Ok this Question is not exactly about the DPU it self,But I do no that the BNSF & UP use DPU’s. Ok! Are there any other Railroads that “do” use them?
CP uses DPUs all the time.
Many of the unit coal and pota***rains run with a single unit up front and a single unit on the rear.
Even some of the pure intermodal trains will run with a DPU in the center of the train and a one or two units up front.
It’s actually quite rare for CP to run conventional trains, I would have to say the vast majority have a DPU somewhere on the train. → at least here in the lower mainland.
BNSF uses DPU on its all-rail taconite trains along the Mississippi River and UP uses them on Pleasant Prarie coal trains even here in Chicago. Why in the midwest?
Very interesting… what’s a DPU?
Distributed
Power
Unit
DPU’s through Lincoln - when I see a coal train going south and it has one locomotive on the head-end and one on the rear. I keep thinking I am going to see a person rise up in the rear locomotive - hence “Dummy Pops Up!”
Moo[8)]
The DPU stays on the PP coal trains because it is easier and faster to just leave the train intact from out west, and run to the power plant using the DPU, rather than trying to find a place enroute to move the rear unit up front, and there is no advantage (from an operational standpoint) to do so. And the train needs both units for the trip to Pleasant Prairie (I suppose one could make it with only one unit, but it would be a sloooow trip).
At Pleasant Prairie, the trains head into the power plant intact, and when the crew cuts off the head unit and runs around the train is when they remove the DPU from the rear. If the units will not need inspection (there is a fuel truck that delivers fuel to the power storage track at Pleasant Prairie), the DPU is attached to the rear of the train when ready to leave the power plant, so the train is intact for it’s trip out west.