How Distributed Power Works

hello again rail fans as much as any technological advance over the past 50 years distributed power or dp has changed the face of railroading in north america it's really made a lot of difference in the way trains are handled the size of trains the uh the frequency of trains just a whole lot of things now distributed power is not the same as the old mu or multiple unit uh lash ups that we've been seeing for the past 50 60 years where you'd see three four or five locomotives at the head end of the train lashed up with those cables at the front and backs of locomotives it's not the same as that at all this is a totally different animal all radio remote controlled and that's why they're able to put these things in the middle of a train or way back on the end of a train and still have complete control over their operation and in this video you're going to see quite a few of them some of them are turned forwards some of them turn backwards they don't care which way they run they still do the same amount of pulling now uh we didn't get a chance to uh go on our annual jacksonville railfan weekend this year that we have every winter in february because of covet but after we got our vaccine we uh made a special trip up there we kind of did our own private jacksonville rail fan weekend once in april and then again in may and managed to get some of this distributed power stuff so let's take a look and see exactly what distributed power is and how it helps railroading as most of you know by now i like to get started early way before the sun copying the mail on the radio as we used to said it's a crisp morning in may the steam rising off the warm ponds into the cooler air around stark arriving in jacksonville i swing into north edgewood drive just north of the amtrak station i'm on the hunt for dp units but just like any rail fan i'll take whatever comes the first thing that comes is a local a725 light engine moves over here on the a-line are usually jobs headed to or from the north entrance of the duvall intermodal ramp three weeks earlier i was right here when i heard a track inspector coming south toward me turned out it was a high rail truck leading a track spraying rig plant life is constantly trying to grow around railroad tracks so the road bed must be periodically sprayed with herbicide i didn't want to be among the targeted species so i backed up about 30 feet after that i drove the short trip up to densmore connection where the morning intermodals come in on the a-line looking south from the trout river road crossing there was good news the densmore turnout was bent toward the yard someone was lined to come in and it wasn't long before a headlight appeared out of the north rolling into its jacksonville destination was q031 container and trailer traffic out of north bergen new jersey with some picked up along the way in baltimore and savannah there are no double stacked containers on this train the howard street tunnel in baltimore is still 18 inches too low for them but work on that project is finally beginning the port of baltimore badly wants intermodal trains to serve its docks meanwhile csx has made this single level train pay off by making it much longer distributed power has enabled that the objective of dp is to run longer trains more efficiently and easily through better management of entrained forces remember what a normal train is a power source at the head in pulling a payload that's all behind it the more cars back there the more stress on those couplers in the first third of the train put a locomotive back there in the middle and you've effectively relieved some of that stress on the cars ahead of and right behind it dp engines run as remotes and are radio controlled they can be set up to mimic the commands of the lead engine with software accounting for the tonnage and length of the cars in front of and behind them following closely what the engineer in the lead locomotive does it's pretty amazing stuff dp units can also be run separately some crews call this putting up the fence because the control screen will show a dividing line between lead and remote engines when in separate operation the engineer gains new control over throttle and dynamic braking on the remote this is very helpful when cresting a grade in most cases the engineer will throttle down after the lead unit reaches the top of a hill to limit the risk of a train separation with a dp unit at mid or in train and running separately he can throttle down the lead engine while letting the dp continue to pull its part up the hill thanks to distributed power trains like q031 can be as long as 15 000 feet but this job has been averaging 10 to 12 000 lately okay we'll pick the rest of this up later right now we got a hot rail on track two it's amtrak 91 coming into its jack station stop 29164 this is a hazard you must be careful of in double track territory you're watching one train while another sneaks up on you on the other track 164 one of the problems brought on by these giant trains happens at terminals the head end has now reached a switch that must be lined to let him continue on in the conductor has got to get out and line that switch then get back aboard meanwhile he still got half a mile of his bottom