Good morning y'all. Happy Friday! 56 and foggy, with an early sample of April Showers predicted, before it gets colder again.
Garry:
Boris .... You were talking to Sherrel about locomotive assignments based on axles. You reminded me I recall the GTW commonly operated GP38's and SD40's in the same consist. They were compatible because the horsepower per axle was the same.
Conrail adopted the X HP per Ton method to assign system pool power, and we were provided a chart to assist in our assigning Regional power to Coal trains destined for the Popes Creek Secondary. HP per axle was a "secondary" consideration, because 2000 HP power and lower, was Regional, and 3000 HP power and above, was system.
In this scenario, a 10 Axle consists would include a 3000 HP 4 Axle GP40 and a 3000 HP SD40. The GP40 would turn out 750 HP per axle, while the SD40, 500 HP per axle.
There was an ongoing debate as to the validity of the theory. During system pool power shortages, The System power Bureau, would borrow "Regional" power to alleviate the shortage. A 24 Axel consist including GP-10s, GP30s and GP9-B units did not perform the same as 4 SD40s, no matter what the Axle rating projected.
TV24 / TV23 (which was a mixed consist train in spite of the Van Train Symbol, normally was assigned two to four GE 2300 HP B23-7s, which were normally Regional Assigned power, but the HP/Axle ratio was constant. Coal trains originating at Baltimore, normally were assigned a mix of GP30s,GP35s and GP9Bs, which made for an interesting consist especially climbing out of the B&P Tunnel in Baltimore going South. The least little glitch would cause the train to stall or possibly break in two. Conrail had decided that 24 axles was 24 axles and there was no need for a Pusher.
Boris