Last tuesday morning, got caught at a crossing near Hanover, PA, by a CSX train that had 7 units, all on the head end. Usually has 3 to 5 depending on weight of train. Train comes from Hagerstown,MD over the mountains through Gettysburg to Hanover and then to York. This was a really long train (can not say howmany cars). He was switching the yard outside of Hanover. The units were 5 SD50’s 1 GP30 and 1 GP9 (Total 21500 HP).
Power balancing move?
Well, that violates the 36 powered axles rule.
Not if they isolated the gp 9
Why use all those diesels…
Get out a Centennial, Bigboy, Challenger, Or bigger engines to do the job.
C U ALL L8TER!!!
[:)][8D][:D][:P][;)][X-)][%-)][(-D][swg][:)]
We use those diesels so if one loco breaks down we have power to operate the train with.
Lets say you are going down Sherman Hill and running 100 cars and 1 DD40AX and it breaks down. You now have no power and potentially no braking power either… think about that.
The GP’s were probably on their way to the scrap yard.
Wow, none of that makes any sense to me. No train brake (automatic)…O.K. plug it! No dice…O.K. Pop the ETD… You made a full independant appilcation and the conductor tied the handbrake on the second unit (which only applies the brakes on one truck)…Why? Were the units not M.U.ed? When they were M.U.ed a locomotive airbrake test should have been made. For all of these scenarios to all happen at once would be a long shot. Were both of the locos set up in lead by accident? Sounds really odd. Dynos full…um you mean dyno is in 8…dead engine=no dyno! You mention 105 cars. Are they loads or empties. What was the T.O.B.? Maybe somebody turned the anglecok between the train and engines and on the rear car…yeah, that’s the ticket.
I have a story too:
One time when I was runnin’ I had hold of a 155 car coal drag and didn’t let the clutch out slow enough and stalled the engine. I kept turning the key and couldn’t get it to start. My conductor went back and beat on the carb with my hashpipe and unstuck t
What is the 36 powered axle rule?
csx does that alot.runs 2 or 3 engines and idles the rest.it backfired on them going to lima one day.they had 5 engines dead in tow.(7 total) then one of the power engines went out leaving an sd 40-2 for an 8000 ft train.had to call for help from cario(north of lima).
stay safe
Joe
Yes…please tell us more !
Randy
coburn 35: You are talking about a train simulator, aren’t you?
Adrianspeeder
CSX no longer has any operational GP9’s. There are no operational GP30’s…they all have been made into slugs…the prime mover are replaced with cement ballast and the traction motors draw current from the Mother that is associated with the slug. The Mother/Slug combo is routinely used for Local Freights & Road Switchers that hanle more than single unit trains…the slug’s provide additional traction up to about 25 MPH. I suspect what you saw was probably at most 3 SD50’s being used for power and the other engines being handled isolated or dead in tow for other outlying locations.
The 36 powered axle rule is as riveted in fact as the whole loss of brake story. As far as Western RRs go, there is a powered axle limitation. ABTH states that you must not operate in excess of 42 (equivalent) powered axles unless the consist is entirely made up of intermodal equipment, then it is 48. The operative word is equivalent. On our system there is a limitation of the number of locos MUed in a consist as well (12).
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QUOTE: Originally posted by ironken
Wow, none of that makes any sense to me. No train brake (automatic)…O.K. plug it! No dice…O.K. Pop the ETD… You made a full independant appilcation and the conductor tied the handbrake on the second unit (which only applies the brakes on one truck)…Why? Were the units not M.U.ed? When they were M.U.ed a locomotive airbrake test should have been made. For all of these scenarios to all happen at once would be a long shot. Were both of the locos set up in lead by accident? Sounds really odd. Dynos full…um you mean dyno is in 8…dead engine=no dyno! You mention 105 cars. Are they loads or empties. What was the T.O.B.? Maybe somebody turned the anglecok between the train and engines and on the rear car…yeah, that’s the ticket.
I have a story too:
One time when I was runnin’ I had hold of a 155 car coal drag and didn’t let the clutch out slow enough and stalled the engine. I kept turning the key and couldn’t get it to start. My conductor
Ah ha, that’s why i got a knuckle. In fact, I got two knuckles…I still have them. Next time I have a train that big, its low range start ups for me all the way!
Well, just to change the tone of the thread from the usual sarcasm to a pretty good episode on a reai train on the Milwaukee Road. The “Little Joes” were relatively new electrics at the time of the story, each with 7,000 available hp. The “Helper” identified in ths story is most likely a Boxcab electric of 1915 vintage, their strong point after rebuilding was their output of nearly 6,800 horsepower and 162,000 lbs of tractive effort on a continuous basis, 212,000 lbs of tractive effort on an hourly basis (8200 hp), and a whopping hypothetical 20,000 horsepower for brief periods. When the trolley went out in this story, road engines and helper engines were helpless, a lot of braking power went with it, and there was no way the Mallet steam engine was going to help things on this 1.86% grade.
Regeneration on the electrics, while more efficient at braking long trains on hills than any other method, still had its problems. Engineer Bill Lintz recalled an episode in the early 1950’s when a snowslide had torn out trolley wires on the Avery Hill in the Bitterroot Mountains, and a train powered by electrics had stalled on a passing track. Lintz was working a steam rotary snowplow at the time, when his crew received orders to proceed and move the stalled engines.
"Well, I think it was around zero, ten below, we were over on the other side of the mountain plowing passing tracks, one or two o’clock in the morning, when they finally got a hold of us and [told us we’d] have to go over and back onto this train and get it out from under the dead wire to where they can get it down the mountain. We had a Mallet steam engine pushing this steam rotary so we could go anyplace, you know, whether there was a trolley or not. So, of course, we had to go back our outfit over there because the rotary was heading east, and this train just sat in the passing track for two or three hours, and of course, with this cold weather, the air is going to leak away on the train and on the brakes and so forth, and eventu
Ah c’mon Mike. Just havin some fun with a total BS story.
What’s up with that anyway Coborn35? I have always valued your contributions and you were quite credible up untill this. I think you gots some splaining to do Lucy.[swg]