What exactly is a "Road Slug"?

[Glen Ellyn]

What is a road slug. I see people in the cab, so dose it act like a slug, or what?

[edblysard]

Depending on how "deep South" you are, free dinner?

Road slugs are locomotives with something wrong with the control stand, or a major FRA cab defect, and the railroad dosnt want to spend the money to correct it, might not be worth the effort, or the unit is just to old to bother with.

They use them for additional road power, they MU just fine, and can be controled from the lead unit, but are not qualified for lead unit status.

Ed

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard

Depending on how "deep South" you are, free dinner?

Road slugs are locomotives with something wrong with the control stand, or a major FRA cab defect, and the railroad dosnt want to spend the money to correct it, might not be worth the effort, or the unit is just to old to bother with.

They use them for additional road power, they MU just fine, and can be controled from the lead unit, but are not qualified for lead unit status.

Ed

Also referred to as "B" units.


Virlon

[alstom]

They are units with a radiator placed above the cab. It makes the engine look like a slug or something. They are usually GP30s or GP40s.

[edblysard]

Not to draw too fine a line, but some roads do stenciled their road slugs as "B" units, often painting a warning on the window that the unit is not lead qualified.
True B units, the B referring to the use as a booster, or cabless units, are different.

They are designed from the start as a cabless unit.

There were GP7s, GP9, SD 9, and GP 30, GP35, GP 40, 50 and 60s, all true "B" units.
There is also the GE B30-7A , and I think a C30-7A, oddly, the A denoted its a cabless unit in BN parlance.
and several “home built” models.
Santa Fe and the UP had quite a selection of all of them.
But the term “road slug” means it’s a former road engine regulated to “B unit” service.

[Anonymous]

the Southern Pacific had a small fleet of road slugs, called TEBU's (Tractive effort booster units) they were built on U25B chassis and they basically had an engine, a fuel tank, and a dynamic brake. they were set up to be controlled by GP40-2's and GP40's.

more info can be found here:
http://espee.railfan.net/sptebu.html

[Glen Ellyn]

So would this be a road slug...

[Anonymous]

Road slugs are prime moverless units, usually with no cab, ballasted with concrete or steel that drew their traction motor power from a mother unit. I believe CSX had some road mother slug sets built on GP-40?sss

They looked identical to a normal motor, and even had a cab, the ride was very quiet if you were controlling the set from the unpowered slug////

Somebody correct me if I am wrong, but cabless "B" units are not the same as slugs....

[coborn35]

Most of the older swiychers came with a B unit if Im not mistaken?

[locomutt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by coborn35

Most of the older swiychers came with a B unit if Im not mistaken?

Coburn35,
Most switchers were ordered as just that,a switcher.
Some roads opted to have an "A" unit & "B " unit built
at the same time.(C & O for one, an "A" unit & two "B" units)
And no,most older switchers did not arbitrarily come with a "B" unit.

[Anonymous]

m1ashooter, I think what you are describing are "hump sets." Road slugs should have a prime mover. The hump sets' prime moverless unit serves 2 purposes. 1 it helps burn up excessive power from the mother (if the unit is grinding along at notch 8 shoving a hump cut over the crest it can fry the traction motors) 2 it provides more T.E.

[TH&B]

I wonder if "slug" is a loose term. To me a slug has no prime mover, deisel engine that is. It has traction motors and draws the power from another unit in the consist. A slug may or may not have, a cab for controling, dynamic brakes or fuel tanks. A "road slug" is intended for mainline use compared to a "yard slug" for yard duty.

Slugs can save fuel but only at very low speeds. At higher speeds they are just dead weight.

[edblysard]

I believe Coborn is thinking about the TR5...a Calf and Cow.
They are a SW9, with cab, and a cabless SW9 calf.
TR5s were a stop gap, a transfer locomotive, meant to move yard to yard transfer trains.
Because the calf had no cab, it had a small set of hoslter controls.
UP had quite a few TR5s, and used them extensively in their SW10 build program.

