Eastern Railroad Discussion > Single locomotves

Recently, watching various webcams and YouTube rail videos, I've seen a growing number of gaily long trains WTH just one locomotive and no DPUs.  I've seen a couple of grumbling on this forum about that but no detailed explanation.  This seems more common in the east, but not limited to that area.  My sense of machines tells me this sort of operation puts a lot of stress on the locomotive...and the engineer.  What the real story?

They are already dealing computer controls of the locomotive, so for the engineer, this is just another intrusion into operation of the train.  One unit in Ohio, on relatively flat territory can eventually get a train up to some speed, but if they are asked to climb a grade, such as Big Run east of Wooster, OH, then you can forget about climbing almost any hill.  

a737flyer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My sense of machines tells me this
> sort of operation puts a lot of stress on the
> locomotive...and the engineer.  What the real
> story?

Cost reduction.  Railfans like to throw around the PSR initials for anything we don't like about today's RRs, but cost reduction is the primary tenet of Hunter's PSR program.  He used the stupid phrase "sweating the assets," which essentially means using the fewest possible assets to produce the largest amount of work.  If one engine will pull the train, use one engine.  The other engine can be re-deployed elsewhere or removed from the roster.  

We all love to hate Hunter, but he really did have it figured out.  His goal was to produce maximum profit at the lowest possible cost.  Not to make the shippers happy, not to make the employees happy, and certainly not to make the railfans happy.  Marginally profitable traffic went out the window; not worth handling when the investments required to handle it could be used more profitably elsewhere.  Running one engine seems shortsighted when you're the engineer stalled on a hill or sitting on the main with mechanical trouble, but when balanced against all the rest of the one engine trains that DID make it in, overall cost is reduced.  

I'm not saying I approve or agree with Hunter's methods.  They can be applied to any aspect of commerce today; I believe it's called "financialization" and many view it as a cancer on society.  Pure greed based capitalism leaves no room for the cause of the "greater good."  If you want a high stock price, you're gonna have to let some people go before Christmas and get those expensive engines off the roster.  Hunter couldn't be keeping overpriced featherbedding employees on the payroll when he needed another horse on the ranch in Florida or Georgia or wherever it was.

Sorry if this is more than you wanted.

Andy

Stress on diesel locomotives is
“a good thing”.

They’ll run all day long, happily at
at full power.

When turbo-supercharged, and getting maximum oxygen in the cylinders, they’re actually getting
greatest energy output, for the
least amount of fuel consumption.

Struggling, at lower throttle positions at slower speeds burns a greater amount of fuel.

Pulling stronger at low track speeds
means higher electrical current flow…and damaging heat can build-up….
continuous current monitoring, regulates lower and lower fuel
delivery by the engine’s governor
control system. The whole load-control regulation system protects
the power system from exceeding
it’s power capacity.

The system not only regulates engine
rpm’s, but also regulates the density of the main-generator’s electrical
‘field-density’. Regulating that field density is an automatic function,
the engineer makes a ‘request’ for
greater speeds or more power, but
the control system determines the
limits of current generated, and
allows more power to be applied,
but it also limits the power generated
to ‘safe’ amounts.

More locos share the ‘load’, but each
loco self-regulates, according to its
own power capacity.

Operating at full power capacity,
makes all the systems work together
happily, at highest operating temperatures, but also at greatest
fuel-efficiency.

Today’s A/C traction motors are very
happy at full-current loading… but,
that can be higher track speeds.

However, current monitoring
protects each traction motor from
excessive strains. The weakest link
in the system are the traction. motors, so their individual strength
determines power applied at the rails.

Your concern has more to do with
“happy traction current”, rather
than the power generated by the
whole power control systems,
all working together, following the
power requests from the engineer.

Smile when you see a single loco
and a string of cars.

However, the risk to operations
is higher, with only one loco…
on a train ….

In case of component or a single
system failure, & the one loco quits,
( and protects itself) what do you do, now?

There’s a lot of faith, leaving a yard,
or, an origination point — with only a single loco as road power. That’s a very high risk situation, with no
back-up in place.

You gotta wonder what management
layer made that decision?
There might be other work-arounds,
depending on the specific railroad’s
operations…

W.

Posted from iPhone

Locomotives are just too damn big nowadays.

We will see more and more situations where the decision is made to go with one locomotive because it will be hard to justify more than one unit when one would do.

Myself, I'd like to see the modern day equivalent of the old SD40-2 developed (but with AC traction motors),  with which most line haul trains would have to have at least two units, but one would be adequate to get the train into the clear if a unit goes down.

I also would like to see the big ass, PSR trains relegated to the ash heap of history, but that is not going to happen either.

Regardless of the fuel efficiency of running around in 8 notch all the time....the vibrations shake the whole locomotive and nothing that is bolted down will have tight bolts after a time....it does make a locomotive fall apart. No one can convince me this the best way to deploy assets. 

engineerinvirginia Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Regardless of the fuel efficiency of running
> around in 8 notch all the time....the vibrations
> shake the whole locomotive and nothing that is
> bolted down will have tight bolts after a
> time....it does make a locomotive fall apart. No
> one can convince me this the best way to deploy
> assets.

