Mid-train helper CSX Philadelphia Subdivision

[Bob]

I haven't seen this before: I was walking along the river walk in downtown Philly this AM when a southbound CSX train passed me by.  A single ET44AH unit pulling empty Tropicana Juice train cars, notable for there being 40 to 50 of these.  The surprise was that at the end of the Tropicana boxes there was another single ET44AH unit immediately followed by a long stack train.  The entire train was then impressively long.  I've never seen a mid-train unit in Philly before - am guessing this is to reduce crew costs?  Improve operations in some way?  Anyone else encounter this type of train in the Philly area before?  Always thought you used distributed power on heavy trains in more challenging terrain.

[davefoxx]

I don't know why they actually did this (I've never seen it on the Philly Sub, either), but I would guess that it would allow the running of two trains down the single-track Philly Sub as one train and possibly save time and congestion down the road.  Get to some point south and just split the trains without shuffling power and crews.

Or, maybe the stack train was just doing extreme tailgating. 

DFF

[Bob]

I like the tailgating quip!  You are probably right re. the operational flexibility - I was too far away to see if there were crew in the mid-train locomotive.  If this is now a 'thing', we should see more of these in the months to come.

[Jbub]

It's precision railroading! Trains so precisely close together they seem to be the same train

[MK]

Drafting!  To save fuel.

[learmoia]

That's a Hunter Harrison move... Common on the CN and CP..

It cuts crew costs in half.

~Ian

[Philip H]

That's a Hunter Harrison move... Common on the CN and CP..

It cuts crew costs in half.

~Ian

I was wondering about this.  I am seeing these units on about 1/3rd of the manifest freights on the Coast these days.

[Bob]

Just saw another this morning - this time it was two stack trains joined together moving south through Philly, so I guess this is a new and much more common operating reality.

[Jbub]

I find it interesting you east coasters are just starting to see this type of thing. UP has been doing this for a while now and it's very apparent when it's two trains put together and they are very long, almost filling an entire block if not the entire block and into the next.  The city I work for has the last grade crossing before entering the yard north of Salt Lake city, And if you get caught when they are slowing to yard speed, you're sitting there for 20+ minutes waiting for it to clear the crossing.

[davefoxx]

I find it interesting you east coasters are just starting to see this type of thing. UP has been doing this for a while now and it's very apparent when it's two trains put together and they are very long, almost filling an entire block if not the entire block and into the next.  The city I work for has the last grade crossing before entering the yard north of Salt Lake city, And if you get caught when they are slowing to yard speed, you're sitting there for 20+ minutes waiting for it to clear the crossing.

It's not so much an "East Coast" thing as much as it is specifically CSX's Philly Subdivision that we're referring to.  If you're not familiar with this line, it is a former B&O single-track line between Baltimore, Maryland and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with passing sidings (approximately 10,000-feet lengths) every fifteen miles or so.  Probably not conducive to running monster trains, unless they can put every opposing train into one of those sidings.

DFF

[Jbub]

It's not so much an "East Coast" thing as much as it is specifically CSX's Philly Subdivision that we're referring to.  If you're not familiar with this line, it is a former B&O single-track line between Baltimore, Maryland and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with passing sidings (approximately 10,000-feet lengths) every fifteen miles or so.  Probably not conducive to running monster trains, unless they can put every opposing train into one of those sidings.

DFF

I can understand that. The area I see our monster trains is double tracked with 1.5 - 2+ mile long blocks.

[Philip H]

It's not so much an "East Coast" thing as much as it is specifically CSX's Philly Subdivision that we're referring to.  If you're not familiar with this line, it is a former B&O single-track line between Baltimore, Maryland and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with passing sidings (approximately 10,000-feet lengths) every fifteen miles or so.  Probably not conducive to running monster trains, unless they can put every opposing train into one of those sidings.

DFF

Ditto the lines on the Gulf Coast.  These were L&N lines originally and mostly single track from New Orleans to Jacksonville - though the manifests that go through are actually bound to Waycross GA before getting sent south.

[learmoia]

My personal thoughts is that this combining trains idea is one of the good ideas that Harrison was using as a cost saving measure (As long as you have 2 trains running from Point A to Point B.. (Or A-C+A-B  and cut off B en route).  However another HH move is to have Road Crews do industry work en route......

So you could see an 10,000 train setup as follows...

100 car Manifest Train from A-G
Block A-B
Block A-C
Block A-D
Pickup Block D-G
Block A-E
Block A-G
Then 100 car Unit Train A-G

"Focus on moving cars... (not trains..)"

~Ian

[Maletrain]

All of this reminds me why I like to model B&O in the Alleghenies in the early 1950s - - a mainline "train" was often about 50 cars and required 3 or 4 big locomotives to get it over the divide.  So, I can model a class 1 operation with trains that aren't longer than my layout!