Multiple Power - coordination

[n0nhj]

I just dug out my Train Talk EOT modem, and started looking at passing trains. Many more Cab messages than EOT messages.

A lot of the traffic past here is Coal Trains, with multiple power - not uncommon to have head, middle, and rear all be multiple engines.

So, that got me curious, how do they control the other engines? I presume that RF is involved somewhere.

Thanks
Chuck
couple hundred yards from the tracks
Glenwood Springs, CO

[IrvingtonVFD43]

The DPU (rear motor) is controlled from the head motor via radio. The engineer can send commands to the DP from the onboard computer, but most of the time, no intervention is required, as all functions are in tandem with what the Engineer does with the lead motor, e.g, increase speed, apply dynamic brakes. The rear DP also acts as the FRED for the train, and sends back a readout of brake pipe pressure at the rear of the train.

The lead rear motors, for example, behind BNSF 5963, are controlled by "MU" cables connected to each motor. MU cables are the 3 inch diameter cables that hang just above the air hoses, Look at BNSF 5963, the MU cable is located above the coupler just below the ditch lights.

[joekansas]

I run them kinda engines all the time. All the trains I run use two engines (not motors- that is the term used for electric railroad engines) on the head end and two on the rear. The distributed power (DP) engines are controlled via either a "Harris Box" (indicated by the red arrow in the photo) or from buttons on a screen located on the dash in front of the engineer- no photo of that.

You are able to do what they call "put up the fence" thru this system to enable independent operation of both the front and rear set of engines. You can be shoving with the rear and have the head end idling or in dynamic braking- to keep the slack in the train bunched up- as in situations where your head end has crested a hill, the rear is still hanging back down the other side, and the head end will speed up and outrun the rear and your train could be torn in half. The office types get their panties all in a bunch when that happens.

Our company is on the rampage about using dynamic brakes. Fuel Savings is their mantra. They want that to be your main method of train speed control and stopping. They frown on using the DP engines in dynamic brake mode for fear you will tear your train in half.. They frown on using the air brake system to control train speed.

Me, myself, I am an air brake man. I use the train air all the time. In their training classes, they discourage air brake usage for controlling your speed. I use it all I can. I like the control I get from using it. I have no slack running in and out. Less chance for a pull-in-two like you could get using the dynamics all the time.

I've had the road foreman of engines riding with me recently, and he takes no exception to my methods. I get the train to it's destination fast, and in one piece. I am all about speed, not fuel savings. I don't feel I waste fuel doing what I do, but they think it does. I don't drag the train with the brakes set. All I run is distributed power equipped coal trains of 135 cars in length. Day after day- no problems. 50 mph top allowed speed, and I try to keep it right on the peg. I am in basically flat country- with the odd steep hill thrown in.........

Me, personally

[wbigcount]

Originally Posted by joekansas

not motors- that is the term used for electric railroad engines)

Well actually if you want to get technical they are locomotives and not engines either.

[DDan]

Originally Posted by wbigcount

Well actually if you want to get technical they are locomotives and not engines either.

And they all use electric motors for final drive, I think?

[joekansas]

Yep, that'd be a traction motor for the final drive. I've been around this railroad since the mid '70's, and when I was a young, new switchmen I was exposed to all the old men who'd been there since the late thirties and early forties. Them and real railroad lingo. We had no radios and did everything via hand signals, Everything. Sometimes there'd be all 4 of us on a switch crew spread out thru the yard giving and passing signals by hand to the engineer who'd be way far off around a curve from a man down in a track 75 or 80 cars deep, in the dark, on a rainy night trying to make a joint between cars. That was fun railroading.

The engineer would tell us things via horn signals to acknowledge what we were signalling him, It was quite a system, one that they don't teach anymore. All because of radios.

Back to the topic at hand. A "motor" is something in your car, an engine is what pulls a train. Probably a derivative of steam "engine".

Trailing engines were called "units", i.e. "second unit" or "third unit" or trailing unit.

Nowadays, we get some men borrowed out from other parts of the system, like Idaho and Chicago, down here working in our area. They call diesel locomotives "motors". I ask them what they are talking about- "you mean this engine?" Just to stir the pot. Bad part is that the young new hires that they are around hear them say things like that and them, wanting to blend in with the old heads, parrot what they hear trying to be one of the guys- they just perpetuate the problem. I take every chance I can to correct them. Some get it, some don't.

To me, it's analagous to an Austrailian guy having a conversation with some Americans, You and I would say, for instance, that "we need to get all of the parts of the radio together and reassemble it". The aussie would not say parts, he'd say "kit". Where they come up with that term I haven't a clue.

So, if some young American kid is standing around a bunch of Aussie guys at an American radio club swap meet, and overhears them fellows talking about buying a radio and some parts- he hears them call it a kit, and he is off on the wrong foot right off the bat........ Ya see what I'm saying?