Railroaders' Nostalgia > Question for one of the engr's about passenger trains

I was at work the other night.    Busy dispatching trains and started thinking about
Amtrk Auto Train.   I notice the passenger cars are on the head end with the loaded
auto racks on the rear.   Heavy loads on rear with lighter cars on head end.
That's got to be a beast controlling the slack action.   Don't want to have run-in
with all those paying customers walking in the passenger cars, diners, etc.

I know out of Lorton at least thru Pertersburg VA the railroad isn't flat.
Wonder how control the air to keep cars either bunched up or stretched out.

I can imagine slack running in causing a few of the passengers to be knock down.
Broken bones on some of the older passengers?

Non TYE guy.   Highgreen is what I provide my TYE folks.

I'm guessing power braking and blended braking still used on amtrk.  

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/16 06:16 by highgreen.

I would imagine all cars would have tight lock couplers.

The autoracks and Superliner cars weigh about the same.  Maximum loaded weight of auto-racks in general is 89 or 90 tons, so I am sure Amtrak's are similar. Superliner cars are typically in the 80 to 85 ton range.

They have been running Autotrain this way since the early 1970's and I have never heard of major issues with slack action.

 

czephyr17 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The autoracks and Superliner cars weigh about the
> same.  Maximum loaded weight of auto-racks in
> general is 89 or 90 tons, so I am sure Amtrak's
> are similar. Superliner cars are typically in the
> 80 to 85 ton range.
>
> They have been running Autotrain this way since
> the early 1970's and I have never heard of major
> issues with slack action.
>
>  

IIRC, Auto Train originally had the passenger cars on the rear and
the auto cars, originally off the CN, on the front.  The slack action 
of this arrangement caused AT to reverse the block.  Don't ask me
where or when I learned this.  

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

>I would imagine all cars would have tight lock couplers.

The notion of tightlock couplers controlling slack is pretty much an urban legend because most of the slack is in the draft gears, not the coupler face-kuckle face lost mortion. I knew several Amtrak engineers who could routinely get slack action in 4-car trains, even when the cars, couplers, and draft gears were brand new.

Smoothly controlling the slack in this arrangement is well within the ken of most engineers. Basically, you just stretch brake like you would with a freight train, make sure they stay good and stretched on the flat, and mind the slack action in sags and over hillcrests. Before I migrated to the throttle, I rode many a caboose of a hundred car freight where the ride was as smooth as a passenger train (Coast Engineers Craig, Swain and Whittle immediately come to mind, SPers). On others, the engineer darn near killed me. Any rough ride in the arrangement that you describe is on the engineer, not the equipment.

EO

I always used stretch braking between SLO & Santa Barb in freight and passenger.  We did have a hog head on ATK #13 once that was terrible train handler. He had caught this run out of the freight pool. This guy got to about San Augustine and the Conductor pulled him down. He walked up to the head end, got up in the cab and took this hogger  to task. He told him he had knocked people down, spilled drinks, you name it.  He then said, "You let the fireman take this train to SLO or I will call Surf and tell them to send another engineer. " I took the train to SLO. He still worked the gang but no passenger after that. Like an old head, Robert Proctor Swanson used to say, Just don't bruise the olives in the Martini's."

 As most of us know, SP was an hour early or a day late getting out instructions on new power being either SP-ATK, etc.  When Atk came out with blended braking nobody said peep. I was on #12 coming into West Santa Barb and slowed down for the SS, 35 mph. I kicked them off got up to 50 and then used the air to slow down for the 20 mph curve.  In doing so I had closed the throttle to Run 1,  then I was going to go to Idle, put them in DB  in order to gather them up for the station stop. Before I knew it the engines were in DB and the more air I used the more DB and the throttle is in Run 1 ?.  That's how we found out a lot of stuff.

Nudge

The Southern operated the Piedmont #5 & #6 with piggyback flats trailing the passenger cars.  I rode those trains on a number of occasions.  The ride was always very smooth.  I do not think it would have been any smoother without the pigs.
Further, I also rode Southern #8, between Monroe and Charlottesville on one occasion.  This train was an FP7 and Heavyweight Coach sandwiched behind the freight units in a solid piggyback train.  That ride was as smooth as any straight up passenger train I had ridden..
Given my experiences, I would think Autotrain's consist arrangement would work perfectly fine.
ALLEN

tomstp Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would imagine all cars would have tight lock
> couplers.

