In the recent On the Bi-level, Metra talked about ways it's going to get out of the financial funk it's been in for the past few years. One thing they're going to do is raise ticket prices next year. Another thing they're going to do is cut back weekend service on the UP North line and the Milwaukee Distroct North and West lines. Here's my idea that the Milwaukee Road actually did.
Metra has six to nine cars on their trains for the Milwaukee district North line. during the day the number is four to seven. on most of the trains there's a few cars that are closed, which render them useless money wasters. so why can't Metra make it so a seven car train in the morning be a four car train in the day, granted that a cab car is placed behind the cars that'll be cut?
There are probably several answers, one or all of which might apply. The two main ones are: First, train sets are made up and assigned schedules which may not always need all the cars but will as certain trains. Two, the cost of labor and time of makingup and taking apart a train is too much. Trainsets are also often cycled through a series of assignements of not the same train(s) everyday; plus sometimes they are broken and reassembled but you don't know it unless you work the job where it happens or are privy to the employee schedule which might show such changes.
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henry6 There are probably several answers, one or all of which might apply. The two main ones are: First, train sets are made up and assigned schedules which may not always need all the cars but will as certain trains. Two, the cost of labor and time of makingup and taking apart a train is too much. Trainsets are also often cycled through a series of assignements of not the same train(s) everyday; plus sometimes they are broken and reassembled but you don't know it unless you work the job where it happens or are privy to the employee schedule which might show such changes.
those are actually good answers, but i think it can be done. Metra trains can re-add the cars in the afternoon when they'll start to be needed again. there's at least an hour wait for trains at outer terminals (Fox lake, Aurora, Elgin to name a few) which gives ample time in the morning hours to cut cars and time in the afternoon to add the cars back on. each train has two conductors (one for late night trains) so one of 'em could clean up the cars in operation while the other cars are being cut by the second conductor. if needed, there could be someone based at the outlying terminals to do the job. I also know that trains in the daytime rarely have the cab car on because it's a waste of power. that's a reason as to why the other cars in a mid-day trains are turned off.
I'm not privy to the labor contract restrictions involved, but the costs involved in manning and maintaining a switcher at outlying points would easily outweigh the fuel savings involved. In the downtown area, there's also the issue of getting the out-of-service cars to the coach yard during the midday period. 14th Street (BNSF) is adjacent to Union Station but Western Avenue (MILW and Heritage Line) and California Avenue (C&NW) are two to three miles away from their downtown stations.
Because of the push-pull operation you can't just cut and go like with a freight train. And a regular conductor/ticket collector probably is not qualified to do all the mechanical and electrical hook ups, etc. No, it is not cost effective nor othewise practical to take the train apart, switch out to the cab car, couple up and hook up and then do the reverse later on. Time, people, extra tracks, Not worth it.
Henry: I think we should not dismiss Mr. Railman out of hand. Although each station may have different requirements for middle of the day parking there may be some solution for a few trains.
First it is probably a given that not all mid day trains could work this way and this is a simplistic operating plan..
1. take a 10 car train in push pull. Put 2 cab cars in consist - 1 at end and one about 5 cars in.
2. Rush hour train comes into city center station discharges passengers as normal.
3. Engineer goes to loco - train is broken just behind cab car in center.
4. Consist at station is connected to house HEP
5 Short. Consist runs out to end of line as areverse move with passengers.
6.. Consist returns to city center station as off rush train; discharges passengers; then couples up to cars left on station track.
7. HEP transferred to loco; brake test and train is ready to run outbound rush hour.
8. Trying to do this at the out lying terminating station is very difficult.
9. Fuel savings may be secondary to the commuter cars not having to run miles. It would be very enlightning for some one to find out what the total cost to run a commuter car per mile is???. Both fuel useage and non useage. Also any problems with cars at city center station could be addressed during their lay over as is now done for laying over rush hour trains?
I woder if that's how the MILW did it. they did cut cars for daylight trains because back in the day, where i live now was considered "going to the country". i think it could work in conjunction with ticket price increases.
