When Did They Stop Wying At CUS?

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S

sechs

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On my recent trip, I passed through Chicago Union Station for the first time in several years. When the train came into the station, they did not wye it, as they had in the past. When did they stop doing this, and what was the reasoning?

Since my sleeper was at the end, I had to hike the entire length of the train to exit the platform....
 
They did that last year when I arrived on the Lake Shore Limited. I assumed it had something to do with not having to drop off any boxcars in the rear.
 
Did you come in on a different route than usual? Some routes are forced to pull straight in rather than backing down to the station due to routing issues, whereas others are forced to do the opposite.
 
Incoming to CHI from CLE the last 6 times from last MAY 05. We came in head first on the CL. Leaving back to CLE on the CL& LSL we were rear end in, loco away from terminal.
 
battalion51 said:
Did you come in on a different route than usual? Some routes are forced to pull straight in rather than backing down to the station due to routing issues, whereas others are forced to do the opposite.
Click to expand...
Nope. The Southwest Chief, as before. We were early.

The fact that there aren't any box cars should make wying a much faster affair.
 
It might have something to do with run throughs. I believe before the Chief ran through as the Capitol Ltd's equipment, which IIRC doesn't happen anymore. The yard crew probably runs the equipment around the wye later on when they wash the set and bring it down for its cleaning, servicing, and inspections.
 
Again the Capitol is a contained set, it definitely wouldn't get wyed. The Capitol like Auto Train runs "push-pull" with the cars always oriented a particular way, with just the power and bag car changing ends.
 
Years ago, when the wying started, it was an issue over a "safety brake test"; there's no actual (in the real world) that a slowed train can become a stopped train, and wying the train on the line leading UP (and I mean "up"!) to the IC viaduct meant an extra measure of safety.

Another side benefit was, during the F40PH days, passengers didn't have to walk past a howling loco providing HEP; the trains didn't always get hooked up to Hotel power right away.

Dunno the reason between the wye/wyenot today; I'm only aware of the historical angle.

Maybe since they had an increase of bumper-walloping when backing, they stopped most of the backing?
 
I've always thought that it was a matter of not fowling the air in the sheds by bringing the engines all the way up next to the terminal, far away from the opening.
 
battalion51 said:
Again the Capitol is a contained set, it definitely wouldn't get wyed. The Capitol like Auto Train runs "push-pull" with the cars always oriented a particular way, with just the power and bag car changing ends.
Click to expand...
The Capitol Limited is not a contained set.

The equipment still runs through with the Southwest Chief westbound. Eastbound, the Chief's equipment spends the night, then leaves the next day as the Capitol Limited.

I'm not sure why they continue to do this, and it seems that #3 is often delayed because the Capitol Limited arrived late. In fact, on October 7th, for example, train 3 departed 46 minutes late, because of the late servicing of equipment on train 29, which arrived nearly 3 hours late.

Since cutting the run through would not require any more equipment, it would make sense from an operational standpoint. Train 3 could have departed on time on Friday if they didn't have to service train 29's equipment right away. Since train 30 leaves after train 3, they would have had a couple of hours extra to clean and fix the equipment before sending it back out.
 

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