Who make the decision of what power will make up a cosist or what locomotive will be the lead unit? I know the number of locomotives needed depends upon tonage and grade, but always wondered how the power gets put together, and who decides this? Is it based upon operating hours of each locomotive, personal preference, direction that the locomotives are sitting at the yard, or what ever is easiest to move at the time?
I believe he is called the Motive Power Superintendent or the Superintendent of Motive Power.
On my Seaboard and Western Virginia Railway I do . . . . . . . . . . . Good, Lord! Where have I ever heard that expression before.
The lead loco should be cab first if there is a low nose in the consist… I believe that this is why some roads kept getting hi-noses long after everyone else… I believe that it is someone’s [???] legal requirement. If you don’t have any low noses hanging around you don’t have to bother.
There are a whole bunch of other things. (bulleted for easier reading)
- what you have on hand in locos (obvious) but also what you know (or figure) you will need later on. You may put out a low powered train now while it is quiet and it can saunter through the territory so that you can hold back better power for a job you need to shift fast later. There will always be a whole mix of things going into that equation. The first thing you do not want to do is have a train break down on you. The second is have a train struggling to get in the clear out of the path of a superior train.
- You may have a patch with an imbalance of power. In that case you may be receiving trains with just enough power on the front but sending trains back that have lots more power than they need to pull them. This depends on both traffic flow and gradients. I am aware that, with dynamic breaking at least, some trains get extra locos for long down grades to give them the brake capacity… At least that is what I have been told and no-one has corrected me on it yet…
- You may also have locos that you want to get rid of to the next Division Point / loco facility. This is not always because they are bad locos. (If you send a bad loco they are likely to send it back asap because they won’t want it either). However, you may send a problem loco if they have the facility to fix it or i
Dave-the -train,
Thank’s for your input. You have brought up a lot of points that I had never thought of. It seems that it could be a logistical nightmare if business is good.
There are several levels and it varies by railroad.
Generally there is a high level plan on what types of engines will be on what trains (ie 2-8-8-2’s or C44AC’s on coal trains and 4-8-4’s or SD70’s on fast freights). That is decided by a superintendent or general superintendent level person.
Then there is a an asst chief dispatcher/manager level person that works with the yards to decide on how much power each train needs. They work with the engine facilities to pick the appropriate engines. They also have the responsibility to plan the power balances out up to a week in advance. If it takes 3 or 4 days for a train to travel to the far end of a railroad, you have to plan 3-4 days in advance to have an engine there when you need it.
Finally there is the engine foreman at the shop. He works with the power chief/locomotive manager mentioned above to pick the individual units. Each train has certain power requirements, type of engine, amount of power, dynamic brakes, distributed power, cab signals, emission controls, slow speed capability, high speed capabilty, snowplows, heaters, airconditioning, track image recorders, etc, etc, etc. He has to balance where they are in the shop and how they are arranged and pointed with their operating health and whether they are supplied and inspected, and then make a plan with the locomotive manager/power chief on what the outbound power on each train will be.
Dave H.
soon after the PC merger in 1968 all power was dispatched from the “power desk” in the holy city of Philadelphia. they must have had a big board game on the walls to keep up with what was where. they kept in touch with dispatchers and engine house foremen to determine what was needed and what was available.
originally, each major engine terminal on the system had certain locomotives assigned to it and even though they wandered all over the railroad, an effort was made to get them back to their home terminal when they were due for inspection or scheduled maintenance. the NYC had built a “firewall” for older Alco power and tried to keep all that junk east of Buffalo but after the merger, some of them got under the fence and started showing up all over the system. much to the delight of railfans and much to the dismay of the employees. if you don’t take care of them, then, the only good alco is a dead alco. i don’t know what the “P” company was doing before Feb of '68 but then, why should i know something they don’t.
a couple of years into the mission, the PC had degenerated into a geocracy instead of being division or department run. it appeared that the closer you were to Philadelphia, the more authority you had. kind of like the janitor in Terrre Haute telling the Terminal Supt… at E St Louis what to do because he was closer to the sanctum sanctorium.
i’m not sure how this worked when you got east of Philly but most of the heretics on Park and Lexington avenues had been delt with by then. i think the power desk eventually started keeping up with other things like derailments etc. so motive power decisions were left up to the local engine house foremen and train dispatchers with occasional encouragement and input from 6 Penn Center. things finally got so bad (deferred maintenance) that the guys at the engine house would check the computer (when it was working) to see which available units showed the least road failures in the p
Don’t know about the PC but that’s bascially how it was done on the MP and CNW. Both of them used magnets with the engine numbers on them on a diagram to keep track of where the engines were and what train they were assigned to.
The MP had 3 desks, one for each district, with a steel white board behind the desk surface. The various shops and trains were marked off on the whiteboard and the power manager (known as “op-con”) would move the magnets witht he engine numbers around on the board. When engines and trains moved between districts the managers passed the magnets back and forth on a cookie sheet.
