recently saw a unit with type designation where normally would be numbers tagged as Road slug.What does this mean? My thoughts were one,it was not operational,two, it was used for wieght for traction,three,none of the above.
Final idea was it was out of service and waiting for transport to shop,at the time it was number 2 in a three unit switch set.
What railroad does this slug belong to? Dave Williams
Several roads use road slugs. The prime mover has been removed and basically only the traction motors remain. The traction motors receive power from a mother unit, which provides juice through feeder cables. Some slugs retain the fuel tank and have plumbing to the mother units. It can be helpful were high tractive effort is required at relatively low speeds. CSX uses road slugs from old GP30s and GP35s. St Lawrence and Atlantic has GP40-3 mother units and slugs converted from GP38s/40s.
Here’s some links.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=84718
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=78781
A post from the other day ‘Unusual lash-up’ touched upon this topic, An NS train heading through Altoona,Pa had an NS slug in the consist. These are usually off-line in this situation, simply being shuttled between classification yards such as Allentown-Enola-Conway for yard and hump service. CSX uses theirs in road service, as pics above attest. CSX often uses a GP30 slug mated to a GP40-2, or SD40-2 on the secondary that branches off Sand Patch grade and runs up to Johnstown, Pa, where CSX has a small yard, and interchanges with the Conemaugh and Blacklick, a shortline that serves industries in Johnstown, Dave Williams http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nsaltoonajohnstown
Thanks all,the pics answered better than words. Run safe.
C&NW originated road slugs in the 1970’s for use on the Rochester-Huron main line (now the DM&E). CSX is probably the main user of road slugs, theirs are rebuilt from GP30/GP35/GP40 and are numbered in the 2200-2300 series. CSX slug mothers are GP40-2’s in the 6400 and 6900 series. Some are seen in the Chicago area in transfer service but I believe that most of them are in mine run service.
The P&L road slug looks like it was rebuilt from a GP38.
just to let you know Road Slug’s are bad for Long head forward because they have no lights in the back
kevin
What’s that load behind the locomotives in that last picture?
Looks like chassis of some sort to me.
Looks like a special car for it too, that doesn’t look like an ordinary flat car.
Those are frame cars. What your are looking at are the frames for trucks/cars. They use those specialized flats to deliever them to an assembly plant. They have special clamp like equipment and their is also usually a tool box on each end for holding the attachment supplies.
On another note, there are around a hundered of those ttx frame cars that are being stored on two shortlines here in Georgia along with some other ttx equipment. So if you need some close up pics…
I noticed that in all of the above pictures, with the possible exception of one, the slug was leading. Here are some slugs that were not used as lead units
http://espee.railfan.net/sptebu.html
http://espee.railfan.net/sp4xslug.html
Oskar,
The slug would never lead long hood foreward since that is the end with the power connections for the mother unit. Hence there is no need for a headlight on that end.
Having said that, this is railroading and anything that can go wrong will and probably has. There are rules governing what must be done to operate a lead unit with a total headlight failure between repair points. Since the slug is unpowered it would probably be set out with it’s mother unit. If it were coupled to a cabless unit as part of the consist and would then be needed to control that unit it could end up as the lead unit long hood foreward. It would be so rare for this to happen that statistically it could be almost ruled out. But then this is railroading and the crews will do what they have to do to get over the road.
Alan
While we’re on the subject of road slugs, couldn’t one of the Green Goat type hybrid locomotives serve as a road slug when not being used as a switcher? Seems that a bit of addtional cable might make it a tad more flexible operationally.
CSX and RailAmerica are currently in lust with road slugs for low speed branchline and roadswitcher work. CSX appears to get more use out of their equipment than RA. Have noticed many RA railroads parking their road slugs. CSX units are gutted GP-30 and GP-35s and the slug end is much quieter for obvious reasons. (no prime mover)
If they are in so much lust, do green goats come from that?
nope … more like what happens when you mate a horse and a donkey . (Can’t mate with anything and ceases after the first generation[:D])
Careful - you are getting really close to a Jack and a … Jenny!
OK - Some people caught it[:o)]