Glen Ellyn, yes, that is a road slug.

M1, not all slugs are without prime movers,,,yard slugs usually are, they get the power for the traction motors from the mother unit, and their tanks are filled with sand, cement, or ballast is added where the diesel was.
Road slugs usually do have the diesel, they add the HP and tractive effort, its just a way to reuse old locomotive without investing the bucks to rebuild them or repair them.
Road slugs are pretty much one step away from scrap.

To see a selection of Santa Fe GP60B units, look here...
http://www.trainpix.com/atsf/EMDORIG/GP60B/INDEX.HTM

To see a TR5 set,
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=14358

For a GE B30-7A(B)
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=63107

http://members.aol.com/jsundin357/bn4064.html

And a nice selection of both road and yard slug photos...
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/slugs.html

Ed

[Anonymous]

Here is a descriptions of powerless road slugs, not cabless Bunits...

http://utahrails.net/webpubs/up-sw-road-slugs.php

http://www.trains.com/Content/Dynamic/Articles/000/000/003/088ysvpr.asp

[CShaveRR]

No, Ed and Andrew, that UP unit with a "B" in front of its number (photographed in Elmhurst!) is not a road slug.

As people have already said, a slug has no prime mover in it. It does, however, have traction motors which receive power from a "mother" unit's generator. CSX is very heavily into road slugs (rebuilt many from GP30s, GP35s, and at least one GP40, and inherited a few from Conrail). These units have cabs with functional controls, and can lead (and provide a relatively quiet ride, without the engine). They also have functional dynamic brakes.

CSX also has some MATEs that GE built for the Seaboard Coast Line--they were cabless units that basically acted like slugs, giving extra traction motors to the U-boats that they were paired with.

CNW had some slugs that they made out of old B usits (F7s mostly, if not exclusively), and ran them into Wisconsin between a pair of GP35s. They didn't last very long.

I'm not as well up on my diesel rosters as I used to be, but I'm not sure that any railroad other than CSX currently uses road slugs (0 horsepower, no engine, with or without control cabs). CSX uses them primarily where extra tractive effort is needed at low speeds--in fact, the traction motors on the slugs cut out above a set speed (or they did as initially designed).

Those UP "B" units were pretty much as you described--cabs no good any more, so could not be occupied by train and enginemen. But they aren't slugs. A few of them, by the way, were eventually restored to full service. Most were probably retired. I haven't seen one for quite a while now.

[mloik]

Hey, no offense everyone, but our University's mascot is the Mighty Fighting Banana Slug.

(And, unfortunately, a "road slug" is one that has been permanently removed from the population by a motor vehicle, bicycle, unicycle, scooter, stroller, pram, handcart, pogostick, foot, dog paw, dog mouth, or most any other form of conveyance...)

To wit...

"The Banana Slug, a bright yellow, slimy, shell-less mollusk found in the campus's redwood forest, was the unofficial mascot for UC Santa Cruz's coed teams since the university's early years."

Some of you might recall John Travolta's character in "Pulp Fiction" ending up in a Banana Slug t-shirt after a rather messy dirty-deed, which evoked Ume Thurman to quip "Hey, where's the volleybal game?"

Anyway, I'm back from many months away.

Hello again everyone.

Michael

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Glen Ellyn

What is a road slug. I see people in the cab, so dose it act like a slug, or what?

Glen,

This is what I think of when someone says slug, either road slug or yard slug has no working prime mover from what I understand. These are two road slugs built by MKco for the Oregon, California and Eastern. Photo taken at Sycan, OR Feb. 1984

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard

I believe Coborn is thinking about the TR5...a Calf and Cow.
They are a SW9, with cab, and a cabless SW9 calf.
TR5s were a stop gap, a transfer locomotive, meant to move yard to yard transfer trains.
Because the calf had no cab, it had a small set of hoslter controls.
UP had quite a few TR5s, and used them extensively in their SW10 build program.

Glen Ellyn, yes, that is a road slug.