The CNW had a map of the system drawn on a steel plates on a wall of their operations center (it was probably 20-25 ft long and 8 ft high). The placed magnets for each locomotive and train in the relative position on the map. A couple times a shift somebody would update the map and move the train and engine magnets around as the trains moved.
Now many class 1’s use computer systems to track and manage their locomotive fleets.
Answer 1. It can be worse when it’s bad… You have to move the traffic you can get more efficiently with declining resources and “management” and/or the creditors on your back.
Answer 2. That’s why experienced crews, yardmasters and superintendents are worth a whole block of penpushers. When they are good they know how it goes on the ground.
An example. I was on the Reading - Tonbridge line. Class 33 “Cromptons” were limited to 25 full loads up and over Shere Heath and Deerleap banks (rising grades). 26 and double heading was required. In good weather with clean rail and good condition locos you could get away with 26, maybe 27. With that and a good driver you could push to 28. The trouble was that the bean counters saw the odd 28 go by and tried to stick 30 on in all weathers. So they were garuanteed to fail and clog everything up. I’m sure that RR men could tell you similar stories.
Something else we used to do. If we spotted any lower ranks, especially army, navy or soggy army (marines)… and maybe RAF that had just missed a train that would head them back to barracks at the end of a pass… then we would juggle the schedule to get them inside the gate in time. Signalmen, platform staff and train crew along the route would roll the information forward and fix things. It never showed on any paperwork. This particularly applied when we had National Service. Similarly if the Red Caps or shore patrol were out there was always more than one way out of a station. Certain trains would even pull up along perimeter fences to “get up steam”. Strangely that mostly happened on Sunday evenings.
The older railway was a sp
“Operating hours” isn’t really a big deal in the US, the goal in the US is for an engine to go 92 days before needing any kind of inspection that can’t be done on a service track. We measure time in days or months.
The high noses were for grade crossing protection.
There is no legal requirement to have a low nose in front, there is no legal requirement to operate a locomotive only forwards pointing. Single unit locals by definition almost always spend half their time going backwards, long hood first.
There are numerous other reasons why you wouldn’t operate an engine backwards (cab signals, ditch lights, etc.)
Although the math is differ
You can’t say that! I quoted
RiversideBNSF:
…depends upon tonage and grade… operating hours of each locomotive…[maybe someone’s] personal preference, direction that the locomotives are sitting at the yard, or what ever is easiest to move at the time…
You will get me jumped up and down on for plageurism or breach of copyright!
I love the list though! That’s terrific.
I’m >70% sure that I read the thing about high noses in a Trains Mag or MRR article… or even on this forum. You’re not going to bust another myth on me are you?
Thanks for the info. [tup]
[8D]
Dave H,
Thanks for your response. I had no idea that much went into the process. Who ever makes those decisions must have a PHD in train consist engineering management, or just real good at faking it.[(-D]
Shawn.
As I said all those critera aren’t used all the time, but might be used. Once a plan is made its not that hard to keep them in that service.
The UP leased several AMTK F40’s once when they were really power short. The decision on what to do with them was determined by fuel tank size (very small), gearing (high=low tractive effort=small trains) and non-alignment control drawbars (small trains). They were tried in intermodal service but the fuel tanks were too small, so they were moved to south Texas rock service. Smaller (30-50 cars) trains and short runs (San Antonio/Austin/Houston).
The Reading used 2 units east of Reading and 3 units west of Reading. Once again not hard to keep up with.
The people that assign the power, assign power to the same trains day in and day out. They have the same criteria day in and day out.
If you are at the roundhouse at Allentown, PA and are running a train east on the RDG to Philadelphia the engine needs cab signals, if its going west on the RDG to Reading, it doesn’t. If you are at N Platte and running a train east on the UP that is going to Kansas City, the leader needs UP cab signals, air conditioning, TIR and ditch lights. If its going east to Chicago it needs UP cab signals, air conditioning, TIR, ditch lights and CNW cab signals.
Usually the person sitting at the motive power desk.
He/she fills the horse power needed based on the train’s tonnage,ruling grade,curvature on a slight grade enroute pickups/setouts and weather conditions.They then look over the available locomotive consists and add or remove locomotives as needed…If a train is only 4500 tons it may require 1 locomotive but,due to a .5% grade on a tight curve it may require the second locomotive which is to be shut down after passing that curve.
Guess who catches the Divisions Superintendent’s furry if a train stalls due to the lack of horse power.[:-,]
In the areas I’m familiar with they don’t actually figure the curvature or grade, its was tabulated in a table by subdivision or between key points, but engine type, so an SD40 between Houston and Neches is good for 4500 tons and between Neches and Palestine is worth 3000 tons. To get a 4400 ton train between Houston and Palestine I would need 4400/3000 = 1.46, rounding up 2 SD40’s. This method doesn’t take into account the speed the train needs to maintain and can be very cumbersome to figure over very long routes.