  Tight lock couplers do nothing to control slack. They are keyed into each other so as not to separate vertically in the event of a derailment, thus keeping the cars aligned end to end.

  The scenario described with the auto train is actually the perfect ararangement. The trouble comes when you have auto racks on the head end (with all their slack) and a block of cars on the rear that have little slack and basically move together as one unit. If you have ten auto racks on the head end ten passenger cars on the rear, when you go to gatther up the slack (bunch the train) you'll be able to "collect" the auto racks one at a time but then the weight of the ten passenger cars will run into you all at once, as if it were one heavy car. For this reason, for many years on the Santa Fe (at least the territory I work on) it was illegal to have ANYTHING ahead of stack cars, because, if you had ten auto racks on the head end and then eighty stack cars behind them , all of those stack cars ar going to hammer those auto racks like one big heavy car.

  As a side note, one time I had an 8,000 foot train of auto racks (don't recall how many cars exactly) and I had the opportunity to measure the length with the train both stretched and bunched and it was a difference of 300 feet!

Don't the Amtrak and Auto-Trail autoracks have "different" draft gear with less slack then your normal autorack?
I thought I read somewhere that these cars can not be used in normal interchange service because of their Amtrak modifications. 

spnudge Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>  As most of us know, SP was an hour early or a
> day late getting out instructions on new power
> being either SP-ATK, etc.

Yep. My first trip as a SP student fireman was in the middle of the night on a pair of F40's leading the Starlight between Roseville and Dunsmuir with an Oakland extra board crew. After settling in, I began asking some basic questions about the F40's, including the use of blended braking. The E cut me short by saying that they both had never been on an F40 before climbing on in Oakland, and they were still trying to figure out things themselves. After about an hour breaking my back on the jump seat, I went back to the second unit.

EO

I believe blended braking is only be used on trains consisting exclusively of passenger equipment.  Auto Train is a mixed train.  With blended braking, the head end sets up first, and that wouldn't do with a 40 car or so train.  I only used it on 5-6 car trains.  Anything more than that I used conventional stretch braking.

Nudge was mentioning a rough handling engineer years ago on #13.  About three years ago, I was riding #14 (formerly #13) from LA to San Jose.  The ride between LA and SLO was without doubt the roughest piece of train handling I've ever experienced.  It felt like the guy was using the independent to make all his stops.  Entering and leaving a hand throw siding for a meet was a bone crushing experience.  Since I retired, I've never really had the desire to get back behind the throttle, but in this case, I was willing to make an exception.  Thank God a new engineer took over at SLO and we had a smooth ride the rest of the way.  



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/16 21:09 by CPCoyote.

>About three years ago, I was riding #14 (formerly #13) from LA to San Jose.  The ride between LA and SLO was without doubt the roughest piece of train handling I've ever experienced.  It felt like the guy was using the independent to make all his stops.  

In a very real sense, this is what Atk wants because if you stretch brake these days, it sets off alarm bells in Wilmington, and You Will Be Talked To. You'd think Atk would be concerned about passenger comfort and saftey, but the bottom liners in charge are bug-n*ts about fuel conservation.

CPCoyote Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I believe blended braking is only be used on
> trains consisting exclusively of passenger
> equipment.  Auto Train is a mixed train.  With
> blended braking, the head end sets up first, and
> that wouldn't do with a 40 car or so train.  I
> only used it on 5-6 car trains.  Anything more
> than that I used conventional stretch braking.

Well Mike, we all used stretch braking until the Growlers got dynamics (-:

EO

crackerjackhoghead Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>   The scenario described with the auto train is
> actually the perfect ararangement. The trouble
> comes when you have auto racks on the head end
> (with all their slack) and a block of cars on the
> rear that have little slack and basically move
> together as one unit. If you have ten auto racks
> on the head end ten passenger cars on the rear,
> when you go to gatther up the slack (bunch the
> train) you'll be able to "collect" the auto racks
> one at a time but then the weight of the ten
> passenger cars will run into you all at once, as
> if it were one heavy car. For this reason, for
> many years on the Santa Fe (at least the territory
> I work on) it was illegal to have ANYTHING ahead
> of stack cars, because, if you had ten auto racks
> on the head end and then eighty stack cars behind
> them , all of those stack cars ar going to hammer
> those auto racks like one big heavy car.

