Office Car Power

[battalion51]

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but some railroads like CSX and UP maintain locomotives that are primarily for use with their office car specials, while others like NS and BNSF don't. Does anyone know a reasoning behind having one or not?

 

[George Harris]

I have the rather uncomplimetary suspicion that BNSF and NS maintain all their locomotives to a good relevel of reliability so which one you get is not really that important, while the level of maintenance on CSX and UP is somewhat lesser and the shop forces and lower and middle management don't even want to think about what happens if they leave the top brass cooling their heels out on the line due to motive power failure. Actually given that most freight power is limited to either 70 or 75 mph and BNSF has the fine ex-ATSDF 90 mph line, I would suspect that BNSF has some engines hanging around with passenger train gearing to use on the office car specials.

Then we have KCS with special engines for the OCS train and a good state of maintenance overall.

George

 

[Sam Damon]

George, that's a little snarky, but probably true.

More likely, though, it could also be that UP and CSX want to project a certain image. Dedicated locomotives for OCS trains reinforce that image. How many kids' books do you pick up, and find trains with E- or F-unit shaped locomotives?

No harm, no foul, IMO. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[PRR 60]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't HEP a requirement for operating passenger equipment? So, given that, would that not limit the pool of locomotives that can operate the office car consists? I doubt that BNSF or NS can simply assign any locomotive on the roster to an office car train.

 

[battalion51]

Well most Office Car Specials have HEP equipment in a converted baggage car (or something along those lines) so that the consist can operate with any engine. Even most of the cars will have their own generator so they can be put on any train at any time. For example BNSF and CSX ran a test train a couple of years ago to test the feasability of a Super Hot Express UPS train. A BNSF Theater car was put on the rear of the train so UPS, BNSF, and CSX officials could ride along and talk business and see what happened during the duration of the trip.