Ed
Leaving aside the reasons already offered (and I don’t profess to know much about this subject) there seems to be two questions. Firstly, why did the Burlington not keep A+B units together and secondly, why run then in the so-called “elephant” style.
Could it be that the reason for not keeping the A+B combinations was flexibility? Sometimes only one unit was required for a train such as suburban service, and splitting them provided twice as many individual power units. Also, if paired, when either the A
or the B was defective, both units were sidelined or split.
For the second question, why not run them nose forward? According to Bulletin 10 -
“By basing the entire E-unit pool at the Zephyr Pit in Chicago, the Q was able to rotate mainline passenger power in and out of suburban service consequently obligating the need for a dedicated pool of low-mileage commuter units.”
Turning all the units at Chicago meant that any of them could head any train as required. The consequence was that they would head off in “elephant”
style.
Also they looked neat and efficient like that!
Rupert Gamlen
Auckland NZ
From: CBQ@yahoogroups.com [mailto:CBQ@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Saturday, 13 January 2018 1:07 p.m.
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Elephant Style Es
The KCZ and NZ were split at Galesburg. May we assume that the loco consist was split at that point? Seems likely.
For the other trains, I don't believe they ever split. So there would be no related reason to run elephant.