Starting coal trains

Tue Aug 18 17:08:11 EDT 2015

And this is still to a point used today. As you all know I'm out here in 
BN Coal country and this is the system that is used for starting on a 
hill with one of our coal trains. Except we use DP power therefore the 
engineer on the head end has control of both ends. One can 'fence' off 
the DP and control the throttle independently of the head end. Typically 
if one gets stopped on a hill the forward portion of the train is 
stretched and the rear is often already bunched up a bit.

Coming out of Buckskin mine with a load is a hard pull and you are 
starting on a grade. What is the typical practice is one will fence off 
the rear and throttle it up to notch 8 while throttle the head end up to 
notch 4, then you slowly will feather off the independent brake, the 
rear being in 8 it will start shoving a greater portion of the train 
then the head end power will be pulling. This helps to prevent the 
pulling of knuckles and/or drawbars. once you have your train all on the 
move you will start coming on out on the head end throttle until you are 
in 8, then drop the fence and keep the DPs married up to the head end.

Not to long ago we had a guy get stopped on Dwyer hill, in the rain. 2x2 
with 135 cars. Typically if you get stopped on Dwyer, you are simply 
done. as you are strung out into reverse curves on a 1% grade. On this 
day with the rain he had wet rail which made it even more interesting. 
He was telling me he had the rear in 8and  the head in 7, knocked the 
train air off and sat there at a stall for a couple minutes then 
feathered off the independent very very slowly, until the train barely 
started to move, he said there was just a few pounds difference on 
independent pressure between being stalled out or having it slip like 
mad. but slowly they inched up the hill as he gained speed he let off a 
little more independent. I think he said they topped out at 1.4 MPH! 
While not the show a Y6 put on I still bet this was an interesting show, 
and I know he earned his pay for the day. If it has to be diesel power 
at least it was AC power...

Nate

On 8/17/2015 05:19, NW Mailing List wrote:
> They didn’t start these trains all at once; they took advantage of the 
> slack in the cars (about a foot per car) as had been done everywhere 
> from time immemorial.  If they got the pusher at Pepper after stopping 
> with the train stretched, the road engine would (after he got the 
> signal at the east end of Pepper siding) sit with his throttle about 
> half open and whistle off.  The pusher would accept this as the signal 
> to go, and would commence pushing the slack in.  When the pusher took 
> up enough of the load, the road engine would start itself and then 
> they’d both get them wide open.  I’ve stood on top of the bluff in the 
> 2184 photo and listened to a “double”  get going, and could hear the 
> road engine starting and across the bend in the river  the pusher 
> going faster shoving in the slack 130 cars back – very intriguing.  If 
> they started with the slack in, the pusher would sit with his throttle 
> about half open and when the road engine took enough of the load, the 
> pusher would start itself.
> The same held true if a double got his pusher east of the Walton 
> interlocking.  He’d stop and the train would be stretched.  The road 
> engine would sit with his throttle open; the pusher would couple up 
> and whistle off and start pushing.  When he’d taken up enough of the 
> load, the road engine would, as before, start itself.  Understand that 
> when the engines were sitting with throttles open, they were on sand 
> so they wouldn’t slip.
> They used  pretty much the same technique with diesels, understanding 
> that they couldn’t sit forever with the throttle open and the engine 
> not moving because of the short time ratings of the traction motors, 
> but they also had radio communications and could work it out.  In 
> either case the object was to get the throttles wide open as quickly 
> as they could.
> These techniques also had to be used in the electric territory.  It 
> had been a requirement of the LC-1s and 2s that they could withstand 
> full throttle operation for five minutes with the engine sitting 
> still, which they could because of the AC motors.
> In all these instances, they took full advantage of the slack in the 
> cars.
> Class A engines didn’t start the 16,000 ton trains at Williamson all 
> at once. They took full advantage of the slack, too.  And that 
> practice was carried on in diesel days; faced with getting away from 
> Williamson (and it was practically dead level) with two GP30s and a 
> 20,000 ton train, there was no way you could start them with the slack 
> stretched.  You jockeyed back and forth until you had them all coming, 
> and then advanced the throttle as much as you could. Starting them a 
> car at a time was a lot easier than trying to start them all at once, 
> as had been learned long ago.
> EdKing
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Avast logo <http://www.avast.com/> 	
>
> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
> www.avast.com <http://www.avast.com/>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
> NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
> To change your subscription go to
> http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
> Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
> http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/

-- 
Nathan Simmons
trainman51 at gmail.com
http://www.t-51.org
KI4MSK

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20150818/90b41fd1/attachment-0001.html>