Eastern Railroad Discussion > NS new SD70 "B" units

Its no fun living between two brick walls. I'm speaking of the cab-signal territory on the NS Pgh Line.

Conway on one end, Enola on the other.
Two brick walls!

No pure UP or BNSF lash-ups through here. These lash-ups hit the wall and either bounce off and head back whence they came, or a B36 or B23-7 go on the point for the trek through LSL land.

Every now and then someone gets dirt in thier eye at Conway, and something good sneaks through. With a black or blue on the point of course.

Now NS has new SD70m's that can't lead in LALA, oops! LSL land.

As far as I'm concerned, if they're not
going to lead, NS wasted alot of money on control stands and windows.

They should have ordered "B" units!


Roadrat

Why? They can lead anywhere else, and do.........

Hello,


I think what he means is why did NS bother putting Cabsignal's
in them, if the Cabsignal's are inoperative. Because none of the
NS SD70M's have lead on the Cabsignalled Pittsburgh Line to date
that I know of. I do like the Idea of SD70B's though. Meaning
no "Cab" on them at all. Sounds like an Athearn Kitbash too me.
;*)


Tony K, CRsmurf

Roadrat is quite right. Class unit 2581 was pulled off of the head end of 13G because the train enters LSL-Land at Davis, Delaware, and never leaves it until it gets to Conway! The cab signals on it were declared inopperotive junk, so they had to shuffle her back in the lashup.

Its sad too, because there is no point to Altoona outshopping these darn things if they can't lead. Perhaps they have no LSL circuitry at all, but just the box and light with nothing in them! Somehow that wouldn't surprise me.

They have led though, and I will have video to prove later tonight. Stand by.....


Scott H

Who needs stupid things like Cab Signals anyway? I know what it is. Its a Yankee thing isn`t it? That just goes to show Yankees are stupid.

See Ya
Michael Ridenhour
Rockwell NC (NO CAB SIGNALS DOWN HERE)

In territories like the Port Road and the Pittsburgh Line, it is much needed. The lines are very curvy, and many signals lye on curves and grades. It helps to know what the next signal is going to be. This alleviates sudden strong applications, and also allows track speeds to be high, this owing to the predictability of what is ahead.

Maybe this is why the Pittsburgh Line has not had one significant runaway since the Red Arrow of the 20's. All of this while running trains downhill at 50per.....


Scott H

NS 2581 is the lead unit on 21A today (11-07-00). Going from North Jersey to Harrisburg. The Cab Signals are cut out on the unit. It could be that the cab signals just have not been tested yet. I know the Dash-9's ran around for sometime with them cut out untill they could be tested properly. I found out that their is a breaker in the panel labeled for a GPS. Maybe the LSL are tied in with this system so they need to be tested later on.

226speed wrote:
>
> NS 2581 is the lead unit on 21A today (11-07-00). Going from
> North Jersey to Harrisburg. The Cab Signals are cut out on the
> unit. It could be that the cab signals just have not been
> tested yet. I know the Dash-9's ran around for sometime with
> them cut out untill they could be tested properly. I found out
> that their is a breaker in the panel labeled for a GPS. Maybe
> the LSL are tied in with this system so they need to be tested
> later on.

Ahhh yes, brings back memories of the first Dash 9 w/cab signals that I got back in the CR days. No lock on the box, and one of the cables was not plugged in with a big red tag on it saying "Do Not Plug In Until Further Notice Per NS Mechanical." Sounds like 226Speed was crawling all over one of the new SD70M's last night (just don't call and leave me messages about them at all hours of the night again... lol).

To answer the question of why cab signals... it's because we actually run trains above 25mph up in these parts. In the months before the takeover, an official from NS's system RFE office was riding with one of our crews on a 16,000 ton PIOI. The NS guy was amazed that the CR people would run the thing at the 50 mph track speed. CR also didn't have any rules requiring trains to be slowed down in the fog, and those cab signals come in very handy under those conditions...