Just to add to the confusion, consider LIRR's postwar MU cars. They were variously control motors, blind motors (no control cab) and control trailers.
CSSHEGEWISCHAlso consider suburban operation on the Illinois Central. The original MU cars were operated in motor-trailer pairs...
Lackawanna's EMUs were also motor-trailer pairs.
Why have none of you mavens observed the consist is being pushed by the C&O Train X locomotive? Complete with the portholes.
rcdrye Very early "push-pull" happened on Chicago's "L" lines where control trailers were common. The North Shore Line's diners were even configured as control trailers.
Very early "push-pull" happened on Chicago's "L" lines where control trailers were common. The North Shore Line's diners were even configured as control trailers.
It seems hard pressed to call it the "Photo" of the Day. it's a illustration for advertising purposes, and it has a model railroad like curve in it that would probably derail the cars if operated on a model pike in push mode.
M636C when push-pull trains originated in the UK
Fascinating post Peter! Nothing new under the sun, eh?
Strictly speaking that's a "pull-pull," but holy smoke WHAT a "pull-pull!"
If all commuter trains looked like that Cuyahoga Valley excursion people would fight to get on 'em!
You lucky lady you, having that in your "backyard!"
The only experience I've had with a push-pull operation had this beauty on one end:
And this spectacular beast on the other!
Same me, different spelling!
Flintlock76 CSSHEGEWISCH an interesting reminder of how long push-pull suburban trains in all their various iterations have been around. Indeed. And I imagine the "push-pulls" took some getting used to by the C&NW's veteran engineers. Even today, engineers on NJ Transit's "push-pulls" say they take some getting used to. One said operating in the push mode feels downright weird. Just for fun, here's one that can't make up its mind just what it wants to be! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14qzGcW_O2Q
CSSHEGEWISCH an interesting reminder of how long push-pull suburban trains in all their various iterations have been around.
Indeed. And I imagine the "push-pulls" took some getting used to by the C&NW's veteran engineers.
Even today, engineers on NJ Transit's "push-pulls" say they take some getting used to. One said operating in the push mode feels downright weird.
Just for fun, here's one that can't make up its mind just what it wants to be!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14qzGcW_O2Q
Strangely enough, when push-pull trains originated in the UK, a single (steam) locomotive between two cab cars was the standard arrangement, Possibly they felt it was too risky to push a larger number of passenger cars.
Go to https://glostransporthistory.visit-gloucestershire.co.uk/Push%20Pull%20YTT.html
and scroll down to the second photo.
Incidentally, some British steam locomotives had vacuum actuated steam cut-off valves to remotely cut locomotive power when braking was required.
Peter
CSSHEGEWISCHan interesting reminder of how long push-pull suburban trains in all their various iterations have been around.
Today's photo isn't quite a photo but it's an interesting reminder of how long push-pull suburban trains in all their various iterations have been around.
Yes, my brother sent me a book in which that is mentioned. "We don't care how they get home," was how the company responded.
At least the Burlington bused the passengers to their destination. In 1972 the PC discontinued the train from NY to Chatham about half way thru the trip, and left the passengers and crew stranded.
Penny, the cars and loco are a bit too long for O-27...
I remember reading an article by someone who worked onthe Denver to Billings train, but this is the first hearing about the Omaha to Billings train.
When I see trains that short I think "Lionel starter set".
To me the train looks fine: a streamlined baggage for whatever M&E there is, and a modern coach.
The unintended humor is in the caption: by what stretch of the imagination would you call the post-Menk Burlington "pro-passenger"?
If I were responsible for substantial, irreversibly-increasing passenger losses (and been frustrated in getting rid of them 'fairly' despite inadequate demand or return) I might shut sufficiently-money-losing trains down as soon as "the law" said I could, too.
Yes, I suppose a corollary to today's photo story might be "Don't beat around the bush Burlington, tell us what you really think about this train!"
Thing looks like a slum on wheels.
