Hi Broncoman,
Those BNSF trains are probably the north / south trains that compete against UPs I-5 coridor. They originate in Seattle,Tacoma or Vancouver / Portland. From Vancouver,Wa. they go east up the Columbia River george to Wishram then cross the river and head south on the Oregon Trunk line through bend and down to Chemault (?sp?) and then into Klamath Falls on UP track. From there they go down the former BN highline to Beiber. Then on to Keddie on old WP line. BNSF got the old WP(UP) line from Beiber to Keddie when the SP merger happened and then they got track rights from Keddie to Stockton. Some of this traffic terminates & Originates in Stockton. The rest is LA traffic (and possibly some for Barstow or points east). They call the northern part the Inside Gateway. I used to live by this line when I was a kid and back then it was a 1-2 train a day operation. When the WP merged with the UP the traffic had dropped off from 6-7 trains a day to barely one each way. And if the UP wasn’t in beiber to exchange cars when the BN showed up, The BN units would return light to Klamath Falls and the UP cars would have to wait for the next days train. At one point there was a tunnel colapse down close to Keddie and the line was almost abandoned. For a while the only traffic on this line was a BN turn down to Bieber from K-Falls to serve the mill and occasionaly a few loads of rock from the Tionesta pit. Even before the tunnel colapse the UP line was in poor shape. It was jointed rail and trains traveling 13-17 Mph would derail from harmonic rocking quite often (they had a rule where if the train couldn’t pull 18 Mph or better had to slow down to 12 Mph). Things were looking pretty bleak.
Things have changed for the better on that line now . After the SP-UP merger BNSF got the UPs portion between Keddie and Beiber and fixed it up. The Beiber to K-falls section was kept in tip top shape even through the darkest hours. With a good route to compete with UP and I-5 for the north / south traffic things st
It appears that BNSF has an agreement to run high priority trains over UP from Portland to Mojave (and vice versa). Beinging sometime last year I have been regularly seeing a BNSF H train (with DPU) run on the UP tracks through here. In January, or February, I caught one in a siding and was able to talk to the conductor (who works for BNSF), he said that BNSF routes the H EVEBAR on UP now and that it was not a detour. Now in addition to that I see loaded BNSF stack trains headed north on UP.
Once the cars come off of the ex BCR onto CN at Prince George or at North Vancouver it would still have to go through Jasper heading east where both routes come together.
The mileage is about the same or less now. BC Rail liked to send everything south to get the long haul.
How would converting to distributed power eliminate the need for pushers? Wouldn’t you still have the same horsepower trying to pull the same tonnage over the same grade?
I believe that, usually, the limit to the weight the locomotives up front can pull over mountains is the knuckles on the couplers (drawbars). When the train is ran with DP, you can have more tractive effort (force) pulling and pushing than just pulling without breaking a knuckle.
The locomotives will then probably be able to exert more force over the flatlands than is necessary. Of course with this extra force, the train can be accelerated and slower quicker. Also, the extra power (not to be confused with force) can be used to move the train along faster.
If your mentioning “pushers"or helpers as your saying,the NS uses them everyday on the majority of their trains on the Poca.Division from Williamson,WVa to Bluefield, WVa.The pushers are a one man crew (yeah stupid)[#wstupid],that get in behind the trains in various locations according to traffic (because they may have to find a place to park and wait)[zzz],and how slow the train is going.Most pushers have three units for coal drags,and two for time freights.I usually run from Portsmouth,Ohio to Williamson,but I am qualifed to Bluefield,but have only been pushed a couple of times.Pretty much all the pusher engineer does is put he throttle in no:8 and go along for the ride [:-^] .The NS use to run some “radio cars” which some call “slave units” in the middle of the train.When I was in engine school in 1993 we had to qualify on them but never used them on this territory.The school doesn’t even train for it anymore to my understanding.Oh the NS used them(radio train) from Portsmouth to Cinncinnati Ohio at one time.That route The P-Vine” is now closed.[:(]
…Watching pushers help a heavy train up around the 12 miles of ex. Pennsylvania Railroad Altoona to Summit sure is convincing they are worth their cost…They sometimes are just about down on their hands and knees to make the grade…{1.8%} in general to get to the top.
…Think of all the expense {regarding pushers}, that used to occur when they were still using steam engines…2 crew members for each engine pushing, etc…and used they were, even on the branch lines hauling coal out of the valleys of my part of western Pennsylvania…Wasn’t unusual to have 2 pushers on each coal drag coming up the valley…{S&C}, and of course another crew necessary for the leading engine.
Thanks for the info Chad. Two questions though. First were the Roadrailers the Siwft train or some other one, and how far down do the caboose make it before they get cut out for the return trip (oroville, stockton)?
NS uses pushers on southbounds out of Cincinnati on Erlanger Hill when train is heavy enough. CSX uses them on Richmond Hill south of Winchester,Ky. from Ford to Richmond. The pusher engine,usually a C40-8 sits in Richmond between assignments.
Yes, the roadrailers were Swift.
The cabooses stay between Bend and Wishram. I used to drive along this route a half dozen times a year when I lived in Wa. until about 2 years ago and I never saw a caboose south of Bend. North of Bend I saw many cabooses on trains but by no means are they used on every train thought. I would say one out of 5 would have a caboose. And I never saw one on an intermodal. They were the classic BN widevision green w/yellow ends by the way and I’ve seen as many as 4 at a time in the yard at Bend.
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QUOTE: Originally posted by Mark_W._Hemphill
Murph: You’re absolutely right – it still requires the same amount of horsepower/ton to overcome gravity. However, “pushers/helpers” in U.S. railroad practice usually means “manned,” whereas DP is not manned. By converting to DP, the “helper is eliminated,” that is, the expense of the crew is eliminated. So when someone at a U.S. railroad says “We instituted DP on the big hill last week and got rid of the helpers,” everyone at the railroad knows what he means – we got rid of the engine crews running the helper. I apologize that the industry at times uses distinctions that from the outside might seem arbitrary and semantic, and this is one of them.
It’s worth noting that converting from manned helpers to DP is a complex economic calcuation. In many cases, it’s not worth it. The geography of eastern U.S. railroads tends to make manned helpers less expensive than DP – on a given heavy tonnage route in the east, the hills tend to be short and there are few of them. On western U.S. railroads tend to have longer hills and there are more of them en route, which favors DP. Eliminating manned helpers eliminates the cost of the crew that mans them, as well as any support facilities for the helper and crew (which tend to be in the middle of nowhere and thus are expensive), but adding DP often runs up locomotive hours per train hour and can give you very poor locomotive utilization – on some routes where DP is used, much of the time the DP unit is just loafing along. Plus, cutting the DP in and out is a challenge. If it’s done at a major terminal, the train is occupying a through track or long lead while the power is shuffled on and off, which can deeply affect yard fluidity.
Quite a few of the BeaNSnifF trains running through Flagstaff will have two or three -9s or equivalent pushing the rear in either direction over the Az. Divide. whether these are true helpers or DPu’s I have no idea but they do make the consists more interesting to watch. When the regular “Grain Train” blows through it normally has 4 units leading, 3 in the middle and 2 bringing up the rear.
Roger Eyrich
Flagstaff, Az.