Nobody cares about "after a time" any more. It's all about what value can be extracted from the assets today.
 

Many trains with two or more engines are single engine trains.  One engine pulling the rest just along for the ride in the name of fuel conservation..

Look at BNSF from Barstow to say Stockton. It's back to steam locomotive logic. It's flat from Bartsow to Mojave and
flat from Bakersfield to Stockton so that's your power level and you use a manned helper to get over the big hump
in between. The grain trains which used to run 4X3X2 now run 3X3 with a 3 unit helper over the hill. That saves the
extra units which ran all the way from Texas to California in days past. It's not just profit it's smart. 

Out

callum_out Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Look at BNSF from Barstow to say Stockton. It's
> back to steam locomotive logic. It's flat from
> Bartsow to Mojave and
> flat from Bakersfield to Stockton so that's your
> power level and you use a manned helper to get
> over the big hump
> in between. The grain trains which used to run
> 4X3X2 now run 3X3 with a 3 unit helper over the
> hill. That saves the
> extra units which ran all the way from Texas to
> California in days past. It's not just profit it's
> smart. 

Thanks for sharing. Interesting!

Is the helper manned  or are added units run as DPU?

 

The helper is normally manned. If it has to go to Bakersfield for service they run it as a DPU set but
normally it runs with a Barstow crew.

Out 

AndyBrown Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> a737flyer Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > My sense of machines tells me this
> > sort of operation puts a lot of stress on the
> > locomotive...and the engineer.  What the real
> > story?
>
> Cost reduction.  Railfans like to throw around
> the PSR initials for anything we don't like about
> today's RRs, but cost reduction is the primary
> tenet of Hunter's PSR program.  He used the
> stupid phrase "sweating the assets," which
> essentially means using the fewest possible assets
> to produce the largest amount of work.  If one
> engine will pull the train, use one engine.  The
> other engine can be re-deployed elsewhere or
> removed from the roster.  
>
> We all love to hate Hunter, but he really did have
> it figured out.  His goal was to produce maximum
> profit at the lowest possible cost.  Not to make
> the shippers happy, not to make the employees
> happy, and certainly not to make the railfans
> happy.  Marginally profitable traffic went out
> the window; not worth handling when the
> investments required to handle it could be used
> more profitably elsewhere.  Running one engine
> seems shortsighted when you're the engineer
> stalled on a hill or sitting on the main with
> mechanical trouble, but when balanced against all
> the rest of the one engine trains that DID make it
> in, overall cost is reduced.  
>
> I'm not saying I approve or agree with Hunter's
> methods.  They can be applied to any aspect of
> commerce today; I believe it's called
> "financialization" and many view it as a cancer on
> society.  Pure greed based capitalism leaves no
> room for the cause of the "greater good."  If you
> want a high stock price, you're gonna have to let
> some people go before Christmas and get those
> expensive engines off the roster.  Hunter
> couldn't be keeping overpriced featherbedding
> employees on the payroll when he needed another
> horse on the ranch in Florida or Georgia or
> wherever it was.
>
> Sorry if this is more than you wanted.
>
> Andy

The problem with your analysis is you assume it's only the marginal traffic that was lost.  Bad assumption.  Some very profitable traffic that couldn't live with the fall out from deterioration in service was (an still is being) lost.  It's a never ending drain circler.  You loose business so you cut service level's to keep the OR in range and then another round of business is lost.  You cannot cut your way to prosperity and you certainly cannot control who is going to walk away from you if you cut service.  In addition, railroads are given to much credit for understating their cost.  When they tear out a siding, no one ever calculated the millions of dollars of cost associated with having the equipment sitting in a siding doing noting.  Likewise PSR never factors in the cost of trying to gain a customer.  Of course, Harrison never lived to see that expense.

As an example, long before PSR, I managed rail at a Fortune 500 for several years.  One of our basic commodities was great long haul business in large volumes.  The cost of a rail car was the cost of one truck - or 5 truckloads per railcar..  No brainier right?  Well, we had to lease several cars at a cost of $800 per car per month.  The service was unpredictable even in those pre PSR days so we had to maintain extra cars and lease storage tracks in the local yards.  The plant managers (who understood flow rates not how railraods "work") absolutely hated  the service variability (meaning the railroads would quote a 14 day transit time and then deliver somewhere between 10 to 30 days)!  (Early wasn't better for many reasons.)   No wounder many plant managers have walked away from rail - and once gone it is very hard to get a customer back.  

Rail traffic peaked in the late 2000's and has fallen ever sine - worse since covid.  This pick and choose attitude and singular focus on cost will not serve them well.  A guy at NS once said to me "service is all they have to sell"!  That seems to be lost on the carriers today.

 

"You cannot cut your way to prosperity..." is right up  there with, "...you can't shrink your way to profitability."  Both perfect truths.