’m thrilled at the prospect of three-miles-plus of slowly-moving freight cars (for research purposes, of course!).
I can’t say as I’ve seen any distributed power on the CSX Water Level Route (Chicago Line), bit it’s sounding like that might change…
Then, again, I’m not always there, so it may have already. I’m pretty sure I’ve hear the defect detector near Utica max out at least once.
The eastward climbs to Ash Hill and to Goffs are 1.0%. The separated mains are on the east slopes of each hill; on each the steeper, shorter track is newer. When they double tracked around 1923 SFe added the 2.2-2.3% cutoff east from Ash Hill; the two-mile 1.96-1.98% cutoff west of Ibis dates from around 1950. The other track is 1.4% on each.
We have not seen any DPU on CSX’s A&WP sub from LaGrange, Ga - ATL. The trains are longer but maybe NS will not allow DPU on their trackage that CSX has to traverse from East Point - downtown ATL. As well NS may be concerned about DPU crossings its Piedmont division west of ATL Amtrak station at Howell CP diamonds.
As it is CSX trains often block the crossing as it is the yard lead for CSX’s Tilford yard. A hint of those delays can be seen by the number of times Amtrak’s Crescent is delayed between ATL and Anniston. Oltmann can probably give us some info on how much this CP is blocked.
Believe that there was a trains blog mentioning this CP definitely needs flyovers.
CSX is testing DPU on selected territories and mostly on bulk commodity trains.
I’ve been wondering about the control of DPU’s. From what I’ve read, the control can be set up to have the DPU’s slave to the lead units or can be contolled independently. If this is so, can the mid-train DPU’s be controlled separately from the rear pushers? If this is so, how many sets can be controlled independently?
I was wondering the same thing…
You can have up to 4 remote consists in a train. I’ve never had a train that had two (or more) remote consists, only trains with a lead and either mid-train or rear consist. From what I understand, each remote consist can be handled separately from the others.
Jeff
The 18K foot intermodal train that UP operated from Texas to California several years ago had 3 DP set ups in the train. 1st DP was about 6K feet deep, 2nd was about 12K feet deep, 3rd was on the rear of the train, if I remember the video correctly.
Just remember while you’re enjoying these longer trains, that there are folks losing their jobs and livihood being furloughed because CSX is needing less crews to run these longer trains. So just keep on enjoying them while folks are having to find new jobs because of them.
[:-,] With an octopus* for an engineer ?
(*4 remotes x 2 hands each = 8 hands needed) No offense intended, Jeff - that would seem to be a very busy responsibility at a grade transition, for example. Would it be ?
- Paul North.
To rocklymidlandrr - So let’s be inefficient on purpose so costs go up and more traffic moves to trucks.