Passenger Trains > PV off of train 42 at 30th Street Philadelphia

Train 42 Pennsylvanian had Juniata Terminal Company Warrior Ridge and Pennsylvania 120 on the rear from Pittsburgh (see three posts below).

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ACS-64 609 moved in to pull the PV off train 42.

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609 then shoved the Varniah back into 30th Street Station to a different track, photos blocked by the arrival of Keystone Service train 647 from New York, pushed by ACS-64 608.
609 then came out again to reverse to train 42 for the trip to New York.

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Great shots, but using and ACS-64 to cut cars smacks of using a limo to go to the grocery store.  
No switchers at 30th Street?  I can see at least one at the Race Street servicing racks in the first photo.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/24/16 14:28 by hazegray.

hazegray Wrote:
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> Great shots, but using and ACS-64 to cut cars
> smacks of using a limo to go to the grocery store.
>  
> No switchers at 30th Street?  I can see at least
> one at the Race Street servicing racks in the
> first photo.

609 was the motor that took the train to New York.  It would have been inefficient to use a yard goat with a separate hostler crew to move the Varnish..
 

Hack of a switch engine.

With the 609 switching out the private varnish, did that delay the departure of 42 for NY?  Usually the 42/43 change out is pretty efficient, and rarely takes more than a few minutes.

Yes, it did.  The train came in 18 minutes late and departed 34 minutes late.

Penn Coach YP-01 yard crews use whatever is available ... P units were customarily used all the time when the diesels were the mainstay of the Keystones ... wasn't unusual to see an AEM'7 switching out cars .... looks like they dropped off the PVs on 8 station 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/24/16 19:33 by Out_Of_Service.

It's worse than just taking 16 minutes longer than the allotted station time.

#42 is allotted 30 minutes to cut a diesel off the east end and add an electric engine to the west end, board passengers and leave.  That seems to me like a long time for that move but it's a nice bit of recovery time and probably helps with on time performance.  The inbound Engineer can cut his own diesel away and the outbound Engineer can add his own electric motor to the train, so the yard crew's function is to assist in the uncoupling and coupling.

Yesterday it took 46 minutes.  The move was to have the New York electric engine follow the train into the station and couple to the private cars, while the inbound diesel cut off the east end.  The New York engine pulled the private cars out, set them into another station track, and then returned to the train, recoupled and went to New York.

None of us was there, but it sounds like 46 minutes is a long time.  For the passengers, it must have seemed longer.  The train was without electricity for most of that time, probably 30 minutes of those 46 minutes, so there was no air-conditioning, no lights, no toilets, no doors, the passengers were just sitting in the dark.  And the passengers upstairs waiting to board were no doubt standing in line at the assigned gate, waiting and waiting for the New York train to be announced.

Any thoughts?  I don't want Amtrak to ban private cars, but this seems like a slow move and detrimental to the regular passengers.

knotch8 Wrote:
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> It's worse than just taking 16 minutes longer than
> the allotted station time.
>
> #42 is allotted 30 minutes to cut a diesel off the
> east end and add an electric engine to the west
> end, board passengers and leave.  That seems to
> me like a long time for that move but it's a nice
> bit of recovery time and probably helps with on
> time performance.  The inbound Engineer can cut
> his own diesel away and the outbound Engineer can
> add his own electric motor to the train, so the
> yard crew's function is to assist in the
> uncoupling and coupling.
>
> Yesterday it took 46 minutes.  The move was to
> have the New York electric engine follow the train
> into the station and couple to the private cars,
> while the inbound diesel cut off the east end.
>  The New York engine pulled the private cars out,
> set them into another station track, and then
> returned to the train, recoupled and went to New
> York.
>
> None of us was there, but it sounds like 46
> minutes is a long time.  For the passengers, it
> must have seemed longer.  The train was without
> electricity for most of that time, probably 30
> minutes of those 46 minutes, so there was no
> air-conditioning, no lights, no toilets, no doors,
> the passengers were just sitting in the dark.
>  And the passengers upstairs waiting to board
> were no doubt standing in line at the assigned
> gate, waiting and waiting for the New York train
> to be announced.
>
> Any thoughts?  I don't want Amtrak to ban private
> cars, but this seems like a slow move and
> detrimental to the regular passengers.

Amtrak handles Private Cars as a business decision. Look at it this way; the train certainly made a profit on this day.

A supervisor shoud have stepped in and provided "shore power" at the east end of the train after the "P" cut off, and until the motor was ready to cut in.  But then that takes some thought, which can be rare in Philly.
 

PRR1361 Wrote:
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> A supervisor shoud have stepped in and provided
> "shore power" at the east end of the train after
> the "P" cut off, and until the motor was ready to
> cut in.  But then that takes some thought, which
> can be rare in Philly.
>  

"SHORE POWER" ??? ... i'll have to be enlightened on this term ...

Out_Of_Service Wrote:
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> PRR1361 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > A supervisor shoud have stepped in and provided
> > "shore power" at the east end of the train
> after
> > the "P" cut off, and until the motor was ready
> to
> > cut in.  But then that takes some thought,
> which
> > can be rare in Philly.
> >  
>
> "SHORE POWER" ??? ... i'll have to be enlightened
> on this term ...

It's also called "hotel power".
The owner and his assistant on a private car that I've ridden on several times called it "shore power", but they were both Navy men.

PRR1361 Wrote:
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> A supervisor shoud have stepped in and provided "shore power" at the east end of the train after the "P" cut off, and until the motor was ready to cut in.  But then that takes some thought, which can be rare in Philly.

It would also take a lot of money to install the hardware to supply the power on the station tracks at 30th Street Station.  Ya can't just plug them suckers into a wall outlet.

Brian