The fine balance between just enough and not enough. The struggle to get rolling again was awesome! You get the feeling that if a wheel had squashed an ant on the rail, the moisture would have caused a slip and a stall! I wish we could have had GoPro's mounted under the engines so we could have seen the wheels and truck in action just as he began to pull again...
Trucks do very little as he takes off the nest spring and upper and lower nose support on the traction motor assembly is what would move and flex as he applies torque or switches directions
59 this month and been watching as far back as my memory goes. Enjoy these videos and thanks for posting this one, sounded great and good camera work too.
It's always good to have more horsepower than you need in your back pocket. even if it takes a little extra fuel to haul the extra locomotives around switched off. Better than having to try to get another into place after the fact. Great video by the way.
NS is using strict horsepower restrictions in order to save fuel. He probably had to get permission from the CEO to start that engine to get the train moving again. (please note sarcasm here)
@@Nighthawke70 Ya: running a cold diesel at full power before it reaches operating temperature.! However, idling an engine causes wear on an engine also.
I dont get the idea, because they keep overloading the main engine and it will break down more often. What the point. Yes, you save fuel, but it is more maintenance. I know this machines as heavy equipment and it wont hurt them, they will last longer if they worked a bit more relaxed. They carry aditional engines, but isolated, so, when it stalls, they go back and start another. Pretty miserable.
It never occurred to me that all locos in a formation were not operational (ignoring failed) but I suppose it makes sense on the economies side of things.
As a former engineer we never dragged in the engine around that wasn’t running and pulling its own weight in power! For them to be running a slug or two just doesn’t make any sense at all especially when you need all that horsepower and pulling force with a loaded train. SMH
Used to love seeing the old Top Hats. I used to watch CP when it owned the old sun bury go up north ftom Scranton to Binghamton and it’s a long steep grade and they would occasionally stall out with a good number of SD40-2,s on the front, they would dispatch the local power ftom Taylor to push from the back which used to be two GP38-2’s.
Hello 👍🇺🇲A very very cool film. With even more awesome locomotives.🇺🇲👍 That's how it has to be. For this a subscription. I'm about to put together a US train based on this model. Many greetings from East Germany Holger
do you know if a nearby abandoned section of track in goldsboro was the original state owned mainline before they decided to realign the tracks so they would bypass the downtown area?? cause thats what it looks like to me
why is it that when you see a number of helper locomotives coupled behind the primary they seem to be coupled backwards? and have to be ran in reverse?
This way they don't have to turn the locomotives around to go the opposite direction at the end of the run. Diesel electrics run the same in reverse as they so forward. The engineer in the lead unit has control of all the locomotives in the consist. It is called Multiple Unit (or M.U.) operation. There are special cables and hoses connected between the units to make this possible.
No. My great uncle's massive 4-8-4 freight locomotive often slipped, he said. The railroad was ALWAYS trying to gethe locomotive pulling more than it could. In steam locomotives, what percentage of weight is on the drive wheels and on the leading and trailing trucks? With dieselocomotives, all weight is on drive wheels.
I would like to say yes that UP 4014 would pull that train without a problem but the fact is she wouldn't be able to start that train. Steam locomotives will actually pull more weight than they can get rolling due to how that power is developed. A diesel electric locomotive using AC traction actually will create A starting tractive effort more than 50 percent higher than a UP Big Boy. Now put the big boy on point and a pusher behind it to get the train moving and once the steam powered train is over 15 mph it horsepower is increasing for every mile per hour it's speed increases. I love steam locomotives as much as any other railroader but you can't beat physics. Every since the diesel locomotive builders started building AC powered locomotive's they were shocked to find incredible increases in performance in tractive effort, horsepower delivered down to full throttle at 1/4 of a mile per hour. If I tried that in my day of DC powered locomotive's they would eventually spin the wheels and be unable to hold their feet to get a train moving on the mountain. Also with DC powered locomotive's once your track speed drops below 12 mph your running in short time ratings on your traction motors and if you keep going in short time ratings can easily burn out a traction motor and if it gets hot enough even catch fire. The new AC traction equipped locomotive's don't have that restriction. I ran trains for years on the mountains on the Boston and Albany Railroad so I do have experience in this and am not a keyboard railroader. EMD built the first AC powered freight locomotive but they didn't design the AC traction system they installed on that first SD70ACE locomotive. That technology came from a European locomotive builder and opened EMD's eyes as to how far behind DC technology really was. That company was Siemens that provided the AC technology to EMD in the late 1980's early 1990's that led to the latest massive increase in locomotive performance, GE followed suit shortly thereafter. Diesel locomotives before AC traction could at most when ballasted to 420,000 pounds generate 120,000 pounds of tractive effort under ideal conditions ( level track in good shape a dry day under 15 percent humidity and a no adverse weather forecast ) . At best a six axle diesel locomotive could transfer up to 25 percent of the