More Questions from Temple

Anonymous · July 20, 2013, 3:08pm

Whilst at my favorite train watching spot in Texas last week I observed a BNSF coal train rolling by. It was headed northbound. It was pulled by three locomotives - I believe that they were Dash 9-44CW locos. There were two similar locomotives on the back of the train. On several occasions I have seen this arrangement. I don’t recall ever seeing two locomotives on the front and three on the back. Could the train be operated safely with two units on the front and three on the back?

From Temple to Taylor, TX the Texas Eagle runs over the former MKT line, which is part of the UP. On Thursday, whilst driving from Temple to Taylor on TX 95, I noticed a northbound coal train on the line being pulled by three BNSF locos. Would this most likely have been a run through train with UP crews operating it from somewhere south of Taylor to Temple?

jeffhergert · July 21, 2013, 11:53pm

Whilst at my favorite train watching spot in Texas last week I observed a BNSF coal train rolling by. It was headed northbound. It was pulled by three locomotives - I believe that they were Dash 9-44CW locos. There were two similar locomotives on the back of the train. On several occasions I have seen this arrangement. I don’t recall ever seeing two locomotives on the front and three on the back. Could the train be operated safely with two units on the front and three on the back?

Yes, it could be done. I haven’t seen that configuration, but I’ve seen one up front with two in the back. With more power on the back pushing you’ll probably feel more slack run in when going through sags than you would with more power on the front. The way to control that would be to put up the “fence” and operate the rear consist independently of the head end in those areas.

From Temple to Taylor, TX the Texas Eagle runs over the former MKT line, which is part of the UP. On Thursday, whilst driving from Temple to Taylor on TX 95, I noticed a northbound coal train on the line being pulled by three BNSF locos. Would this most likely have been a run through train with UP crews operating it from somewhere south of Taylor to Temple?

That one I can’t answer. I would guess your assumption is probably correct. I did see today that one of our regular coal symbols up here (normally it’s an all UP routing) had two BNSF engines in addition to two UP engines. It was also about 17 cars short of the normal 135 car length.

Jeff