Does everyone know if Norfolk Southern use dynamic brake locomotives before they spilt up Conrail in two?
Because I’m modeling my fictious railroad that shared using Southern Ry and Norfolk & Western tracks. Or did these two separate railroads had one and not the another prior to their merger in '82?
NS had very few locomotives without DBs.Their SD9s (50-59) did not have DBs.
However…The N&W had some locomotives that wasn’t DB equipped…The same applies for the Southern.
Most everything NS had came with DB’s, and the N&W and Southern also were big users of DB. I think much of the NKP engines N&W inherited did not have DB, and Southern picked up some short lines that did not have DB engines - Mainly GP38 or GP38-2 class engines.
NYC was a big non-user of DB’s for the most part. PRR seemed to change their mind with different orders, and B&O had a fleet of GP’s without DB as well.
Jim
Jim,N&W ex Wabash units did not have DB nor did the ex Illinois Terminal.
Flatland railroads don’t benefit as much as those with grades. The PRR bought nondynamic brake engines for the west end to save some money but soon found it was better to have them and not restrict the engines to specific regions.
NKP was another N&W/NS predecessor that didn’t go in for DB’s. Another flatland railroad.
B&O had DB’s on freight power. Some early GP7’s lacked DB’s, as well as a few passenger GP9’s.
I thought eastern railroads around the Carolinas, Virginians, and the Ohio, Georgia region would need DB. What about using DB power around the Appalachian mountains?
At least some of the B&O freight GP7’s were assigned to relatively flatter territory across Indiana & Illinois. B&O’s passenger GP’s had steam generators and top-mounted air tanks where the dynamic brake fans would have been located. They were mostly used in commuter service out of Washington DC, where grades were minimal and trains were relatively short. At least one was assigned to Akron-Cleveland service on no’s 17 & 18, which carried only a food service combine, a coach, and a sleeper in the late 1950’s - early 1960’s. There was no need for dynamics in that kind of service.
As a general rule, you are correct when you say DB’s are needed for freight service in the mountains, but not so much in flatter territory.
They used both as needed…
I’ve seen N&W locomotive consist in Porstsmouth(Oh) on loaded coal drags with a mixture of DB and non DB equipped locomotives…Of course such consist rendered the DB useless.
Even when I worked mine runs on the Chessie(C&O) our unit consist may not have been DB equipped yet,we got the job done.
Dynamic brakes are so effective that a train can have too much Braking. Illinois Central restricted dynamic braking to a maximum number of axles shutting it off in engines when the number of axles exceeded the limit. The training video I saw showed an electrical switch on the cab wall to isolate and shut off the excess dynamics.
I’ve spent the last week fighting off a flue bug, so I have been doing lots of reading, and I have been totally captavated by the Southern, and now the NS, freight movements on their “W” line, from Asheville, NC, to Spartanburg, SC., especially the Saluda area and the Saluda Grade. From the old training video I’ve watched a bunch of times made by the Southern, about Saluda, the movement of freight and unit coal trains going East, down the Saluda Grade, would have been impossible without DB. I think If I was modeling that part of the country, to be more prototypical in looks, I would have DB on all of the locos.
Have a great week end !
Mike.
Answer is yes, both roads very much so used DB’s on their locos. Especially before 1982.
Both N&W and Southern had D/B on most of the locomotives that they purchased. However, they did merge in RR’s whose fleets did not have them, mainly Wabash and Nickel Plate Road to the N&W, and the original Norfolk Southern to the Southern. Since the 1982 merger, every road locomotive purchased by NS has had D/B. Switching locomotives rarely have D/B, but one exception is NS’s battery powered switcher, which recharges its battery when braking.
Perhaps an expert on the Lackawanna can correct me if I am wrong about this…but didn’t the Lackawanna and Jersey Central use units with dynamic brakes in the territory of western New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. The mountains are not that high by the standards of the other Appalacian railroads but they are very steep.
Kevin