Another Mookie Quickie:

[Mookie]

2 SW15 switchers, both facing the same direction, pulling a string of cars to the other side of town.

Since these were built with a definite front and back, my feeling is that they always ran independently and with an engineer in each one, which I have seen before when they worked together.

But they were running with the engineer just in the first one.

Now - if you are going to use the power from the 2nd one to help in the pulling, don't they have to be MU'd together and can you do that with these engines that aren't exactly brand-new. And don't you MU back-to-back, rather than back to front, which would be the case here.

[%-)]

[Anonymous]

Mookie: They were M.U'd. Many switch engines were built with M.U. capability, and by the late 1950s, almost all of them had M.U. capability because it gave railroads vastly more flexibility. The M.U. connections were added to both ends of almost all locomotives, or it wouldn't have been much good. (F units and E units often didn't have it on the nose of A units as built, which was rather short-sighted, and connetions were usually later added.)

There are very few, if any, switch engines still in the employ of a line-haul or terminal railroad that do not have M.U. capability. The lack of this feature is a definite drawback to trying to sell one to a short line or industrial customer, like trying to sell a car without air conditioning to a suburban housewife in Atlanta.

OS

[jchnhtfd]

and the reason they were coupled elephant style is most likely that that's the way they happened to be tied up when the yard master said 'yo! I need some power'!

[greyhounds]

The C&IM replaced steam with 11 diesels. Five SD9s and six SW1200s. The switchers were MU equipped and regularly used on the road. Common locomotive consists on the "Peoria Turns" were a SD9-SW1200-SD9 combination or a SD9-SW1200 combination. When the latter was used, the switcher would lead the SD9 on the road train in one direction.

[dehusman]

You can MU engines in any order in any combinations of directions.

Dave H.

[richardy]

The Sand Springs Railroad finally modified their units for MU in the early to mid 90's when they hired a forward thinking superintendent. They almost always operate front to front (I call the engine end the front) since MU has been installed so there is a cab at each end.

Richard

[CShaveRR]

M.U. controls were around on switchers a lot earlier than the 1950s--there were TR-series models around as early as the late 1930s. Those were the "Cow-and-calf" units you may have seen in pictures. Most of them were initially connected by drawbars instead of couplers, but they operated on the same principles (and later in their careers, most of the drawbars were replaced by couplers, for increased flexibility in consist makeup).

[Anonymous]

Depending on where I'm going to be working, I'll MU two nags anyway that suits me. I've had 'em back to back; nose to nose, and nose to back. Now if I'm going on a road trip, I want them back to back so I'll be "turned around" for the return trip. I've been known to drag an engine around dead because it was in our way and I didn't feel like setting it over or using it.

Shoot, sometimes I like to mix things up just to confound the audience...8^)

[Mookie]

Why does this not surprise me!

Glad you are still out there lurking, Skeets!

MLM