Bill,
Couple of things I don't agree with. HP/Hours are an Operating
Department issue. None of the Mechanical Department's business.
BN/BNSF has had one person doing this for many years. There are
daily conference calls with the other roads to clear the air
and make sure everyone is working with the same data.
Junk power is a constant problem but really has not much to do
with the HP/Hours issue. BNSF has been trying for years to set
up a system where they could force CSXT to use BNSF SD40's on
their railroad. They just send them back and throw in a few of
their SD50's. Nobody wins. Since each railroad has a certain
percent of their roster that can be considered unreliable it
just stands to reason that they are going to get scattered
around the country. From a purely practical point it's almost
impossible to keep track of your bad actors and try to keep
them off-line. Personally the worst units I've ever had to
work with are the IC SD70's. They have terrible radios and in
a track warrant environment are actually unsafe. I guess it
all depends on your point of view.
Back in the 80's when the Colleta Creek coal trains were going
D&RGW to Pueblo and then BN to Fort Worth BN found itself in
over their heads with the D&RGW. At that time the ex SLSF B30-7's
were stored at Alliance. They fired them all up and gave them to
the D&RGW. As you can well imagine they were not impressed and
had them all back rather quickly.
At the other side of the spectrum BN's and CN's attempt to pool
power between Northtown and Winnipeg was doomed to failure by
the CN's insistence that their SD40's should be counted as 3600hp
since they were so much better than the BN SD40-2's. By now there
is no significant traffic moving via that routing so it's just a
moot historical point.
>From a Dispatching point of view I'd like every train to have
nothing but C44AC's. They are the best pullers and are quite
reliable. Have never heard a crew complain about them. Do not
know how time will treat them but they are the best units
around today. Considering their age the C40-8's are also
excellent units. They have aged well.
Russ
----- Original Message -----
From: clipperw@EarthLink.net
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, 01 November, 2005 11:33
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Digest Number 2571
Russell,
While I don't disagree with your general discussion on "pool" power or
"pool" trains, I do think your comments in Item 2 require some further
clarification. Although a RR could keep and use another road's
locomotives for extended periods, there was a "cost" for this use, a
rental if you will. Then and now, all RRs keep track of horsepower
hours while their locomotives are on another RR's property. In theory,
based on the agreements between the parties, HP hours are supposed to
balance out. In fact, they don't and didn't then. Thus, frequently, one
RR would "owe" another RR a significant number of HP hours, sometimes
numbering in the millions. To pay up, the owing RR would eventually
send locomotives to the other RR to balance out the hours over an
extended period of time. It was usually the Mechanical Dept's job to
arrange for power balancing, often done through meetings with the other
RR's Mech. Dept.
Some significant disagreements would and do occur when RR "A" had new
power being used by RR "B". but got back unreliable 25 year old
"junkers". Other problems exist. Often RR "B"'s power doesn't have the
right equipment on it to be used as a lead unit. Therefore, it always
has to be used as a trailing unit while on RR "A". Another problem was
that the level of maintenance wasn't always equivalent from RR to RR.
This was particularly true in the 60's and 70's when many of the
eastern RRs were in poor financial condition. When shop space was
tight, the home RR always gave preferential treatment to their own
power, ignoring the maintenance of the "foreign" power.
Two other comments. Way back, based on steam practices, diesel
locomotives were assigned to specific shops for maintenance and, at one
time that included monthlies. Later, monthlies were done anywhere and
only quarterlies and above were done at the "home" shop. Finally, most
roads put their power into "free running" pools. Then, whatever
maintenance was required it was (is) done at the nearest shop that was
capable of doing the work. By that time, monthlies were no longer
required. The only exception is when a specific shop is overloaded.
Then, the unit may be routed elsewhere for needed work.
While foreign units could be assigned to any train, some level of
rationale was used. Trains like the CGI usually had both Q and UP power
on them. Most frequently, on the Q, Q power was in the lead and trail
positions with UP power in the middle. In addition, UP power was
generally found in the east/west corridor. Very seldom was in seen
running north on trains to the twin cities. The same was true with
NYC/PC/Conrail power.
Bill Barber
On Tuesday, November 1, 2005, at 07:52 AM, CBQ@yahoogroups.com wrote:
> Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 06:18:22 -0600
> From: Russell Strodtz <19main@groundcontrol.us>
> Subject: Re: NYC/PC "Pool Power"
>
> This has been discussed many time before. Have never liked the
> Railfan concept of "Pool Power". The word "Pool" in a railroad
> sense means something totally different and is still in use
> today but has nothing to do with locomotives.
>
> The whole idea here was that PRR,NYC,EL,and later PC liked to
> get their deliveries blocked and with road power as they were
> not switched in the Chicago Area.
>
> Item 1: No CB&Q/BN road crew would ride in any of the Eastern
> Road's cabooses. They would be collected at Cicero and used by
> transfer crews or just sent back. CB&Q/BN road crews would use
> UP waycars and they were also sent East of Chicago.
>
> Item 2: The concept that foreign locomotives had to be used on
> some particular train never really existed. Once your locomotives
> are on another railroad they may use them as they please. This
> has evolved to today's concept of "Generic Locomotives". Current
> practice is that the ownership of a locomotive does not even
> matter with regards to train assignments.
>
> Item 3: The answer to both of your questions would be "Yes" but
> in neither case would that be any guarantee that the train
> actually originated at Cicero. Seeing D&RGW or UP power on a
> CB&Q/BN train coming into Cicero was not a way of identifying
> the train. Power was often exchanged at Hobson or Willis Yard.
>
> Now a locomotive story: IHB Chief Dispatcher rings me and gives
> me two BN engine numbers and asks "what model". They were both
> GP7's. I tell him and ask where they were. He says "they came
> into Gibson from Elkhart and are going over to the old MC engine
> terminal at Blue Island for service". This was normal procedure
> and normally would mean they would be going back East. This deal
> did not sound right as we were not "Pooling" with Conrail at that
> point in time and did not have any leased out. Call my boss, the
> Trainmaster at the hump tower, and tell him the story. He tells
> me that they were short on trailer flats and there were many stored
> on Conrail in the Chicago area. I already knew of both facts. He
> told me Conrail had begged a lack of yard power to bring us flats.
> They had ran those two units down to 59th Street and Conrail was
> going to send them back with the flats but they were a "no show".
> I told them where they really were and their prognosis for the near
> future and that was that.
>
> Was told the next night that within a couple of hours of our
> conversation there was a Hostler at Blue Island to take the units
> to 59th Street. We got our trailer flats later the same day.
>
> That's the way it goes,
>
> Russ
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