Need help Guys and Gals

[Anonymous]

My son's and I were watching trains on the U.P. main line out of Chicago. My oldest asked me a couple of question that perhaps one of you can answer. He noticed that some trains have only two engines and pull large amount of cars. These trains are made up of different type's of cars.While other trains that pull truck trailers and shipping containers have four engines on them but only 25 to 30 cars. Why don't they distribute the power more efficently? Also my youngest son wants to know why the mixed frieght trains have such niosey and dirty cars. Is it because they are older?

[wabash1]

The power probley was distributed equally. See a rail/highway train has alot wind resistance. so you need the extra power to cut thru the wind to stay at track speed, where a standard freight train dont have this problem. auto racks are the worse for the wind resistance.

the next reason is the size of the engines. If you take 2G.E. dash 9 and 6000 tons of a regular freight train it will handle this pretty good. But you take the same train and add 2 sd50s you will still need more power couse the 50s are smaller units so add a sd40 and a gp 38.

the other reason could be that they had plenty of power for the rail/ highway train but needed power else where. So they stuck it on there.

One last thing, i am going to get technical, if i have 5 big dash 9s or 5 sd70s in my train all in working order, it dont mean i can use them. On the ns ( and probley most other roads) i am only allowed 24 axels of power. a dash 9 or a 70 is 6 axels but in rating its its 1.33 per axel we just round it off to 8. so 3 dash 9 units are a total of 24 (8x3=24) axel high adhesion. Now if i took 4 sd40 units they are standard axel. 6=6 so in reality i could put all 4 on line. Another thing we keep in mind any engine not on line working is dead weight and should be added into the tonnage of your train. I hope this helps i realized this is probley overkill,

[eolafan]

On "general merchandise" trains, a particular amount of power is needed to move the cars at much slower speed (generally average of 45-50 mph on most roads)and they require less horsepower to maintain 45-50 than does a "TOFC" or intermodal train which (as the other respondant correctly states) have much greater wind resistance. Since these trains (the intermodals) are reqired to get to their destinations much faster than the general merchandise trains are, they must naturally travel at much faster average speeds (as high as 80 plus on most roads) and this combination of greater wind resistance and greater speed means the need for more horses up front. Now, the need for more horses does not naturally mean more locomotives. The intermodals usually rate the newest and highest horsepower units the roads have (for horsepower and for greater reliability to keep schedules). Thus, the intermodals might have two or three much higher horsepowr units while the General Merchandise trains might have five or more units with much lower total horsepower. Therefore the intermodals might have fewer units with greater total horsepower and be capable of faster average speeds. The other person responding brought up another valid point, that being "balancing power" or transporting needed units on trains to other points on the system where they are needed but not necessarilly because the train they are being transported in need the power (in many cases, if you watch and listen carefully you will see/hear that several units might be in the engine consist but might be "dead" or not operating, thus being just like another couple of freight cars and thus just adding weight to the total train). Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Hey Wabash, help me out on this one. Eolafan claims 80 MPH plus on most roads. Dang, I thought that our dash 9s overspeed at 73 mph on the BNSF. How fast do you run Z trains on the NS? I noticed that BNSF runs a little heavy on the power on guarenteed shipments (z's). Do they do the same on the NS?

[CShaveRR]

The other respondents have pretty well addressed the motive power consist issue (and accurately, except for the fact that few, if any, freights go faster than 70 any more). I'll try to focus on the noise and dirt.
Most of the noise you'll hear nowadays when any train passes is a rhythmic banging caused by flat spots on the wheels. These are caused by the wheel sliding along the rail for some distance-- whether it's because a brake application grabbed these wheels harder than others, or because a car was shoved or dragged in a yard or on an industrial spur with its handbrake set. I suspect that the latter accounts for a lot of these, and cars in mixed consists are usually spotted somewhere where the use of the handbrake is necessary (intermodal trains or unit coal trains have flat wheels on occasion, but they don't often need to be secured with handbrakes).
Another form of noise you'll hear is slack action at the couplers, or in the drawbars behind the couplers. A stack train, with up to five units connected together by solid drawbars or pins above the intermediate trucks, hove fewer couplers, hence less slack, hence less noise from that source. Unit coal trains generally have Type F couplers (tighter fitting, for a more secure coupling needed for using rotary couplers); they will have some slack, but not as much, so they'll be quieter, too.
Finally, as far as noise goes, an empty car will have more vibration, resonance, and rattling from parts that may be loose or whatever than will a loaded car--and most of the intermodal trains you see will consist of mostly loaded cars (empty intermodal cars make as much noise as any other cars, in my experience!).
Dirt? Mixed trains dirtier? That's probably because you see more freight-car surface on the bigger box cars, gons, etc. They aren't usually that much older, and you'll find new cars and old cars, new paint and old paint, on just about any type of car. Railroads aren't very clean, and all kinds of dust will be picked up. The trailers or containers on intermodal trains may get washed on occasion while they're on the road, but freight cars are seldom, if ever, given a bath.

