In-Line fueling

[tery84_trainee]

 I was just curious in America do any railroads use inline fueling, in Australia it is common practice over the trans Australia railway for company's to have a fuel tanker behind the locomotives that automatically tops op loco fuel tanks as required so they only have to stop to change crew not take on fuel?

[Dutchrailnut]

A few railroads tried Fuel tankers to keep a consist topped off, not neccesarily for convenience but to compensate for fuel prices along line.

 The practice died a slow death, its just as easy to top of fuel at intermediate points.

[Thomas 9011]

Burlington northern did a fuel tender program for many years.I believe it was sucessfull and I am not sure why they stopped doing it.This website has some infomation on the fuel tenders.

 http://www.mtnwestrail.com/wyoming/bnft.htm

[beaulieu]

The lifespan of the fuel tenders was too short. They never  had an in-service failure, but there were signs of frame cracking of the tankcars used in this service. They had not been designed for the nearly continuous  500k forces that they experienced in unit train services. They lasted longer when used on the helpers at Crawford, NE, but in the end BNSF found it easier to just send road tankers regularly to refuel the helpers.

[BaltACD]

CSX used a fuel tender for a while on the Seminole Electric Coal train movement between Chattahoochee, FL (West of Jacksonville) and the Seminole Electric plant near Palatka, FL (South of Jacksonville).  Loaded train was received from the short line that loaded at Port St. Joe, FL and delivered to CSX at Chattahoochee, train was operated from Chattahoochee to Jacksonville for a crew change, the 2nd crew operated the loaded train to the Seminole plant and dropped it off and picked up the prior days empty train and returned to Jacksonville for another crew change and return of the empties to Chattahoochee and delivery to the short line. 

Operating without the tender, power had to be fueled every 3rd day at Jacksonville; with the tender the refueling period was extended to once a week.  With refueling being done from tank trucks, it took more than one tank truck to top off everything when the tender was being used.  Without the tender, a single full load tank truck could top up the power.

[Bob-Fryml]

Trains Magazine or Railway Age during the mid-1980s ran an interesting story about Burlington Northern's fuel tender program.  At that time the railroad ran a daily pair of piggyback hotshots between Chicago and Seattle.  Each train was powered by four SD40-2's with a fuel tender car spliced in the middle of the power consist.  Those power sets could make a complete roundtrip between the two terminating cities without having to stop for fuel.  

In practice each power set was ordered to stop once during each roundtrip cycle to take fuel, but only at the cheapest delivery point.  In effect, B.N. was playing its fuel suppliers - one against the other.

Beyond the idea that the tank car frames and center sills were having fatigue problems due to high buff forces, I would guess that B.N. didn't have the flexibility then to pass through fluxuating fuel costs on their freight tariffs - not like they can do today.  When that limitation was lifted the need for fuel tenders was lessened.