Here in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, I have boarded the Meteor in the middle of the night, walking across gravel, to get to the train on the outside track, away from the station.
When living in Miami, I would board at Hollywood where the Silver trains would often make two stops at the platform in the 60's and 70's
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HarveyK400 wrote: I don't know about steam heating generating capacity, trainline heat loss, or car heating demand.I do know that Amtrak figured roughly 75kW per car (Amfleet); and F40s, maybe P42's too, provided up to 750kW hotel power. That comes from just one of the locomotives to eliminate the problem of synchronizing engine speed, effectively leaving only 2,000hp for traction. The P30s had two 375hp diesel-alternator sets that proved troublesome to synchronize for train power. Two locomotives with engines operating independently by throttle setting alone pose an even greater challenge.Another possible limit is the current capacity of the trainline bus and cable connections. I don't recall for sure, but maybe Superliners take 100kW per car and P42s provide 1,000kW. It works the same. Anyone know if later F40s were equipped with 1,000kW alternators for use with the Superliners if there was a higher power demand?In any event, the only way to run a train longer than ten cars is to connect up to ten cars to the locomotive and connect additional cars to a generator car or trailing locomotive in as many blocks as necessary. After the second set, passing through the entire train consist is a problem - walking through an engine room, mis-matched end door heights, and walking through a locomotive nose door.
I don't know about steam heating generating capacity, trainline heat loss, or car heating demand.
I do know that Amtrak figured roughly 75kW per car (Amfleet); and F40s, maybe P42's too, provided up to 750kW hotel power. That comes from just one of the locomotives to eliminate the problem of synchronizing engine speed, effectively leaving only 2,000hp for traction. The P30s had two 375hp diesel-alternator sets that proved troublesome to synchronize for train power. Two locomotives with engines operating independently by throttle setting alone pose an even greater challenge.
Another possible limit is the current capacity of the trainline bus and cable connections.
I don't recall for sure, but maybe Superliners take 100kW per car and P42s provide 1,000kW. It works the same. Anyone know if later F40s were equipped with 1,000kW alternators for use with the Superliners if there was a higher power demand?
In any event, the only way to run a train longer than ten cars is to connect up to ten cars to the locomotive and connect additional cars to a generator car or trailing locomotive in as many blocks as necessary. After the second set, passing through the entire train consist is a problem - walking through an engine room, mis-matched end door heights, and walking through a locomotive nose door.
Once saw a 18 or 19 car solid Amfleet train (Fall Foliage special in 1976 or 77) hauled by a pair of P30s. Apparenly, there is enough capacity in the HEP trainline for trains of that length. P30s did have the ability to bring their individual HEP plans on and off line as needed - probaby why that train had P30s and not SDP40Fs or F40s on it.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
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