[edblysard]

"J" had most of your answer, but also think that most intermodel and TOFC is on a guarantee deliver time basis, so the carrier adds enought motive power to make sure if one or more motors die, they still have enough power to get there on time. Did you notice if two units were facing north, and the trailing units were facing south? This is done because wyes are not at all yards, and all the crews have to do is switch ends.
As to the dirty cars, the days of railcars being rolling billboards are long gone, the car owner wants their car moving all the time to earn more money, time spent washing or repainting is time the cars isnt in $$$ service. And yes, the average age of general service rail cars is getting older as unit trains, intermodel and other bulk shipments become the norm...

[Anonymous]

You all have been a big help!! The engines on the container train, two were facing one way and two were facing the other.All four were big and had U.S. flags painted on them. The frieght trains had the engines with the short narrow noses. Don't know the model or makes. (Me and my son's just like to watch trains). When the container train goes by you hear the engine then a soft woosh as the rest of the cars go by, but on a frieght car train you hear a lot of banging. I can know explain why. Again thanks for the help my son's and I are new to this train thing.

[edblysard]

The "big" motors were most likley UP Sd70s; the painted flags are vinyl stickers. They have whats commonly called "quite cabs" isolated from the rest of the frame on rubber gaskets. The short narrow noses on the others sound like older EMD SD 40s. The narrow nose contains the raido and electronics, and a crew toilet.
The host of this forum, Kalmbach, publishes an most excellent book, the diesel spotters guide, all the info you could need....Ed

[Anonymous]

Here in the UK we tend not to have ver large trains, hence 1 loco will do. However, you do get times when locos need to be moved back to various depots. Hence you get the interesting situation of 4 or 5 Class 67s (made by GM in Spain for EWS to pull mail trains) moving along the lie with 4 or 5 cars! Also, there are 'route learning' or 'piloting' duties. On some passenger workings, you can either have a diversionary requirement (where an electric train has to be diverted away from the wires and thus a diesel is sent), a loco sent to rescue a failed train (GM at supplying new engines etc to Class 47s and producing a series called the Class 57s. These are 'Thunderbird' rescure locos, with names from teh TV series!). Finally, passenger trains require ETS (eletric train supply) and you sometimes get an interesting mix of older and newer power working together.

Jason

[Modelcar]

Jason: Does the UK use continuous rail through out their system...?

QM

[edblysard]

Smooth forgot about motive power moves, we do the same here when too many crew die at our terminal and the power stacks up, then the class 1s will have us put all their power, (bnsf or up mostly) on one of their daily outbounds. So you end up with 80 cars, and eight motors. Most are not on line, way to much HP for the consist.
ANd we have pilots too. That a conductor/foreman who rides with a crew who is not familar with the route or yard lay out or territory, as when a "foreign" crew come on our road with a run thru train, or first time on our property and they can get lost real easy. You cant just back up if you take the wrong route....

[wabash1]

60 mph. is it. that is what they allow us, and over speed is 70mph on are units.

[Anonymous]

Some parts of the UK system use continuously-welded rail, but not all.

[Anonymous]

Further to my previous comment - about 70% of the UK rail network has been converted to continuosly-welded rail.

Jason

[edblysard]

Wood, steel or prestressed concret ties?. We have a receiving yard, most of it is steel ties, contractor says they last forever, but we got some on the ground, and the steel ties cracked thru and thur down the middle. Wood ties seem to hold up just fine, spring right back...at least the ones that arnt 40 years old do.

[Anonymous]

There seems to be a mixture - wooden ones are being replaced by either concrete or steel. From the source I have read, about 25% of the slepers around the network are wooden.

Jason.

[Modelcar]

Jason.....Thanks

QM