Very interesting. However that leads to a question: I occasonally see (maybe it runs daily) a UP train on the UP LA sub running EB out through City of Industry in the late afternoon or evening. Behind the engines are about 10 loaded auto racks and then 4000-6000 feet of loaded well cars. Why would UP do that if slack action on the auto racks is greater than that of the well cars?

jst3751 Wrote:
> Very interesting. However that leads to a
> question: I occasonally see (maybe it runs daily)
> a UP train on the UP LA sub running EB out through
> City of Industry in the late afternoon or evening.
> Behind the engines are about 10 loaded auto racks
> and then 4000-6000 feet of loaded well cars. Why
> would UP do that if slack action on the auto racks
> is greater than that of the well cars?

  The UP is more concerned with the order and expediency of the setouts enroute than a train's handling characteristics. I haven't worked the road in a decade but I believe the BNSF has relented on that rule too. I use to like that rule because the UP had to comply with it. It really makes for a poor handling train, having that autos on the headend.

Never, Never, no blended braking on the Love<Auto>Train. Always keep 'em stretched no matter what because there were to be no broken bones or bruised olives in the martinis.

I had a little experience with blended braking on Amtrak trains when the 200 class units started replacing the 500 class SDP40-f's on the Santa Fe. If I remember correctly, blended braking was used after the DB was setup, so the slack was usually bunched up. And the entire train had to be set up for graduated, instead of direct release, or it wouldn't work. In a mixed consist of freight and passenger cars, the passenger cars have to be set up for direct release, and the engine automatic brake valve has to be in the "frt" position. For braking purposes, the entire train is a freight train.

I remember the night I told you I had a 4200' train to take to Newhall, and that we were never trained in freight ops, just passenger as we were sort of thrown out there to figure it out for ourselves.  My only saving grace was I had worked the job on the ground handling all those freight cars we were getting in daily when the construction was going on, so I understood this stuff doesn't stop on a dime.  Anyways your words of wisdom worked just dandy, you said "keep'em stretched or keep'em bunched", worked like a charm.  I had asked our A/C how the ride was in the caboose, he said great just a little slack out of SSF but otherwise he was back there foaming away, lol.

hogheaded Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Smoothly controlling the slack in this arrangement
> is well within the ken of most engineers.
> Basically, you just stretch brake like you would
> with a freight train, make sure they stay good and
> stretched on the flat, and mind the slack action
> in sags and over hillcrests. Before I migrated to
> the throttle, I rode many a caboose of a hundred
> car freight where the ride was as smooth as a
> passenger train (Coast Engineers Craig, Swain and
> Whittle immediately come to mind, SPers). On
> others, the engineer darn near killed me. Any
> rough ride in the arrangement that you describe is
> on the engineer, not the equipment.
>
> EO

When they sent us back east to engine school, I opted to take the train back, on #4 with all the freight on the rear 5 motors and about 25 box cars and road railers plus the passenger cars.  The engineer out of ABQ felt like he was running the train like a dump truck, so much slack and run in, wasn't funny at all.  All the other engineers handled the train great to Chicago, but this one particular portion I mentioned.

CPCoyote Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I believe blended braking is only be used on
> trains consisting exclusively of passenger
> equipment.  Auto Train is a mixed train.  With
> blended braking, the head end sets up first, and
> that wouldn't do with a 40 car or so train.  I
> only used it on 5-6 car trains.  Anything more
> than that I used conventional stretch braking.
>
> Nudge was mentioning a rough handling engineer
> years ago on #13.  About three years ago, I was
> riding #14 (formerly #13) from LA to San Jose.
>  The ride between LA and SLO was without doubt
> the roughest piece of train handling I've ever
> experienced.  It felt like the guy was using the
> independent to make all his stops.  Entering and
> leaving a hand throw siding for a meet was a bone
> crushing experience.  Since I retired, I've never
> really had the desire to get back behind the
> throttle, but in this case, I was willing to make
> an exception.  Thank God a new engineer took over
> at SLO and we had a smooth ride the rest of the
> way.