Hi
I really don’t have a short or easy way of explaining my question. I live in Ohio, not to far from here are a few very mountainous areas. P.A and V.A. were once “Coal country”. To get the trains over the hill’s, helper’s were added mid train, or as pusher’s at the rear. This makes sense to me, spread out the power, spread out the load, and life is good. I’ve seen more pictures than I can name of trains (in Trains magazine.) out West hauling Coal with all the power on the head end. I’d think that with that much hoarse power up front that it would place a great deal of stress on the first few car’s coupler’s. Why is it necessary to spread out the power in some places and not a problem in others?
Thanks, and take care, Doug
Could it be that those grades aren’t as steep ‘out west’ as they are by you? That makes sense to me.
loaded midwestern trains do use distributed power, when it’s needed. However, it is needed much less often than it was – and still is, to a certain extent – in the Appalachians. There are some very steep grades in them thar hills.
Normally, if you see a coal train leaving the PRB and all the power is up front, the train is destined for a powerplant not directly served by BNSF or UP. The train is going to NS, CSX, CN, CP, or a shortline. It is a hassle to add the distributed power locomotive at a location that doesn’t do it regularly. And none of the railroads that I mentioned have Engineers trained in operating DPU power consists so running through a train with DPU is not an option. KCS is the only railroad that accepts DPUs from the PRB. NS does accept the Scherer coal trains at Memphis with DPU, but none at Chicago.
I would like to thank you guys for your replies. I still really don’t have the answer I was looking for. I know I’m not really asking my question the right way. Beaulieu you made several very good points. I feel stupid for not thinking of the cost and hassles involved with using DPU’s. I don’t really agree with your point about not having engineer’s qualified for dpu’s as a reason for not using it. I’m sure it’s true that a train won’t move with out a qualified Engineer at the throttle, but if it was “necessary” to use dpu’s then it’s only a matter of time and money to train them.
Maybe a better way of trying to ask my question would be to say that I thought that Hp per ton was assigned by the ruling grade.
I know my numbers may be way off the mark but to try to make my point, I’ve seen pictures of trains on Horse shoe curve with 4 engine’s up front and 2 more as mid train helpers hauling 100 coal car’s. I’ve seen pictures of trains in the PRB with 6 engines up front hauling 100 coal cars. Why if 6 engines are needed in both cases would one RR add them mid train and another just add them up front? I think a lot of my question has to do with the breaking point of coupler’s. At what point is too much power on the head end reached? Is the grade or the total power, or total tonnage factors in determining if dpu’s are necessary?
thanks again Doug
Check out this site:
Check out this site:
Doug, Chad has listed Al Krug’s website which offers the best explaination out there, normally the railroads don’t put extra power on the train, but they might have needed to move some locomotives at a different location and it is much cheaper to add them to a train moving in the right direction rather than as a light power move. Of course a few years ago it took 5 SD40-2s or C30-7s to move the coal trains. As far as training goes remember that you have to train the whole pool in a terminal of Engineers since you don’t want the coal train to sit waiting for the one qualified Engineer to be available and rested.
I have ran distributed power trains, they operate no differant than others except for the 8 second lag between the head and rear, the drawbar forces are reduced and the trains brakes set up faster as it exhausted from the head and rear at the same rate.
Rodney