This assumes the availaabity of cab cars...they are not coaches with just a control stand at one end but more sophisticated, complex and expensive. There just aren't enough of them in the budget much less the yard. And if it were cost effective and easy to do MNRR, NJT, LIRR, MBTA, SEPTA, METRA, MARC, and any and all other operating agencies would be doing it. But none are. So unless there is really something they are really missing, I don't think it is anything that will happen anyplace soon.
I do believe that metra conductors (the people who collect tickets) - are fully qualified RR conductors and they can connect cars, shove, and do everything else. Amtrak conductors collect tickets and they can do all that stuff, and I remember a UP job posting for a conductor a few years ago saying you may be put in commuter service, and in addition to all the regular "conductor" duties you would also need to wear a uniform, collect tickets, etc.
You wouldn't need a switcher to do switching either - why not just do it with the road engine? If the conductor can shove, why not?
One thing I know about Metra is it's a very resistant to change organization - it doesn't change unless something absolutely forces it to, and I completely wouldn't be surprised if it was running trains with extra cars for no reason other than "that's how it's always been done" and nobody at Metra has had an impetus to change.
Even with an oversupply of cab coaches, cutting out coaches to eliminate deadhead cars is a lot more than just pulling the pin and the air line. Signal lines, MU jumpers and HEP connections have to be broken and and the HEP circuit has to be closed on the new end car. For safety reasons, the HEP supply from the engine has to be cut out when HEP connections are broken and can't be reinstated until the new HEP circuit is established. This can add time to any switching move and the layover time may not be long enough to make the move safely and still be on time.
Although it did not involve HEP, the power change as South Amboy was accomplished with the use of two carmen who broke and made the connections with the steam, signal and air lines. The conductor was not directly involved with this process.
There may also be contract restrictions or arbitraries as to how much switching can be performed by a road crew.
Definitely you cannot compare the engine change at South Amboy with dropping and swapping cars today. Likewise, the DL&W used to split and assemble MU's at Summit for the Gladstone trains. And there are dozens of other examples. But those examples also involve full time station crew of mechanic, switchman, electrician, car knocker, one of the above or all of the above. Turning an angle$1****$2and pulling coupler pin (and disconnecting an mu jumper cable in the case of the DL&W) is quite different than the involved cables, HEP, couplers, air, etc. of today. The cost of the speciic guild crew for a full 8 or 16 our 24 hours is out of sight compared to lugging a few extra cars around. As I said if your way was cheaper and better, every commuter line would be doing it. There is reason why none of them do it. You'd have a point if even one of them did it, but they don't.
I'm not in the profession and don't know all the details involved, but I remember Amtrak used to use the consist from the Empire Builder to continue on as the City of New Orleans, but since less capacity was needed, they hauled half the train empty all the way to New Orleans and back. (I don't know if they still do it.) I always found it hard to believe that this was more efficient than switching out part of the consist.
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henry6 Definitely you cannot compare the engine change at South Amboy with dropping and swapping cars today. Likewise, the DL&W used to split and assemble MU's at Summit for the Gladstone trains. And there are dozens of other examples. But those examples also involve full time station crew of mechanic, switchman, electrician, car knocker, one of the above or all of the above. Turning an angle$1****$2and pulling coupler pin (and disconnecting an mu jumper cable in the case of the DL&W) is quite different than the involved cables, HEP, couplers, air, etc. of today. The cost of the speciic guild crew for a full 8 or 16 our 24 hours is out of sight compared to lugging a few extra cars around. As I said if your way was cheaper and better, every commuter line would be doing it. There is reason why none of them do it. You'd have a point if even one of them did it, but they don't.
The PATCO line does it every day - in the station. They take a six car train and make the cut right in the station. It's a little bit different than commuter equipment since the coupler, MU and air are all integral.