Today's photo has an interesting follow-up. If I remember the story correctly, one of the passengers was the Honorable Glenn Cunningham (R-Kansas). Needless to say, he griped to the ICC and a rule was instituted that final runs had to be completed to their destination.
Overmod Half a decade and most of them would be gone.
Flintlock76The Berkshires could certainly outrun them but they never really replaced them, not completely anyway...
These and most of the S Berkshires would be replaced in roughly the same era, though ... and that not long. Half a decade and most of them would be gone.
And today, now we're talkin'! One of the Weary Erie's big freight hog 2-10-2's! The Berkshires could certainly outrun them but they never really replaced them, not completely anyway, those Santa Fe types still had work to do.
M636C in Australia.
I have an interresting anecdote about "falling on my bum" in front of an Aussie.
OK, I figured it out.
There are two doodlebugs. The European one is also called the 'maybug' and the German word for that insect is Maikafer... a term the Germans applied to the pulse jet V1 for, you guessed it, that June-bug buzz.
Not even remotely related to the American context ... it's a good story, though.
Positive proof that we don't speak the same language. That being said, I manage to maintain some fluency in British English by surfing the BBC News website regularly.
Overmod M636C One assumes the name originated in the sound of the large relatively slow running gasoline engines which gave a distinctive sound resembling the insect. But in the United States, doodlebugs are ant lions, vicious larvae of a particular kind of lacewing, and they don't make noise. They are also weirdly angular and ugly, only walk backward, and are known for following irregular paths seemingly at random. Something I had not known is that there was a beloved variant 'hoodlebug' used in Pennsylvania to descrive one of the PRR cars.
M636C One assumes the name originated in the sound of the large relatively slow running gasoline engines which gave a distinctive sound resembling the insect.
But in the United States, doodlebugs are ant lions, vicious larvae of a particular kind of lacewing, and they don't make noise.
They are also weirdly angular and ugly, only walk backward, and are known for following irregular paths seemingly at random.
Something I had not known is that there was a beloved variant 'hoodlebug' used in Pennsylvania to descrive one of the PRR cars.
Clearly my knowledge of USA entomology is deficient.
The name doodlebug is unknown in Australia.
In England, the name doodlebug was given to the German V-1 pilotless aircraft and I understood that this was due to the distinctive buzzing sound of the pulse-jet engine. I'm not sure what insect this may have been named after.
Even the term "bug" is much less common in the UK (and Australia), "beetle" being used more commonly for small insects other than ants.
M636COne assumes the name originated in the sound of the large relatively slow running gasoline engines which gave a distinctive sound resembling the insect.
Overmod gmpullman A pretty gutsy-looking machine. To some people, any self-propelled railcar before the RDC era was a 'doodlebug', even PRR 4666 or ATSF M190, and arguably the Stout railcar and its contemporaries like the Michelines. I suspect there were plenty who carried this over into the early streamlined motor-train era.
gmpullman A pretty gutsy-looking machine.
To some people, any self-propelled railcar before the RDC era was a 'doodlebug', even PRR 4666 or ATSF M190, and arguably the Stout railcar and its contemporaries like the Michelines. I suspect there were plenty who carried this over into the early streamlined motor-train era.
One assumes the name originated in the sound of the large relatively slow running gasoline engines which gave a distinctive sound resembling the insect.
One imagines that the diesel engines of later cars sounded different and the name would have died out.
In Australia, a common name for railcars was "Tin Hare", a name given to the mechanical lures used in Greyhound racing.
This was derived from the appearance of the cars rather than their sound.
The sight of a relatively small self propelled car running through open country at relatively high speed reminded people of the mechanical lures.
gmpullmanA pretty gutsy-looking machine.
Flintlock76And today, an Erie "Doodlebug!"
Close, but no cigar... I rode the 5012 at the Ohio Railroad Museum in Worthington, Ohio back in the '60s:
Erie_5012_MC by Edmund, on Flickr
A pretty gutsy-looking machine.
Regards, Ed
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