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Push Pull Commuter trains
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[quote]QUOTE: <i>Originally posted by Mookie</i> <br /><br />Help! Can I get a simple explanation of push-pull? <br /> <br />Mookie <br />[/quote] <br /> <br />Mookie: Here's a simple explanation of push-pull. <br />It was invented by a chief mechanical officer of the CNW Railway about 1958. He explained his inspiration to our class of locomotive engineers in 1972. He stated that he was at the CNW depot in Chicago one afternoon and watched as trains backed in from the California Avenue coach yard using a tail-hose (long air brake hose with a small control valve and whistle attached) operated by a brakeman. He also made note of how certain standard commuter coaches had been equiped with a windshield and wiper for the extended back-up moves from outlying points top rotect the brakeman in charge of the back-up move. <br />A "cab-car" was developed with all the controls of a standard locomotive plus an addition air tank to actuate the control of the airbrake system. A cable was installed under each coach so as to transmit the control or throttle positions from the cab car to the locomotive. In essance a push-pull train is the same as a subway or multiple unit electric train , except only one car, the locomotive, is powered. It was developed so trains in rush hour service didn't have to be pulled away from their locomtive, be repositioned in the depot, and have another unit tacked onto the other end for departure. The enginemen merely "change ends," same as an MU train. Same goes for outlying terminals. This saved the railroads enormous amounts of money in terminal time. <br />It was the custome of the CNW, and all railraoads that followed with this technique to have the power at the "outbound" end of the train to avoid filling the depots up with exhaust. The only exception to this rule was on the CNW's Lake Geneva train where, during the winter months, it ran power towards the Depot in order to break snow on the lightly used Lake Geneva branch. <br /> <br />Mitch
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