end hanging out there blocking trout river road i broke off of this and drove down to the north end of csx's moncrief yard it was busy here three separate jobs were on the move shuffling tracks working their way to their assigned jobs for the day norfolk southern was busy too with one switcher in the yard and another making a transfer delivery to csx it was also nice to see one of the mp15 ac switchers they have up here csx doesn't use these in the yards in tampa or winston so those of us down in tropical florida don't see them very often on the dispatcher channel i pick up a conversation in which a 796 was getting block authority down the kingsland sub this is the xj and sw line that runs from the a line at grand junction to the port area then turns north on the xsal main to bush and yuli i wanted to catch this move because he would have to cross the trout river drawbridge i got there in about 10 minutes and found the draw span still open so i hadn't missed the train in the mornings this is a pretty nice shot the vantage is from the old us-17 bridge across the trout river now it's a popular fishing pier when the tide is running anglers catch redfish catfish and of course speckled trout it is the trout river while i was watching the fishing the bridge started closing it's under the control of the bridge tender but he's not here he's some miles away down at the mcgirts creek draw south of town csx has consolidated the jobs through the use of cameras and remote control and down came a 796. this job originates at busch yard a few miles north of here and works the interchange yard at yuli these cars are likely off the first coast railroad which runs from yuli to fernandina and caters to the pulp and container board mills on that island the box cars are likely loaded with finished craft paper or container board paper that's cardboard to you and me the next action i hear is back down in town on the sp line 0755 was coming out of duvall ramp so i beelined it to a place i knew edgewood avenue at the corner of beaver street the west jacks yard is behind me and carnegie siding is ahead 755 was in the sighting clearly waiting on someone by the time i realized what was happening q032 was blowing for the edgewood crossing right behind me this is another lesson in trackside safety always be alert to what's happening behind you keeping back from the tracks is the best way to stay safe q032 is running engine's light to duvall yard he's headed there to pick up his outbound train when q032 passes 0755 gets the green light to head on north this is a yard to yard transfer job he brings cars from duvall to the fec's bowdoin yard some or all of these containers came in on q031 the train we saw earlier at densmore after that i keep heading west on beaver street and the sp line to duvall connection this is the southern entrance to the duvall intermodal ramp it's a busy place this morning the crossing signals on beaver street light up for q143 coming out and headed around to moncrief yard the horn sounds like a dash 8-era ge locomotive and voila 110 is actually an ac44cw not technically a dash 8 but it was built in that era and the horns sound the same csx has been running a bunch of these lately q143 comes out of north baltimore ohio to jacksonville i'm not sure where this cut is headed by now it's lunchtime and since i didn't eat any breakfast i pulled into gator's barbecue this is on beaver street at cahoon road the gravel parking lot is already filling up at 11 30 on this saturday morning the place is not fancy but the food is good i recommend the ribs but i'm not having barbecue today opting instead for the fried shrimp gators has a ton of seafood on their menu and this was really good it and the iced tea 12 bucks a little farther west on the sp line is halsema on the trip three weeks earlier i was here scouting out some new photo spots this is the tallahassee line toward baldwin the coastal plain around jacksonville feels pretty flat and featureless until you look down the track with the telephoto lens the compressed shot quickly reveals a valley as q045 rolls downhill toward mcgirt's creek but with a short 2000 foot consist and two big engines pulling i doubt if that engineer even felt that little dip at the creek q045 is nightly intermodal traffic for tampa we'll get back up to the yard and watch one of those giants get ready for departure right after this after lunch i drove back around to densmore connection at old kings road where qo26 was doubling his train for departure from this crossing it's almost a mile back to the throat of duvall yard but that's not enough room for this train anymore he will double then triple to get this contest assembled it will take more than an hour for much of that time he will have old kings road blocked but there are several routes out of the neighborhood and residents have learned how to get around it finally at 14 30 q026 is solid and departing jacksonville with two engines leading and one at mid train dp distributed power most likely wobtx low control remote system on these engines helps make these two mile long beasts possible by minimizing slack run out and bunching on route a single change in throttle notch on a train powered only on the head end can result in a severe slack action