Somewhere here a couple months ago - around the time of the 150th anniversary of completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, the Big Boy and 844 trains, and shortly afterwards - I seem to recall there was a thread about pacing, but I can’t find it now.
Anyway, I thought of and may have mentioned a frontispiece article in Trains. I finally found* a reference to it - it was about E7’s or E8’s as I recall - and this entry explains it as well as I could:
One of my favorite short articles, remember the vivid imagery of slowly passing the train. Also comments in subsequent issues about the acceleration rate of M.U.'s versus locomotive hauled trains.
Not quite the same as the “Panama Ltd”, but I’ve paced a number of freights while riding the South Shore, almost always in the southbound direction. I do remember pacing the “Shawnee” (remnant of the “Seminole”) on a Sunday evening and that it had about a dozen deadheading Harriman coaches in the consist.
I rode the IC’s Pannyma (as the IC people in South Mississippi called it) and the Seminole out of Chicago once each, and also did not notice any South Shore train alongside. Nor, when I rode the South Shore to South Bend and back did I have the pleasure of running alongside an IC train. Oh, well, not all of us can have that interesting experience of pacing without having to worry about other traffic along our way.
Somewhere here a couple months ago - around the time of the 150th anniversary of completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, the Big Boy and 844 trains, and shortly afterwards - I seem to recall there was a thread about pacing, but I can’t find it now.
Anyway, I thought of and may have mentioned a frontispiece article in Trains. I finally found* a reference to it - it was about E7’s or E8’s as I recall - and this entry explains as well as I could:
Imagine the “races” out of Chicago, between NYC and PRR. I don’t have any idea how far the two ran side-by-side, but I’d imagine it was fun for the passengers, too.
Every once in a while, UP will enertain Metra’s passengers on the West Line with a freight that may fall behind or outstrip the scoot. It wouldn’t be a contest, except for the station stops.
Born too late to really have experienced the NYC-PRR race out of Chicago, but did have first hand experience with two BART trains leaving McArthur station at the same time (Back when Concord service was McArthur to Concord).
This takes me back to 1961 when I moved to an apt in Berwyn IL next to the BN three track “racetrack”. I watched in happy amazement as a Scoot (commuter) train came outbound on the North track, the Denver Zepher passed the Scoot on the middle track and an outbound freight crawled past on the south track. Most train activity I had seen since Cincinnati Union station. And for pacing, as Carl notes, frequently I have been on a scoot and we pass a freight just coming out of the Cicero yard and then slow for a station stop and the freight passes us only for us to overtake it after the stop. When the freight gets up to 45mph, he usually leaves us behind.
And this is for Balt. That three track BN Chicago racetrack must be a fun job to dispatch. The Metra rush hour commuter volume is I suspect only matched by the PRR & Long Island Penn Station density. It has in the evening outbound locals on the north track being overtaken by outbound express trains on the center track and the inbounds on the south track. Throw in a late Amtrak CZ or SW Chief and the dispatcher has his hands full. I’ve watched the CZ come East on the center track, pass an inbound scoot at Downers Grove, and move over to the South track in front of said scoot, while an outbound scoot does its business on the north track. As soon as the CZ got off the center track, about two minutes later an outbound express to Naperville roars through on the center track, followed three minutes later by an express to Downers Grove coming off the center track to the north track. What a show.
I understand that both RRs adjusted their schedules to get the two trains to meet where the tracks got close, just so they could race to where they diverged.
As a kid, riding the B&O, was in the ‘races’ between B&O & PRR from Washington Union Station to just beyond F Tower where the PRR rails turned to the East. Info from my father - In the early 20’s the PRR K-4’s would out accelerate the B&O’s early Pacifics, when the B&O got their President P-7 Pacifics in 1927 they would leave the K-4’s in the dust, then when the PRR electified with the GG-1’s the competition was all in the PRR’s favor.
Dispatching the BD Desk (RF&P) on CSX has elements of high volume commuter traffic interspersed with Amtrak traffic as well as CSX freight traffic - especially between Union Station (CP Virginia) and Control Point ‘AF’, as between those points you have both the Fredericksburg & Manassas VRE commuter schedules as well as all Amtraks that operate on the I-95 corridor as well as those that operate on the NS to Manassas and beyon
There was a picture in an issue of Trains in the late '60s that showed a brace of P-7s supposedly handily out-accelerating a GG1 that was putting up a remarkable cloud of dust. I wondered then, as I wonder now, if the relative position was an accident of the time the shutter was snapped, and the PRR train would be storming ahead just a few seconds later… but the caption said no, it wouldn’t.
(And it wouldn’t be surprising to find that a 4-6-6-4 with 27x28" cylinders could accelerate pretty darn quickly…)
I only know the stories my father related to me. As we all know today - a single picture doesn’t answer all possible questions or support all positions.
The picture that Overmod references was a frontispiece with commentary by David P. Morgan in the late 1960’s, I think. He did write it in terms of a race, and used several lines of the lyrics from Stephen Foster’s Camptown Races as part of it. But even he acknowledged that despite the B&O being in the lead at the moment, the PRR engineer would open the GG1’s throttle and rapidly outrun the B&O train.
The Magazine Index isn’t working right now, so I can’t provide a citation. Maybe later.
Passenger trains cannot use Track #1 in making their station stops at Alexandria, only tracks #2 & #3, there is a fence between #2 track and #1 track. South of AF toward Fredericksburg VRE’s must operate on #2 track in both directions accout station configurations. Note-Some VRE stations can handle trains on both #2 & #3 Main tracks, however, there is at least one station between each Control Point that requires operation on #2 track, so from a Dispatchers perspective all VRE’s between Fredericksburg and Alexandria are operated on #2 track.
A little more on the former RF&P. Unless there has been a major rebuilding effort in the past few years, track #1 exists only in several locations (Balt, do you have any knowledge as to why the two tracks that run the full distance are numbers 2 and 3?
As to Fredericksburg, the track is elevated at the station, with an elevator on only one side (by track 2), but with ramps on both sides. The two times that I rode from there to Washington, my cousin and I waited by track 2 for the train–and both times the train came in on track 3. The first time, there was no announcement; the second time there was an annoucement a minute or so before the train arrived; in both instances there was quite a movement–down to the street level, under the track, and up the ramp. If my cousin had not been with me, I would have missed the train, for she raced down and up, and told the conductor that I was coming (pushing my rollator). This stook plsce so quickly I did not get to hug my cousin goodby the second time.
As to Alexandria, last year, I came in from Meridian, Mississippi, and detrained next to the station–and when I boarded to continue to Washington, I boarded an Amtrak train on the same track. I may misremember, but it seems to me that the track next to the station is called “track 2” (in Fredericksburg, the tracks are called in accord with RF&P practice).
For the information of those who are not aware of the RF&P practice, the zero milepost is in Richmond.