How many locos to pull a train?

[Morpar]

Must be something strange about the local conditions. The other evening coming home from work I saw an eastbound train sitting in front of the plant (I work at the Subaru plant on the east side of Lafayette, Indiana, which is on the north side of the NS line from Frankfort to Peoria). No big deal, there's almost always a train there. The strange thing was that there were 13 locos on the head end! I have lived in this area all my life and NEVER seen 13 units on the front of any trains in this area! The lead unit was a former BN SD40-2 still in the green and black paint. 3 of the other 12 were former Conrail, the rest were all NS black. Only 2 of the units were 4-axle, and the SD40-2 appeared to be the oldest of the bunch. So just roughly saying 39,000 horsepower on the point for a flatland train! If I had a camera, I would have taken some pictures. Most trains in the area have 3-4 units on the point, and I've seen 8 units on a train before and assumed they were power transfers, but never 13. I guess this means I need to buy a lot more locos to stay somewhat prototypical! Has anyone else seen this many units on one train before? And why would there be such a large number of units moving at once? Has drag increased in central Indiana? Or did NS add some hills and not tell any of us local folks? What is the highest number of locos you have seen at the head of a train? Any other ideas? Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

Most of the units were probably being deadheaded, or transferred without powering the train. I see those in my area all the time. An average length freight in my area usually requires 2 or 3 units, but sometimes you'll see 6 or 7 on the point.

[Anonymous]

i bet with the mixing of companies, you probably have trains going to get fixed or painted and renumbered. I was reading in this months trains mag that UP takes close to 4 full years for renumbering ( poor spelling) any way, I guess maybe they are on loan or they are purchases? Just a guess.

[Roadtrp]

Probably has something to do with aliens...

[;)]

[Anonymous]

Surely one steam locomotive could have pulled that train!

Seriously many times there is a power imbalance at one end or the other of the railroad and they will send units on a train to another division to where they are needed. Most railroads have a power office that keeps track of locomotives and locomotive needs just like the airlines do.

Rick

[Anonymous]

I live in midwestern Ohio, which has about the same terrain: flat! The most locos I can recall seeing was 6, and even that seems like overkill.

I'm inclined to agree with what some others have said. Those extra units were probably not powered, and likely just being transported to another location for whatever reason.

[challenger3802]

The most locos in one train here in the UK I've ever seen, was a triple header. 13 locos sounds a little obsessive for one train. A question begs though, "How many cars were attached onto the cavalcade of locos?"

Ian

[Anonymous]

Railroads refer to these huge movements of locomotives as power moves, it is simply a means of transferring unused power from one, or more locations, to other locations on the railroad where a power shortage exists. usually, only the first three or four units will be pulling the whole works.

Mac

[coal drag]

I saw 24 on the head end once. Sorry to say that they had an appointment with a cutting torch.

[Anonymous]

There's no way that all those units were powered up and being used, the couplers and drawbars wouldn't be able to handle that much power on one end of the train.

[jimrice4449]

there's also the matter of MU capabilities. When I waorked for the SP (circa 1970) there was a special instruction addedum to the timetable that no more than 10 units were to be operated in MU. San Joaquin Valley frieghts almost always left LA with 10 units and if there were any more on the head end they were dead in tow.

[Meyblc]

I use to live out in Ontario, California. Right on Uncle Pete's main line out of the LA basin. One evening as the sun was just starting to go down, I looked out my window to see a train running past my house at about 20 MPH. This train had 23 engines (mix of UP and SP engines) and 8 box cars. Funniest damn thing I ever saw in my life....

[Anonymous]

I once counted 15 locos moving from Augusta, GA to Atlanta, GA with no cars behind them. Most of them were ex Conrail units. I figured they must've been extra power for the increased rail traffic in the last year.

[Anonymous]

What I have noticed is that the home engines usually are on the lead at idle or something like it while the foreign engines are roaring and pouring black exhaust and heat shimmer high into the sky while rocking on the track working until the rivets (welds) broke. All of this on the same multi loco unit train.

[Anonymous]

Model Rqailroader did a column on this a while ago and I could look it up if your interested. Usually when the trains are going downhill they will use the same amount of engines as if they were going up.

[Ibflattop]

Those engines that you seen on that train in front of your work were just being moved to the place that they were needed at. When I worked for NS out of Ft.Wayne, I once took 10 brand new Santa Fe dash 8's to Chicago. These were smack in the middle of our consist. All were dead in tow.
Kevin

[ericsp]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Meyblc

I use to live out in Ontario, California. Right on Uncle Pete's main line out of the LA basin. One evening as the sun was just starting to go down, I looked out my window to see a train running past my house at about 20 MPH. This train had 23 engines (mix of UP and SP engines) and 8 box cars. Funniest damn thing I ever saw in my life....

I am guessing that it came from the Taylor engine service facility and was going to West Colton.