wave dp maintains a much better level of slack action control throughout the train when you have motor power at mid train that also serves as another air compressor the brakes respond more quickly and efficiently distributed power not only improves train handling it also improves fuel economy and reduces railware in curves the rear of a heavy train is resisting the head-end power by trying to crawl inside the curve the wheels grind on the inside rail and speed its wear if those cars are behind distributed power at mid-train the drag factor is greatly reduced and so is where on the rail i got through all that technical gab and qo26 is still coming out of duvall yard i heard over the radio that the conductor over two miles back there would catch a ride and meet the head end out there on the main line all right old kings thank you sir that meant the 26 would have to slow down to at least walking speed at the pickup point giving me time to leapfrog him to callahan eleven and a half miles north of densmore is callahan junction this is where the seaboards x florida railroad crossed the atlantic coastline main the mile posts are a little confusing here because of the historic predecessor roads while the coastline keeps its richmond to tampa mile post figure a624 the seaboard side is only a 20 here when the sal pieced itself together in the early 1900s its main line came in from the north through jacksonville to bypass the growing congestion in jacksonville in the 1920s sal built the gross cutoff from gross on the sal main down to callahan abandoning the callahan yulee line in the mid-1950s the line was renamed the gross subdivision and mild posts reflected the branch line status starting with sm 605 at gross and counting upward as it went south to sm-639 at baldwin preferring the a-line for its main into florida csx in 1985 abandoned most of the savannah yule segment of the s-line as well as the gross cut-off sometime around the 1967 sal acl merger the newly formed seaboard coastline re-numbered the mile posts of the now callahan sub from zero at baldwin to 20 at callahan and 34 at gross counting upward as it went north backward from all other parts of the system and that's all i know about that i'd been here about 30 minutes when q026 started calling the signals approaching callahan on south california [Music] after solving some ptc problems he's rolling good now this is the current realization of piggyback service when it was first invented a lot of truck trailers moving together by rail cover that dp unit is not idling anymore he's running wide open pulling his part of qo26 dps are placed in the train according to the tonnage behind them 38 wells up front and 127 behind the dpu today's q026 is largely empty at least on the bottom eleven thousand eight hundred ninety seven six two feet point five track one no defects no defects total axle five one four train length one one h9r [Music] next up is q456 an emd st70ah in the lead csx acquired 10 of these in 2019 while the piggyback train was passing q456 was waiting a mile to the south on the callahan sub it's not clear why he had to wait almost an hour down here for 26 to clear this is all double track territory it seems like the dispatcher could have run both trains all the way to the jesup sub at least but there was clearly some factor preventing it that i didn't know about that's why i'm not a trained dispatcher q456 is an orlando to waycross daily mixed freight and even though it's a hundred feet longer than the intermodal that just passed there's no dp on this train today likely because of it being mostly empty and a relatively short run if you do any rail fanning at callahan bring your ear protection trains entering or exiting the callahan sub sm line can really squeal on that curve ear shattering next up we'll make a stop in norfolk southern country right after the break four miles south of callahan is crawford where the csx callahan sub crosses the norfolk southern valdosta to jacksonville maine three weeks earlier i was here in the morning for the ns southbound parade first in was actually a northbound ns-330 was going into the crawford siding to wait for that parade next up was ns175 daily southbound mixed freight out of de butt's yard in chattanooga to bowden yard in jax this is traffic for the fec there was apparently a slow order through here he was running only about 25 miles per hour the stark difference from a csx freight is in the way ns makes up a train there is stuff sprinkled everywhere throughout this contest three loads of coils steel and two tanks then three big covered hoppers another tank a covered hopper then a couple more racks csx seems to group up car types as much as they can each road obviously does what works for them on 175's markers was ns-209 intermodal traffic for fec out of inman yard in atlanta once again it looks like they build this train as it comes into the yard loads empties wells flats and trailers sprinkled throughout the contest so in another few minutes came ns 229 double stacks out of landers yard in chicago to ns simpson and jax this looks like norfolk southern's own traffic for jacksonville and includes a sizable block of ups trailers on the bottom it looks like that slow order isn't as slow as i thought and finally