However, if the commuter agencies can get set up to do it, one guy working a split shift ought to be able to do all the cutting and coupling.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Well, I guess that if you guys think it can and should be done, then it is so. The fact that it is not done by any agency means nothing. Nor does the explanation from several of us who know something about it. So discussion is over, closed.
henry6 Well, I guess that if you guys think it can and should be done, then it is so. The fact that it is not done by any agency means nothing. Nor does the explanation from several of us who know something about it. So discussion is over, closed.
Yeah, that Don Oltmann fellow doesn't have any contact with real-world railroading . . .
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
My point is that this has become a round robbin in that some want to do it while others explain why it isn't done. We keep going back and forth and unless a manager at METRA steps in and explains their operation rationale, there is no answer.
It means the extra fuel and maintenance for dragging around unneeded coaches isn't coming out of anyone at the commuter agency's pocket! It's not a priority for them. That doesn't mean it can't, and shouldn't be done. Jeez, you'd think a couple pair of HEP cable is the end of the world....
Switching REAL rail equipment is not as simple and quick as picking up model railroad equipment and revising the consist of a train. Switching takes much more time than those outside the industry can understand when crews have to secure the proper number of hand brakes to equipment they leave standing in their own train, release hand brakes from equipment to be picked up, set hand brakes to equipment being set out, performing mechanical inspection of equipment being picked up, performing proper air test on train after the equipment has been picked up.
Not to mention that in dealing with push-pull commuter trains, one end has a cab car and not all the other cars in the train are cab cars.
A few extra miles on pieces of equipment operated during mid-day lulls in traffic is MUCH, MUCH more economical than the efforts necessary to switch the equipment out of a consist and then 4 or 5 hours later switching the equipment back into the consist.
oltmannd henry6: Well, I guess that if you guys think it can and should be done, then it is so. The fact that it is not done by any agency means nothing. Nor does the explanation from several of us who know something about it. So discussion is over, closed. It means the extra fuel and maintenance for dragging around unneeded coaches isn't coming out of anyone at the commuter agency's pocket! It's not a priority for them. That doesn't mean it can't, and shouldn't be done. Jeez, you'd think a couple pair of HEP cable is the end of the world....
henry6: Well, I guess that if you guys think it can and should be done, then it is so. The fact that it is not done by any agency means nothing. Nor does the explanation from several of us who know something about it. So discussion is over, closed.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I remember seeing an ad in Model Railroader Magazine for Kato selling N-gauge models of the Chicago gallery cars. You know the ad, that big spread they take out towards the inside back cover. Often times those ads show consists because Kato doesn't want to sell the modeler a single passenger car, they want to sell the whole train. There have been descriptions of consists on the SP Daylight, the SF Super Chief, and so on. Besides wanting sell interested parties multiple train cars, the ads are enlightening to those of us curious about prototype operations.
I remember the ad for the gallery cars explained how a cab car would be spliced midway into a longer rush-hour consist, and how the locomotives are placed at the outbound end in the Chicago downtown station (Olgivie Center, Union Station, etc.) That way a string of gallery cars could be left at the station track downtown, and a bob-tailed off-hours consist could go on its way.
No, prototype operations are much more complicated than using an uncoupling ramp to leave a string of Kato N-gauge coaches in a siding. But the model is just that, a model, and modelers for a variety of reasons are interested in simulating the operation of the real thing to get some insight.
From what was described, it seems that someone at some time, whether C&NW back in the day or Metra at some point was dropping the back end of a rush-hour consist so as to not spend fuel on trailing cars for the off-peak trains. Maybe they stopped doing it. Maybe they stopped doing it because someone crunched the numbers, and it was cheaper to spend money on fuel than to pay the labor costs to disconnect and reconnect the consists. Maybe with the cost of fuel sky high, someone needs to re-crunch the numbers and revisit this question.
Maybe the operational advantages of switching are overrated, and perhaps because of the expense involved, railroads would benefit from not switching freight trains either. This is coming to an end because the University of Wisconsin-Madison is ending their use of 5 carloads of coal per day for the central heating plant and changing to natural gas -- I guess coal is evil and we can't have any of that, although my layman's sense is that I never noticed anything bad about air quality around here, and I have lived in places (Pasadena, CA), where everyone seemed to have a sinus infection all the time and everytime you took a deep breath you would feel it in your lungs.