locomotive's weight to tractive effort with state of the art wheel slip technology at the time the EMD dash 2 locomotive. Today a DC powered locomotive whether 4 or 6 axle quite often you see a locomotive model like this SD40-3. ???? What is a dash 3? What it is is a DC powered locomotive that's had a greatly updated wheel slip control system installed that makes the factory wheel slip system look like it was built for an FT. ( an FT was the first successful diesel locomotive that the railroads purchased to move road freight trains with aka the covered wagon full body covering all the equipment inside from the elements. ) The dash 3 control system can increase tractive effort by as much as 30 to 40 percent for the same horsepower and fuel consumed which made the old design locomotive suddenly a lot more fuel efficient for a small investment. That plus parts are readily available either from EMD or third party dealers offering takeout parts or more often today parts that have been completely rebuilt to OEM specifications. I truly believe the EMD 567' 645 and 710 engines will be running on a railroad somewhere in the world in 2150 as its design and reliability is timeless. Then GE introduced the Evolution engine powered initially by the 7FDL engine then as she was ready for production the GEVO. 12 cylinder engine that helped GE become master of locomotive sales in the US surpassing EMD. (Say what? ) They used less fuel than an EMD to move the Same tonnage of freight simply by using a 4 stroke engine versus the 2 stroke engine EMD has used since the mid 1930's. Yes even the Cleveland locomotive company's Winton 201A engines were 2 stroke. While a simpler design used more fuel than a 4 stroke design. GE when they first introduced the U25 series locomotive's used a 16 notch throttle. Eave third notch increased engine rpm and the notch after the rpm increase was to increase excitation of the traction motors. It wasn't until GE introduced the dash 7 series locomotive's the they went to a standard AAR throttle stand eliminating the 16 notch throttle. I can remember removing the two way radio from a road locomotive to install in another locomotive 5 engines away, just 2 channels built by Motorola that weighed close to 90 pounds built to withstand a trip to the moon and back. When I saw my first new locomotive with a standard AAR radio installed in the throttle stand we couldn't believe it would work. The railroads had installed more remote radio transmitters so you no longer needed a 100 watt heavy monster of a radio to reach the few radio transmitters the railroad initially installed. Remember the railroads still have the capability to take a Nickle and squeeze 7 cents out of each and every one. The new AAR standard radios are 125 channel capable and use AAR assigned channel numbers so my old radios would operate on the main on channel 1 but the new little radios after I read the bulletin issued for the new radios used channel 37 or something similar. That bulletin was in the future when I had a new B23-7 with the new radio so my conductor kept going test test test until I found the channel number and heard him then test to see if he heard me. I wrote the two channels down and put that in my time card for ease of finding it. They were a total of 35 watts output. I miss the old days.
@@jamesshanks2614 Great commentary. Please write more about your experiences. Your day to day work may seem mundane to you, but, like myself (construction), it's lived history. The knowledge you have, while perhaps not unique, should be recorded. As once a generation is gone its lost. And you write well.
I'm Robert and I'm 41yrs old and when I was a kid with my dad bringing a trailer delivery by truck he took a picture of me in front of the cpnrail train engine in Elizabeth New Jersey I was at that time 17 year old
I see two NS locomotives hauling 100 empty coal cars towards NY state and coming back full of coal. Why does it take 3 locomotives to haul fewer cars in this video. Is it all because of the grade?
This train may have to pick up more cars en route its final terminal therefore requiring it to have this amount of available horsepower on the train from the initial terminal or the third unit may be a bad order getting sent to a shop for repair or it's just deadheading to another terminal that may be short on locomotives. Other possibilities also exist. That's just a few.
Just for shits and giggles its funny you have all thises engine's and only one running, then you hv to get permission to start the 2nd engine, 🤣🤣🤣 either way it is funny no matter how you look at it, and the horn is really hilarious, thanks for the video
when you say train stalled out it did not it only lacked horsepower to turn generator when they left the yard they estimated two engines would be enough power to pull the load up the hill but they're calculation was off so they had to fire up the spare engine to get more voltage and more electric motors to help, motors did not stall out just had to fire an extra engine to produce more electricity to the electric motors, trains run off electricity powered by big powerful diesel motor, each unit probably has 10-15 thousand horsepower motors to turn generator which intern doubles that horsepower.
you sir or madam are a idiot. train stalled due to what was being used forcefully by the company to maintain their quota. secondly way you put your statement is 50% wrong. each engine produces up to their threshold hp rating which in turn causes a set number of aperage thru the motors to create puling power. they dont share in this situation. these engines are lucky to produce 4k hp each. after the wear and tear most cant deliver half that anymore. im a fuckin engineer i should know.
They also carry drywall, plaster board, and other sheet products. I know that as there is a gypsum plant in N Charleston, SC near the Amtrak station that ships out centerbeams.
Norfolk Southern been trying to cut back on fuel usageso when they're getting going whatever it takes to get the job done as fine and then when you need extra power you do this..