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When railroaders talk amongst themselves, the word "consist" doesn't come up all that often - you'll just hear us talk about "my engines" or "bunch of" engines or the like. CSX rules say that we can use up to 15 engines when moving them without cars, 12 engines when moving cars, and 8 engines when on and industrial spur or track. CSX timetables may impose more rules based on local conditions. For example, we can have up to 24 powered axles in our "bunch of engines," and if the engine is an AC-traction-motor unit, then it counts as 9 axles (so, for example using 6-axle road power, you could have 2 AC units and one DC unit running - 9+9+6 =24); and all other units would have to be "isolated" or "off-line" or "dead" depending on your terminology. I covered this in an earlier post on another topic, but one reason you get huge consists is just the way traffic works in New England. We get lots of loads coming in from the west, and mostly trash of some kind (garbage, scrap, recycling) and empties going to the west. The westbound trains are lighter and require fewer engines, so trains can go west with fewer engines, leaving some at an eastern terminal. Also, for tax reasons, fuel is cheaper in Boston than in New York, so some engines get sent east to get gassed up and for no other reason. Finally, Boston has a service center, so engines are repaired over the course of a week and are ready by the weekend. The upshot of all this is that, on Sunday, you may see a train with 10 or more engines on it, ferrying the surplus engines back west (most of them offline) and 2 miles of empty cars, and sometimes even a separate light-engine moves of at least 8 engines and no cars. The way we operate and operational volume dictate why we would have up to a dozen engines at once, when most of them are not powered. Sorry to ramble - I hate a grammar/terminology flamewar. Even I mis-spel - I've just been on duty 11.5 hours!
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