Passenger Trains > BNSF Cars on AMTK 3(30)

5 BNSF executive cars were added to the rear of AMTK 3(30) at Argentine Yard in KC KS, Saturday eve. No.3 sustained a 
delay of over one hour. It has 3 AMTK motors. The BNSF cars move to LAX. I think they are deadhead both ways
and are to leave LAX on AMTK 4 Wednesday. I suspect BNSF will use them locally on Tuesday.

You would think with all the technology of today, they could come up with a quicker
way to couple & uncouple rail passenger cars.  What used to take a few minutes
back in the day, now takes at least 30 minutes, and often much more. 
Of course, a lot of it boils down to the HEP cables and the consequent safety protocol.
If only they could come up with a quicker connect/disconnect system with a power kill switch at the car end.
Shutting down the power for the whole train is something that is fairly disruptive. 
Once those A/C blower fans go off, you can hear a pin drop and everybody wakes up.
Plus, the minimum lighting leads to confusion as well.  I certainly want the coupling
procedure to stay safe, as 480 volts is nothing to play around with.  Couldn't we
have a design competion to come up with a better but still safe method of adding & subtracting cars?
This is another area, the inflexibility to modify consists to meet demand, that hampers Amtrak to this day.

I assume these BNSF cars don't have diesel gen sets like some PV's ?

One of the 5 cars is a BNSF power car supplying the other 4 cars, independent of Amtrak's locomotives.
The Amtrak HEP would still have to be dropped at some point during the coupling procedure.

they may have there own gensets, if hep is available, it is nicer to use it.  A five car BNSF set will have a BNSF generator sleeper, which may have been used, HEP connections may not been part of the delay, but there may have been an airtest.  It should be able to get back on schedule.

dan Wrote:
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> they may have there own gensets, if hep is
> available, it is nicer to use it.  A five car
> BNSF set will have a BNSF generator sleeper, which
> may have been used, HEP connections may not been
> part of the delay, but there may have been an
> airtest.  It should be able to get back on
> schedule.

Oh, there was an air test for sure.

Majority of the delay was caused due to having to navigate around a hazmat train in undesired emergency.

The BNSF power car "Mt.San Antonio" was supplying HEP to the other BNSF cars.

How many cars can that power car do ?

joemvcnj Wrote:
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> How many cars can that power car do ?
That's a good question, but I have seen them run 2 power cars on some of the bigger O train consists.

mp51w Wrote:
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> joemvcnj Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > How many cars can that power car do ?
> That's a good question, but I have seen them run 2
> power cars on some of the bigger O train consists.

Stampede Pass has a HEP generator

A 15 car train for tonight, can't wait to see it when he hits Falgstaff!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/16 17:54 by ProAmtrak.