trains magazine locotrol feature

Six locomotives distributed throughout a Union Pacific train muscle coal loads through Colorado’s Little Gore Canyon on Sept. 27, 2009. Scott Lothes

ULTIMATE POWER

Freight train,

u n b o u n d e dDistributed power: It’s a bigger deal than you think

by David Lustig

GE’s Locotrol team, from left: Brian Schroeck, Robert Bremmer, Gene Smith. David Lustig

BNSF owns the world’s largest fleet of Lo-cotrol-equipped diesels. Five power a 15,724-ton grain train through the reverse curves at Palmer Lake, Colo., on March 27, 2009. Distributed power makes a big impact on sharp curves. Chip Sherman

BNSF SD70MAC 8938 shoves coal through Glen Ullin, N.D., in 2009. Trains: Andy Cummings

CN ES44DC 2244’s marker lights trail train Q198 at Waukesha, Wis. Drew Halverson

What it doesA freight train is a creature of simple

physics. Most still operate with brakes that depend on compressed air to alert freight cars that it’s time to clamp brake shoes to wheels, or to release them. Likewise, the link among the train’s cars continues to be steel drawbars that push into one another or pull apart from one another as the train moves, giving the train an accordion-like feel.

Distributed power uses a radio link be-tween separated sets of locomotives to trans-mit operating instructions through the at-mosphere. But the advantages it offers come through the familiar conduits of the train’s compressed-air brake pipe and its drawbars.

A conventionally operated moving train’s drawbars are constantly stretching and com-pressing as a train travels uphill and down-hill, and in response to the engineer’s use of throttle and brakes. On undulating routes, it’s common for a long freight train to drape over multiple small summits. In fact, that’s a desirable situation, because the engines don’t have to pull as hard when parts of a train are traveling uphill and parts are traveling downhill. In this situation, parts of a train may move with their slack pulled out (“stretched”), while other parts may move with their slack pushed in (“bunched”).

Where conventionally operated freights can get into trouble is when an entire loaded train enters an uphill grade. Suddenly, the drawbars between each car become stretched, with the locomotives’ considerable draft (pulling power) battling to keep the whole weighty affair in motion. They’re fight-ing against thousands of tons of weight that, thanks to the force of gravity, want to move in the direction opposite the locomotives.

The drawbars connecting the trailing lo-comotive to the train’s first car bear the brunt of this tug of war, with forces gradu-ally dissipating as one gets closer to the last car. If there’s a weak spot in the connections holding the train together, particularly near the head end, an uphill climb is likely to find it. When that happens, at best, the train

screeches to an emergency stop and the con-ductor must change out a 50-pound knuck-le, a tough and time-consuming chore. Of-ten, though, a drawbar snaps, or is torn from a freight car’s frame. In rare instances, the structure of the freight car itself can fail, and the car is literally torn in two.

A locomotive pushing on a freight train from behind exerts the same tractive effort as a locomotive that’s pulling from ahead, but it boasts a simple advantage: It com-presses slack instead of yanking it out. This is the reason railroads have often employed in-train or end-of-train pushers in moun-tainous territories, instead of simply add-ing locomotives to the head end, a logisti-cally simpler proposition.

In fact, distributing power all but elimi-nates break-in-twos, one of the technology’s biggest advantages. But just as important, distributed power transforms the fashion in which a freight train negotiates curves, and decidedly for the better.

Picture a piece of rope with a weight on one end that’s looped into a horseshoe shape. Now pull on the weightless end. The rope pulls taut, and you lose your loop.

Now picture a freight train rounding a curve. Identical forces are at work. What

BnsF: WorLd’s Largest FLeet

Cn: CoLd-air Warriors

Canadian national officials long assumed their railroad wasn’t a good candidate for distribut-ed power owing to its generally light grades. However, in April 2004, CN deployed six new C44-9W locomotives with Locotrol to its Lac St-Jean Subdivision in northern Quebec to solve an operating problem on the hilly and curvy route. The decision came in specific response to metal fatigue problems with car couplers that were plaguing the increasingly heavy trains on the route.

The 2-by-2 in-train arrangement proved so successful that CN became a distributed power convert. It’s since expanded distributed power operations across its system. As of this summer, the railroad ran Locotrol on 320 of its roughly 1,200 road locomotives, but new deliveries and retrofits of the current fleet should push that number to 411 by year’s end.