M1, not all slugs are without prime movers,,,yard slugs usually are, they get the power for the traction motors from the mother unit, and their tanks are filled with sand, cement, or ballast is added where the diesel was.
Road slugs usually do have the diesel, they add the HP and tractive effort, its just a way to reuse old locomotive without investing the bucks to rebuild them or repair them.
Road slugs are pretty much one step away from scrap.

To see a selection of Santa Fe GP60B units, look here...
http://www.trainpix.com/atsf/EMDORIG/GP60B/INDEX.HTM

To see a TR5 set,
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=14358

For a GE B30-7A(B)
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=63107

http://members.aol.com/jsundin357/bn4064.html

And a nice selection of both road and yard slug photos...
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/slugs.html

Ed

The GP-60B and B30-7 were ordered as cabless B units, SF was famous for a 4 motor set of ABBA units on it's high speed pigs...

[bbrant]

QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard


They use them for additional road power, they MU just fine, and can be controled from the lead unit, but are not qualified for lead unit status.

Ed

Ed -

I'm confused. I've seen road slugs in the lead position. I thought road slugs had their prime movers removed but were still used for their traction motors. Providided that there is nothing wrong with the cab, it could be used as a lead unit.

Typically on the S&C branch, CSX uses only a mother/slug set for power for trips between Rockwood and Johnstown. Since the engines aren't turned, the slug is either in the lead or trailing position, depending on how it arrived on the branch.

(Here's a picture of CSX 2211 in the lead to show I'm not completely crazy. LOL http://bbrant.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=135408 )

Please correct me if I'm wrong on anything. After all, you got the hands on experience and I'm, in the words of my wife's former co-worker, just a "trolley jolly".

Brian

[TrainFreak409]

Some models were originally built as B units to begin with, but were then built again with a cab due to demands.

Take the Union Pacific EMD DD35, for example.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

A slug by definition has no prime mover and can be found in a variety of low-speed services. CSX road slugs (rebuilt from GP30/35/40's) and BNSF hump slugs (rebuilt from SD9's) are equipped with cabs, which is nice for the engineer since it gets him away from the engine noise. A few definitions here to continue the discussion:

Booster or calf: Equipped with prime mover, main generator/alternator and traction motors but no cab. Booster usually refers to a road unit (F7B, GP9B, DD35B, GP60B) and calf refers to a switcher (the cabless unit in a TR set).

Slug: Equipped with traction motors but no prime mover or main generator/alternator, which has been replaced with a block of concrete for ballasting. The traction motors draw power from the main generator/alternator of a mother unit which has been equipped for this purpose. It may or may not have a cab with controls and may provide additional fuel for the mother unit.

Brake sled: Very rare. Prime mover, generator and traction motors have been removed and replaced with concrete ballast. The braking system can plug into the mother unit's independent brake control. Used for additional braking when handling hump cuts or in pulldown duty.

Any additions or corrections will be appreciated.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CSSHEGEWISCH

A slug by definition has no prime mover and can be found in a variety of low-speed services. CSX road slugs (rebuilt from GP30/35/40's) and BNSF hump slugs (rebuilt from SD9's) are equipped with cabs, which is nice for the engineer since it gets him away from the engine noise. A few definitions here to continue the discussion:

Looks good to me CSSHEGEWISCH, thanks.

[ericsp]

I noticed from the photographs of CSXT road slug I have seen that it is easy to identify them by the lack of radiator grills. Of course without a radiator, the diesel engine will overheat, so there cannot be one in there.

[bbrant]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ericsp

I noticed from the photographs of CSXT road slug I have seen that it is easy to identify them by the lack of radiator grills. Of course without a radiator, the diesel engine will overheat, so there cannot be one in there.

Ahh....good point. Never thought of it but that makes perfect sense.

[Dan204]

I could see where short lines and regional railroads could benefit from road and yard slugs.  With yard work and subdivisions with poor track/slow orders, why buy another engine with moving parts.