ns330 was turned loose as he came out of the siding and across the crawford diamond it occurred to me not one of these trains was running distributed power all but one of these jobs today had three locomotives but all of them were on the head in [Music] so so on the drive back home the next stop from crawford is always baldwin k-423 is a multiple times weekly ethanol move off the canadian pacific and illinois to tampa it often has run through power today it's a bnsf c44-9w and a kansas city southern es44dc these are loaded ethanol tank cars headed for port tampa bay's giant fuel depot ethanol is blended with gasoline as it goes into delivery trucks [Music] and bringing up the rear is a bnsf es44c4 running as remote dp now k423 is not particularly long but it travels a long way and long trips are where distributed power can really help traversing the hilly country of kentucky tennessee and northern alabama the dp unit on the bottom can help mitigate slack action on this heavy train it also greatly helps with starts and stops remote units running five six or seven thousand feet away was problematic because of loss of signal from the dp unit to the head in but improved diversity and multi-frequency radios have eliminated many of these problems moving on southward on us 301 i hit an unscheduled stop and lauded evil 5014 clear lighter i'm barely leveled up on the tripod when here came q452 daily miami lakeland to waycross freight one engine on the head end and a second running dp just 24 cars later what was curious was how many cars were behind the dp unit this old scl wooden bridge is undergoing an update some of the creosote treated wood in this structure could be from the sal era it appears that csx roadway engineers are replacing this bridge with a steel culvert though that could be just for the construction i'll check it out next time i'm through here in case you were wondering the count was cars behind the distributed power engine 204 cars in all on the trip three weeks earlier i caught k-423 at laude this 423 had two canadian pacific engines in the lead the train originates off the cp and is interchanged to csx at bensonville illinois canadian power has been left on and run through all the way to destination and back but here's what made k423 really interesting on this day a union pacific sd70ace and a canadian pacific es44ac both running as remote distributed power pulling a whole nother train behind it the engines sound like they're an idol likely because they're all running downhill from highland in here to lotte the second part of the train is k-811 phosphate empties for the bone valley at winston florida both k-423 and k-811 come out of chicago and go to the same part of florida so with the help of dp they were combined into one train q452 is always a good bet for those railfanning on the s-line anywhere between callahan and vitus junction i caught it in waldo when he had two of csx's spirit units in the lead the 1776 armed forces and the 3194 law enforcement i really like waldo because of the curve and the bridge if the clearing was on the south side of the tracks waldo would be perfect it wasn't dinner time yet but i really wanted to try this place randy's ribs and waldo it's just the other side of the bridge and next to the old amtrak station this place is always busy now please don't think i'm nuts but i didn't order the ribs or any barbecue at randy's ribs either like gators they also feature seafood prominently on the menu when the lady at the window told me the oysters were fresh shucked my mind was made up half dozen fried oysters hush puppies beans and coleslaw 11 bucks with iced tea and as usual i ate it by the tracks and in the shade of the bridge next stop was wildwood another easy spot to set up and wait for trains i'm just south of the old seaboard passenger station now the crew and signal forces office it was almost sundown when q045 rounded the curve into wildwood [Applause] an es-44 something or other and an ac-44 pulling feet of mostly double stacks for tampa no dp needed for this train so well i hope this gave you some understanding of what distributed power is how it works and how it helps railroading now the object of the game as you can probably surmise is cost savings if you can make longer trains if you can take two trains and put them together and make one you only need one crew so one two mile train is a lot cheaper to operate than two one mile trains you only need one crew so that's where the cost savings come in and unfortunately for we rail fans it means fewer trains out there the trains are longer more impressive but there are fewer of them we learned that at folkestone railwatch this year please subscribe to the channel if you haven't done that hit the like button if you like this video put your comments down in the comment section below i try to read as many of those as i can if you have questions or comments you'd like to email me you can do that railfandanny gmail.com so thanks for coming with me on this trip and until we meet up again somewhere out there on the high iron this is danny harmon out

Channel: Distant Signal

Views: 952,625

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Id: 8M9pErSaElk

Length: 34min 56sec (2096 seconds)

Published: Sun May 30 2021