Currently, CN runs 75 percent of its loaded bulk trains (mainly coal and grain) with distribut-ed power, plus half its intermodal trains and 20 percent of its manifest trains. Robert LeBlanc, CN’s senior transportation engineer, says distributed power’s impact on train air in cold weather makes it ideal for the harsh conditions CN operates in, not to mention the long trains it’s famous for. Expect to see more distributed power on CN going forward. “When it comes to distributed power, CN is not looking into the rear-view mirror,” LeBlanc says. — David Lustig

24 Trains SePTeMbeR 2010 www.TrainsMag.com 25

BnsF railway inherited small-scale distributed power operations from its two predecessors; Burlington Northern and Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe had both employed it since the early 1970s. Today’s distributed power operations center primarily on Powder River Basin coal trains, although every type of train BNSF operates incorporates some distributed power operations.

According to General Electric, BNSF’s fleet of diesels equipped with Locotrol technology is the world’s largest at more than 4,000 units, or roughly a third of the world’s total. Included are most of BNSF’s 1,792-unit C44-9W fleet, all 1,500 Evolution-series GEs, most of the SD70MAC, SD75M, and SD75I fleets, and all SD70ACes. Major maintenance bases for distributed power die-sels include Kansas City, Mo.; Alliance, Neb.; Lincoln, Neb.; Glendive, Mont.; and Barstow, Calif.

BNSF Director of Locomotives Tom Lambrecht estimates as many as 300 BNSF trains oper-ate in distributed power mode during peak times, including 80 percent of its coal trains.

BNSF locomotives operate in distributed power mode in run-through agreements over at least three smaller foreign railroads: Montana Rail Link, Kansas City Southern (see “KCS: Ouachi-ta Mountain Masters,” page 29), and Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern.

On MRL, operations began in 2006, with the regional’s personnel instructed on distributed power operations at BNSF’s contract training center, the National Academy of Railroad Sciences in Overland Park, Kan. Like CSX on the former Clinchfield (see “CSX: Across the Blue Ridge,” page 27), MRL had to install leaky coaxial cable through its Bozeman and Mullan tunnels to enable distributed power radio communications. MRL employs distributed BNSF power on manifest trains operating above 11,000 tons, plus all coal and grain trains. Its own diesels aren’t equipped with the technology, however.

On DM&E, unit grain shuttles originating at New Ulm, Minn., employ run-through distributed BNSF power to make the 1.5-percent climb out of the Minnesota River Valley. Operations began in 2006. Trains return to BNSF rails at Florence, Minn. — David Lustig and Tom Danneman

no motive-power technology has expanded the boundaries of the freight train as profoundly as modern distributed power technology since Electro-Mo-

tive’s FT diesel emerged in 1939. If you thought remotely controlled in-train and end-of-train locomotives were simply a means to help lift freights over mountain ranges without breaking apart, it’s time to take another look. Trains with distributed power stop faster, use less fuel, put less wear on rails, and can operate at greater lengths and carry dramatically heavier tonnages than their conventionally operated brethren.

Distributing locomotives throughout a train is a practice that mountain-crossing steam railroads were acquainted with, but the limits of the technology of the era pre-vented widespread use. The advent of diesels and improvements in radio communica-tions led five Appalachian railroads to ex-periment with remote locomotives in the 1960s [see pages 34-35], but the industry at large didn’t see fit to adopt the concept. Now, as railroads place ever-greater levels of trust in distributed power’s modern incarnation, they’re finding benefits in surprising places.

They’re also changing the look of their lines to accommodate the longer trains distributed power enables. Longer sidings and yard tracks? Par for the course.

A decade after distributed power began creeping into the mainstream, let’s examine where it came from, how it works, and why Union Pacific plans to move 70 percent of its gross ton-miles with distributed motive power by the end of this year.

Flat land, loaded train, engines in power throttle

3 locomotives 100 cars

All cars stretched

Slack pulled out (“stretched”)Slack pushed in (“bunched”)

Drawbar forcesConventional train

PullingPushing

Drawbar forces

Drawbar forces


66 cars stretched

2⁄3 drawbar force of conventional

2⁄3 drawbar force of conventional 1⁄3 drawbar force of head end

34 cars bunched

9 cars bunched

1 locoRear-end distributed power

Drawbar forces


64 cars stretched 25 cars stretched 25 cars stretched

1 loco 25 carsIn-train distributed power

3 seconds after a set


10 cars set up 24 cars setting up 66 cars releasedAir reduction

Brakes releasedBrakes setting upBrakes applied

32 cars released

7 cars released 24 cars setting up

24 cars setting up 10 cars set up24 cars setting up

24 cars setting up

Conventional train (3 locos=219 feet; 100 cars=6,200 feet; total=6,419 feet)


10 cars set up



10 cars set up 10 cars set up 15 cars setting up10 cars set up


Air reduction

Air reduction

Air reduction

Air reduction

CP muscles 14,000 tons of grain past Notch Hill, B.C., in 2007. Mark Jackson

CSX 784 shoves on the rear of coal loads at Poplar, N.C., on Oct. 25, 2009. Ron Flanary

keeps the train from jumping the tracks is the rail on the inside of the curve. The flanges of each freight car wheel pull against the inside of the rail, but the strength of the link from rail to spike, spike to tie, and tie to ballast fights back, holding cars onto the rails. How-ever, the sharper the curve and the more tightly freight cars are stretched, the more force the train exerts on that inside rail. With enough force, the train can “stringline” the curve, rolling the inside rail and derailing.