Many roads use a horsepower/trailing ton figure, so a Z train between Los angeles and Chicago might get 4 hp/tt or while a Z train between the Gulf Coast and Chicago might get 2 hp/tt. No calculations for grade or curvature, just a set amount of horsepower. If I have a 4400 ton Z train I need 4 x 4400 = 17,600 hp or more to power the train or 5 SD70’s. This takes speed into account but doesn’t figure in the advances in pulling power that newer engines have over older engines, An engine with new electronics can pull more than an older engine with the same hp.
One of the most recent methods is tons per powered axle or TPA. Engines are rated by the number of equivalent “powered axles” (EPA) they have. So an SD40 might have 6 EPA, a C44-9 10 and a C44AC 12. Each train has a TPA for a particular area. So a Z train might have a TPA of 150, while a bulk train might have a TPA of 425. 3 C44-9’s
Bt at least in museum settings (and at that one that isrunning under FRA), it does matter. Being as smaller operation, I get to hear quite a bit from the higher ups and we’re walking fine lines (days) before we cannot run the engines becvause they’ve hit their limits yearly limits. Not for the 92day, but the larger quarter or yearly (not sure wchich) inspections. That isn’t so much a problem when you have 400 engines instead of 4, but it is a concern to keep in mind, that you can’t just run an engine any day except the one its on inspection.
Dave,I think that was a Chessie(C&O) thing.I don’t recall if the PRR did that or not.
Of course that may have been a local thing out of Russell due to the numerous grades-I know the Limeville bridge grade could see a pusher (usually a SD35 or a SD40) on some heavy tonnage trains.
The pusher was added at Russell and was uncoupled at the crest of the grade and returned light to Russell…
This was a rarity but,I did notice it more with heavy snow falls.
Sure, I don’t doubt they did. The further back you go the more local things were managed. The more modern you get, the more of a "network’ approach there is. Back on the MP, when we built a set of power we’d have to pull out the tonnage chart and figure out what assorment of “big ones” (SD40, U30C) and “little ones” (GP9, GP18, GP38) we’'d have to cobble together to pull the train. Kinda hard to imagine that GP18’s were “road power” at one time.
I read once that in some consists, a less powerful engine would have to be put on the point because if a more powerful engine controlled the less powerful, the less powerful would be damaged. (Gearing may have been a factor in this.)
I also remember reading that especially in the early days some engines couldn’t be MUed together because of incompatible control systems. (And some engines were even purchased without MU capability.)
Perhaps someone with professional experience can explain this better.
Its the short time rating of the traction motors. Traction motors have a time limit on how long they can be operated at high ampereage and slow speed before the motor is damaged by heat. the short time rating is partially determined by the gearing of the unit. there is also a minuimum speed that the train had to maintain to avoid overheating the motors.
The engineer has to operate the consist to load it to the “weakest” locomotive’s short time rating. So if he has a locomotive with a higher rating in the lead and an engine with a lower rating trailing, and operates to the lead units ratings, he can fry the trailing unit. The lowest rated unit doesn’t have to be in the lead, the engineer just has to operate with respect to it.
The worst case scenario would be to mix a passenger geared FT behind a C44AC . The FT would have very low rated traction motors and AC engines have virtually unlimited short time rating (AC traction motors can operate at high pulling power and low speeds all day).
Pre-1960’s some roads had a different number of contacts (pins) in the MU cables so not all road’s engines were compatible. Some also had a different number of air brake hoses. If I remember correctly the UP, ever the inovator, had a different cable arrangement.
There were a lot fewer run through operations. By the early 1960’s it was pretty much standardized.
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All diesels - even centercabs - have to have a “front” which is designated by an “F” near the front of the engine on each side. Which end is the front is up to the railroad, and how they chose to arrange the controls in the cab. Before low-nose diesels, some railroads chose to make the short nose the front on all their road switchers, some chose the long nose, and on some railroads, it depended on the model. For example, I believe the “standard” front (i.e. how it was designed in the factory) was for a GP-7 to run short hood foward, but an Alco RS-3 had the long hood in front. Some railroads had them built that way, but NYC and GN had the long hood the front for both, whereas NP used the short nose on both as the front.
Some railroads went long-hood forward long after low hood diesels came along (about 1959), largely arguing that it was safer in a collision for the crew. That’s why some railroads went into the seventies and later still buying high-hood engines - because the long hood was the front.
Anyway, when making up a consist of engines, if it was at all possible the lead engine would be facing forward (whichever way the railroad designated as “forward”) so the engineer could have the controls in front of him instead of trying to look ahead while operating the controls behind his back. On a branchline without turning facilities, one engine would be fine going backwards part of the trip (although railroads often used two smaller diesels back-to-back in that situation) but on a long mainline trip you’d want the engineer facing forward.
p.s. in steam days, genera