Eastern Railroad Discussion > NS's electric brakes coal train?

A week ago there was a mention of a Norfolk Southern livery coal train loading in the Powder River basin. The train was set up with electric brakes, and rumored to be on the way to Kansas City, and onto NS.

Has anybody identified where the train is going? And whether NS plans to order other train sets with electric brakes?

Thanks

Powder River-Macon, GA, using cars equipped with ECP several years ago. It is a "pure" ECP trainset, no conventional brakes. BNSF has some ECP-equipped SD70MACs but the NS units have newer equipment.

NS has a full class of cars, H67, that was built with the ECP system. They are Trinity RDVI cars. Number series is #391100-391432. There is an extra electrical cable that runs along the draft gear opposite the air hose that cross plugs like the air hoses. There are specific ES44DC's and ES44AC's on NS that can run these car sets and there are specific EOT's that can be used as they need to be plugged into the ECP brake system as well.

Regards,
Russ

Thanks to each of you for the great info

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> A week ago there was a mention of a Norfolk
> Southern livery coal train loading in the Powder
> River basin. The train was set up with electric
> brakes, and rumored to be on the way to Kansas
> City, and onto NS.
>
> Has anybody identified where the train is going?
> And whether NS plans to order other train sets
> with electric brakes?
>
> Thanks

Can anybody explain the advantages of electric brakes for a railroad application!!??
Seems to me its like reinventing the wheel.
Its true railroad air brakes may have some disadvantages but they have been effective for almost a hundred years.
Why go to a system that seems like it would have the potential to be FAR more problematic than any air system!!
The possibility of brake failure caused by a poor connection at each connector due to corrosion at each of those connectors.
Then the possibility of electric shock!! Geeze what a nightmare!!
No, I see no advantage of an electric brake system.

NS ECP trains operated around pgh (waynesburg southern) to PA power plants for some time. One effect was that they got cleared for 3000 mile inspections rather than the 1000 mile inspections This is quite a savings. Apparently worked quite well.

Also before the merger Conrail also had a train or two of them working around here.

>Can anybody explain the advantages of electric brakes for a railroad application!!??
>Seems to me its like reinventing the wheel.
>Its true railroad air brakes may have some disadvantages but they have been effective for almost a hundred years.
>Why go to a system that seems like it would have the potential to be FAR more problematic than any air system!!
>The possibility of brake failure caused by a poor connection at each connector due to corrosion at each of those connectors.
>Then the possibility of electric shock!! Geeze what a nightmare!!
>No, I see no advantage of an electric brake system.

I can think of 2 major advantages with ECP brakes. One is that the signal to apply brakes travels at the speed of sound with air brakes and the speed of light with ECP. Engineers must pay close attention to train handling when braking long trains of air brake equipped cars because the brakes apply noticeably faster on the front of the train than the rear. With ECP the train brakes effectively apply along the whole train at the same time. From a safety standpoint this means shorter stopping distances.
The second major advantage is graduated release. With air brakes when the engineer releases the brakes it's all or nothing. Bring the brake pipe pressure up and the brakes totally release. (unless the retainers are set on each car) With ECP the engineer can increase/OR Decrease the brake pressure in 1 pound increments. This is quite a feature going down heavy grades, and it improves average train speeds overall.
The supplemental advantage to ECP brakes is that the electrical cable is effectively a network cable down the train. In the future it will allow things like monitoring each car for stuck brakes, flat wheels or other information

Stephen

NS business train has ECP brakes, with the F units equipped to lead. ;-)

The brake system still uses the air, but the electrical signal is used to communicate with the car-mounted control valve. You can still run out of air...

Thanks for this excellent tutorial.

Are any of the dedicated oil trains (like the Phillips 66 sets) using ECP?

ddavies Wrote:
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> NS business train has ECP brakes, with the F units
> equipped to lead. ;-)

As someone who has operated the train both with and without ECP, the latter ... once you get used to the difference ... is an absolute dream to run.

Those in the back like it too ... much smoother ride with ECP, than conventional "power braking" of the train.

mkostecky Wrote:
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> Can anybody explain the advantages of electric
> brakes for a railroad application!!??
> Seems to me its like reinventing the wheel.
> Its true railroad air brakes may have some
> disadvantages but they have been effective for
> almost a hundred years.
> Why go to a system that seems like it would have
> the potential to be FAR more problematic than any
> air system!!
> The possibility of brake failure caused by a poor
> connection at each connector due to corrosion at
> each of those connectors.
> Then the possibility of electric shock!! Geeze
> what a nightmare!!
> No, I see no advantage of an electric brake
> system.

You do realize that ECP brake systems have been in use since the mid 1990's, and that they are proven technology?

Hooking the EOTD into the ECP system also eliminates the chances of a radio communication failure, that would limit your train speed to 30 miles per hour.

Another future development of ECP is the ability to use transponders on each car to report to the head end. This would allow the Conductor to instantly see the correct order of cars in his train at any time, or transmit an updated wheel report ahead to the receiving yard.

With a car-monitoring system piggybacked on the ECP data line you could also effectively eliminate the EOT, as the last car would *know* its the last car and communicate brake and continuity info to the head end. All you'd need is a plain ol' flashing light for a marker.


NZ

bioyans Wrote:
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>(snip)
>
> Hooking the EOTD into the ECP system also
> eliminates the chances of a radio communication
> failure, that would limit your train speed to 30
> miles per hour.

that sounds like a huge advantage on its own

Any idea of what % of NS coal cars etc are equipped with ECP capability?

NebraskaZephyr Wrote:
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> Another future development of ECP is the ability
> to use transponders on each car to report to the
> head end. This would allow the Conductor to
> instantly see the correct order of cars in his
> train at any time, or transmit an updated wheel
> report ahead to the receiving yard.
>
> With a car-monitoring system piggybacked on the
> ECP data line you could also effectively eliminate
> the EOT, as the last car would *know* its the last
> car and communicate brake and continuity info to
> the head end. All you'd need is a plain ol'
> flashing light for a marker.
>
>
> NZ


Do the Herzog ballast cars have this capability already? I know that many have their own solar collectors, and have some specialized electronics, car by car. I was told this allows remote monitoring of dumping, and precise location for each car in the train.

It sounds like fascinating technology.

Going a step further, the DPU system can also be tied into the ECP system. Removing the need for radio communication there.

bioyans Wrote:
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> You do realize that ECP brake systems have been in
> use since the mid 1990's, and that they are proven
> technology?
>
> Hooking the EOTD into the ECP system also
> eliminates the chances of a radio communication
> failure, that would limit your train speed to 30
> miles per hour.

bioyans Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> You do realize that ECP brake systems have been in
> use since the mid 1990's, and that they are proven
> technology?
>
Yes Conrail and Santa Fe had a cross country stack train which had ECP. Was running with a business car in the consist quite often

i believe the first CR trains to use ECP equipped technology were the Shelocta coal trains

Posted from Android

Pretty much took care of that 'it'll never work' discussion, huh. : )

dcfbalcoS1 Wrote:
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> Pretty much took care of that 'it'll never work'
> discussion, huh. : )


Well the problem is, getting the private owner cars to pay for it. Its not cheap and not deemed value added by the car owners. So at the moment, just various semi-captive service railroad owned cars have it.