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I'm "collecting" Burlington E's to pull various trains. And, of course, one MUST look at photos to get things right. It becomes obvious that elephant-style setups were very common during my time of interest. And so I found this topic. I have thought about the matter and have two possibly useful contributions: [Theory]: a flat end of a car or locomotive facing the direction of travel will have high wind resistance at speed. An A at the front of the train has no flat end exposed (as described above). An AA in the standard configuration has one flat end exposed--the first trailing car. An AA elephant style has no flat ends exposed. For further arrangements of A's at the front of a train, the only way you can have no flat end exposed is running elephant style. I hope I have described this properly. Anyway, I think it not inconceivable that elephant style has the least wind resistance of any unit arrangement of A's. Thus saving fuel. Which is money. The other contribution is pulling units out of the storage area for service. If all are facing the same direction, any unit is ready to be set up for elephant style running. You can pull any unit or any set of units out, and they are all lined up, waiting for MU connection. No turning. That's kind of efficient, too. Ed Edward Sutorik
__._,_.___ Posted by: Edwardsutorik@aol.com __,_._,___ |