Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
This thread and the topic of dupes lead me to pull out some literature I received while attending 'DPU School' . The UP-Sanctioned definition of Distributed Power is the remote control of multiple consists within a train by the engineer on the lead unit. Being a student of history, I searched for and found some old (Milwaukee) Locotrol manuals from the mid 70s and compared them to the 'rocket science' of DPU. After reviewing the literature, I concluded that the biggest improvement with the GE-Harris stuffs (besides the tech stuffs) was that a loco has the capability to be a leader and a remote; not so with old-time Locotrol. Over a cup of joe, an old-head roundhouse foreman told me about the excessive amounts of trial & error that were required in finding a 'master' and a 'slave' that would converse with one another. He mentioned he would spend the entirety of a shift just finding a compatible set of RCS units...and then ultimately building a set out of them. Mark does a very good job of laying out the reqs for dupes and their appropriate configurations. I might add with a smile :) that it also takes alot of trial and error, not unlike the 'good old days' of Locotrol, to find the one combination that works the best. Several configurations were tested on bulk trains in the early days of the Blue Mountain Dupe Fleet (3X3X2, 4X2X2, etc.) until the five-pack config (4X5) was 'stumbled upon' and found to be the best of the lot. 'Putting up the Fence' is the term used at the UP when the engineer will operate the remotes independently of the lead consist. A good example of this is when a dpu train tops the summit of the West Mountain at Kamela, Oregon. As the lead consist starts downhill towards Meacham or Motanic, the engineer will put up the fence...and place the lead consist in dynamics while the remotes are still in power and chugging up to the summit. Once the remotes crest the summit, the fence is 'dropped' and the remotes once again respond to the engineer's actions via the control stand rather than the computer screen of Harris Box. A similar situation may be occuring where you are observing the lead set and remote set doing different things...and as for shoestringing or stringlining, dupes won't prevent it. One must be careful with the fence up while going around a curve; too much db from the remotes can mess things up a bit. I was called out to a cold & wet late-night derailment at Crooks in 1999 that was a result of the aforementioned situation. I hope these ramblings are a tad bit clearer than your average mud puddle!
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag