What were they doing to my train?

[Crescent ATN & TCL]

Also when you talk about freight locomotives you have to take into account that horsepower ranges from 1,500 in some of the older units to 4,400 in the ES44's and the GE AC44's to 7,000 in the SD-70MAC's. I live along the NS line between Birmingham and Atlanta and I see trains with all sorts of locomotives on them, SD 40s and GP 38's with a train by themselves, but usually NS tends to run a ES40DC or a Dash-9 40-CW in in the lead with whatever else they had on hand. The most over powered train I saw was an intermodal with about 100 cars being pulled with a combination of 5 new units. I don't know if any were dead-in-consist or not, but I assumed they were distributing new power throughout the system.

As for Amtrak they should run at least two on any train that is not on Amtrak Tracks, i.e. the Springfield Line, unless there are multiple frequencies running no more than 3-4 hours apart. It seems like in the long run it would be cheaper to maintain the P42s better than they do, with the cost of buses, missed connections and other related problems. I can't believe that the P42's would be having all of these problems without having maintenance neglected.

 

[BobWeaver]

Also when you talk about freight locomotives you have to take into account that horsepower ranges from 1,500 in some of the older units to 4,400 in the ES44's and the GE AC44's to 7,000 in the SD-70MAC's. I live along the NS line between Birmingham and Atlanta and I see trains with all sorts of locomotives on them, SD 40s and GP 38's with a train by themselves, but usually NS tends to run a ES40DC or a Dash-9 40-CW in in the lead with whatever else they had on hand. The most over powered train I saw was an intermodal with about 100 cars being pulled with a combination of 5 new units. I don't know if any were dead-in-consist or not, but I assumed they were distributing new power throughout the system.
As for Amtrak they should run at least two on any train that is not on Amtrak Tracks, i.e. the Springfield Line, unless there are multiple frequencies running no more than 3-4 hours apart. It seems like in the long run it would be cheaper to maintain the P42s better than they do, with the cost of buses, missed connections and other related problems. I can't believe that the P42's would be having all of these problems without having maintenance neglected.

SD70MACs have 4,000 horsepower. The number in a locomotive's designation doesn't always represent its horsepower rating.

I saw #91 make its station stop in Columbia, SC in the wee hours of this morning, and it had 2 locomotives on the point. However, the first unit was at a very low idle, and I'm assuming that it wasn't producing HEP. The second unit sounded normal. From what I've seen, just because there are 2 locomotives on the head end, it doesn't necessarily mean they're producing motive power. On that note, I saw #98 a few months ago down in north Florida and only the second unit was producing exhaust, even with it doing track speed (70 or 80mph).

 

[AlanB]

I saw #91 make its station stop in Columbia, SC in the wee hours of this morning, and it had 2 locomotives on the point. However, the first unit was at a very low idle, and I'm assuming that it wasn't producing HEP. The second unit sounded normal. From what I've seen, just because there are 2 locomotives on the head end, it doesn't necessarily mean they're producing motive power. On that note, I saw #98 a few months ago down in north Florida and only the second unit was producing exhaust, even with it doing track speed (70 or 80mph).

Well if the first unit was at idle, it probably means that the engineer was using it only for motive power, which would be unneeded in the station. Whereas the second unit was providing HEP, as well as motive power, hence the high idle.