Anyway, WSOR would switch cars at the power plant -- why couldn't they run a kind of mini-unit train where they would just dump, say, 35 carloads for a weekly delivery at the plant instead of switching? Dunno. The coal goes in a big pile next to the plant you can see from Dayton Street -- it doesn't need to be parked in train cars.
As to switching REAL rail equipment being SO HARD, my leaving for work by car involves a large number of operations -- checking to see the house is locked, making sure to raise the garage door before starting the motor, seatbelt on, foot on the brake before engine start, look back before backing, wait until I clear the garage door before lowering it with the radio button, wait for the door to lower, making a mental note that the door went down so I don't have to turn the car around a minute later to drive by and check, coming to a full stop midway in the drive in case the neighbor kids come running by to make it school on time. There are so many steps, and it is so hard, I wonder why I go to work some days.
Don tells us that PATCO has specialized couplers to do these consist disconnect/reconnects more or less automatically. "The fact that it is not done by any agency means nothing" is correct -- it means absolutely nothing because that it is not done by any agency is simply not a fact when PATCO is doing it.
Let's try a real world example. You can tell me what I'm missing.
Metra service to Union Station from the "CB&Q". Assume peak train of 8 cars, off peak 2 cars. Assume you need 20 trainsets for peak, 4 for off peak. At the end of the rush hour, all trains go to the "Zephyr" storage yard south of Union Station. The four off peak trains are built with a cab car as the second car. The last four rush hour trains in are built to be the off peak trainsets. They arrive the storage yard and the ground man makes the cut behind the second car. The engineer cuts the HEP. The conductor and trainmen set the handbrakes on the rear six cars (however many are required) The ground man pull and loops the HEP cables and 27 pin MU jumpers, turns the trainline 'valve' (ahem) and makes the cut. The engineer cuts the HEP back in. The ground man then sets the cab car up for lead and he and the engineer verify function continuity and of the "consist". He also does the daily cab signal test (either by on board equipment or with test setup in the yard. The trainmen go off duty and the conductor and engineer take the train to Union station. The ground man plugs the HEP trainline on the six cars on yard power for layover.
That's 15 or 20 minutes of work per train, I think.
oltmannd The ground man plugs the HEP trainline on the six cars on yard power for layover. That's 15 or 20 minutes of work per train, I think.
The ground man plugs the HEP trainline on the six cars on yard power for layover.
So, when they take a trainset and park it in the coach yard for the between rush hour layover (or for the overnight layover for all that it matters), is that trainset connected to HEP from a locomotive then? That is, to minimize switching and cable-connecting, the standby power on those commuter cars is off the F40PH instead of ground power, right?
Given that on average, rush hour at each end of the day lasts, what, 2 hours? And the "average" train car that doesn't see off-peak service that day is used 4 hour per day? So the remaining 20 hours, it has to be on HEP, at least on electric heat so it doesn't freeze in winter, maybe it doesn't have to be on full AC in summer?
Maybe HEP fuel use accounts for some of the difference between the higher fuel efficiency of commuter trains when you calculate it on a train and passenger load basis and the somewhat lower efficiency reported on aggregate for commuter rail as a mode?
Most layover yards will have 3 phase 480VAC available. They'll plug the cars in to keep them warm/cool and let the locomotives idle or shutdown. There are layover heaters for locomotives so that they can be shut down in all weather, but I don't know if the commuter roads bother with it.
Certainly, dragging around all those empty coaches all day long isn't helping the pass mile per gallon.
Maintenance on a passenger car is in the couple of bucks a mile range per coach. Fuel is going to be in the one gallon per mile range for a half dozen extra coaches. If an off peak train covers 100 miles, the savings would be $1500/day per trainset range. (+/- 50%)
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