Passenger Trains > Baggage cars on the Carbondale, IL corridor

While looking at the pictures in yesterday's post of the extra baggage cars that Amtrak is hauling back and forth to meet CN's axle requirements, I wonder if Amtrak marketing has thought through the idea of marketing to the university students all that space in them to haul all the junk that the college kids lug back and forth between school and home at breaks and the beginning and end of each school term. It would seem there would be an opportunity for at least a little extra income there to make money on the dead weight you have to haul around anyway.

If they charge, say $5 per bag there, that could start a trend in charging everyone to check their bags.

That's up to the state of Illinois.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

What's the axle requirement and why?

Why not charge the college students $5 and let them ride in the baggage cars? BYOLC (bring your own lawn chair). That would compete with Megabus's $1 fares. Just kidding of course. 

wzd Wrote:
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> What's the axle requirement and why?

Because a few years ago, IIRC, the CN had an incident where the crossing gates did not activate for an Amtrak train.  CN's kneejerk reaction was to force Amtrak add more axles to its trains, to prevent a recurrence.  Though in the end, I recall it was a CN signal maintainer's fault as the crossing was disabled.  

There's no real reason to have a minium axle count higher than 12 (a loke and two cars).

Actually, there is a serious problem and it isn't just axles.  The Horizon cars are not properly activating grade crossing signals.  A great deal of research has been done on this by CN, and signal upgrades have been made, but to no effect.  Superliners do not have the same problem.

There was an accident due to an activation failure and it was not the fault of the signal maintainer.

I am not a signal engineer, and can't explain it, but I am sure there is a real problem.

El_Duderino Wrote:
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> wzd Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > What's the axle requirement and why?
>
> Because a few years ago, IIRC, the CN had an
> incident where the crossing gates did not activate
> for an Amtrak train.  CN's kneejerk reaction was
> to force Amtrak add more axles to its trains, to
> prevent a recurrence.  Though in the end, I
> recall it was a CN signal maintainer's fault as
> the crossing was disabled.  
>
> There's no real reason to have a minium axle count
> higher than 12 (a loke and two cars).

If that is the case, then how do the horizon equiped michigan trains that run on the ns and hiawatha trains on the cp not have this problem at 79mph?

Posted from Android

rdachicago Wrote:
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> If that is the case, then how do the horizon
> equiped michigan trains that run on the ns and
> hiawatha trains on the cp not have this problem at
> 79mph?
>
> Posted from Android

That's exactly what I was thinking. The Horizon cars run on many different railroads all over the country. To my knowledge, CN is the only one with this restriction.

EEE is correct.  The problem with the Horizons has existed elsewhere besides CN's ex-IC line.

It existed on CN's ex-Grand Trunk, too...and that was a railroad of a different heritage than the ex-IC
with different signal and grade crossing protection hardware. That was the line on which a fatal grade crossing
crash occurred, when a driver and his wife were killed by an Amtrak train, while the crossing gates were not
lowered.  Amtrak and the railroad were found liable in the resulting litigation.

It even existed for a time on BNSF's line on which the San Joaquins operate, but the standard consist there
was long enough for there not to be a problem while the Horizons ran there. More recently, BNSF embargoed
Amtrak Genesis engines on that line because they were not reliably triggering grade crossing protection.
Caltrans F59PHI and P32BH engines were OK.  I don't know what became of that problem.

The short-lived Amtrak Lake Country Limited also had problems with grade crossing protection on the
Wisconsin Southern.  But it was a very short train: one locomotive and one Horizon coach.  A baggage car
had to be added.  Most of the time it was one of the 1700 class coach-to-bag conversions which was
placarded against heavy loads because the floor wasn't strong enough.  It ran empty, so it was OK there.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/16 21:25 by GenePoon.

The BNSF San Joaquin issue must have been resolved, because genesis units are common on those trains.

Posted from iPhone

The problem is tread brakes vs disc brakes.   Disc brakes do not keep the wheel clean and hence it is harder to trigger the crossing gate circuits.  At one time amtrak heritage cars had small trread brakes added. 

That being the case,  the locomotive alone should trigger the track circuits.  Wonder if lite power moves are allowed.  We  have a two faced canadian friend.

The experimental import from europe  (diesel electric  3 car train like the bud cars)  with the big rubber ends had a similar problem.  We almost hit a gasoline tanker testing in Canada because it would not trigger the track circuits,  just like the budd cars

R   (signal engineer). 

Thanks for the detailed explanations. Last time i took the train to carbondale we had no signifigant delays for meets or anything but still lost time. I don't rememember for sure but it seems even with the added baggage cars CN was still imposing speed restrictions on the carbondale trains such as 70 instead of 79 that the city of new orleans could do that seemed unnecessary.What if the train had amfleet cars instead? Is that the same? It just seems to me CN is happy to delay the trains. It's been long enough to figure something out and get things back up to speed. I am sorry that there was an accident. They should be learned from. But at some point things should move forward and the railroad should operate at full speed.

Posted from Android

CN is not happy delaying the trains. Superliners do not have the same speed restrictions.  If Amtrak ran Superliners they would operate at 79, they are not restricted.

rdachicago Wrote:
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> Thanks for the detailed explanations. Last time i
> took the train to carbondale we had no signifigant
> delays for meets or anything but still lost time.
> I don't rememember for sure but it seems even with
> the added baggage cars CN was still imposing speed
> restrictions on the carbondale trains such as 70
> instead of 79 that the city of new orleans could
> do that seemed unnecessary.What if the train had
> amfleet cars instead? Is that the same? It just
> seems to me CN is happy to delay the trains. It's
> been long enough to figure something out and get
> things back up to speed. I am sorry that there was
> an accident. They should be learned from. But at
> some point things should move forward and the
> railroad should operate at full speed.
>
> Posted from Android