Additionally, such forces impose wear and tear on the inside of the rail, necessitat-ing more frequent maintenance and replace-ment cycles for rail and track components.

When you reduce drawbar forces around a curve, you reduce wear on rails, and you make stringlining derailments less likely. And while the starkest improvement on this front comes in mountain territory, bunched trains are easier on every curve they traverse.

Additionally, the friction wheels create as they round curves leads to drag, which is es-sentially wasted energy. By reducing wheel-to-rail forces and the resulting drag around curves, distributed power saves fuel.

Bob Bremmer, a product manager with GE Transportation’s Melbourne, Fla., offices, where Locotrol is developed, says the com-pany partnered with Norfolk Southern to quantify fuel savings. As the developer and manufacturer of Locotrol, the software that controls 99 percent of the U.S. distributed power market, GE had something to prove.

GE and NS chose a manifest train oper-ating between Macon, Ga., and Chattanoo-ga, Tenn., as its case study. The railroad op-erated the train as a conventional freight train with locomotives only at the head end for one week, then switched to distributed power the next. Whenever possible, the rail-road used the same engineers. As a conven-tional train, it ran with 150 freight cars; in distributed power mode, it ran with 180.

“We found distributed power, on average,

had a much higher gross-ton-mile-per-gal-lon performance than conventional,” Brem-mer says, “with savings of about 5.5 percent over the corridor for those two months.”

The experiment points to another area in which railroads can save fuel with distributed power. Locomotives are at their most fuel-efficient when pulling at full power. By mov-ing 30 more cars with the same locomotives but working them harder, NS added fuel ef-ficiency to the train. It also moved the addi-tional 30 cars with the same two-person crew.

Distributed power’s advantages also ex-tend through the train’s brake pipe, a closed-air system that runs from the lead locomo-tive to the last car. When the engineer wants to apply the train’s automatic brakes, he moves the brake handle on the lead locomo-tive’s control stand to the right. The system responds by opening a small hole in the brake pipe beneath the control stand, allow-ing air in the brake pipe to escape in propor-tion to how far the engineer moves the handle. This reduction in air serves as a sig-nal to the train’s cars that they must clamp their brake shoes against their wheels until higher-pressure air returns, also at the engi-neer’s command. The more air he releases, the more braking power he conjures up.

When the hole opens, compressed air moves from the high-pressure (generally 90 psi at full charge) brake pipe to the low-pres-sure outside air. However, it takes time for that reduction in air pressure to work its way from the locomotives through the brake pipe to the farthest-away freight car: The reduced-pressure signal travels at about 600 feet per second. For a 110-car conventionally oper-ated train, more than 10 seconds will lapse from when the engineer gives his order to when the 110th car gets the message.

When an engineer operating in distrib-uted power mode makes a reduction, how-ever, the radio signal travels through the at-mosphere to all linked power sets. Assuming

CP: seeking the Best distriBution

CsX: aCross the BLue ridge

Canadian Pacific is no stranger to distributed power. It began using remote “robot engines” in the 1970s to lift heavy trains of coal, grain, and potash over three mountain ranges on its transcon-tinental main line in British Columbia. Now CP has begun using its mountain railroad, where ruling grades reach 1.25 percent westbound and 2.4 percent eastbound, as a test bed to study how dis-tributed power can work in tandem with new friction-management devices to save track wear. “Up-hill trains tend to lean on the low rail and produce high damaging loads.… Downhill trains run at higher speeds and tend to lean on the high rail,” wrote CP General Manager-Technical Standards Mike Roney in “Interface: The Journal of Wheel/Rail Interaction,” where he shared his findings. On a 6.5-degree curve west of Revelstoke, B.C., CP installed a system to measure the lateral and vertical forces produced by passing trains on the curve’s 1 percent grade. Roney found CP could minimize track wear and maintenance costs on grades by running uphill and downhill trains as close to the same speed as possible. CP implemented a “one-speed” operating plan on the Western Corridor in 2008 that included adding a fourth GE A.C. locomotive to unit trains and superelevating curves. The extra engine not only helped CP achieve more uniform speeds, but increased average speeds over-all (from 19 to 25 mph with aluminum trainsets, and 20 to 27 mph with steel sets), and by exten-sion, its route capacity. Test results also showed that a 2-by-1-by-1 arrangement cut lateral forces to the low rail from the train’s leading axle 9 percent in aluminum trains and 18 percent in steel sets. (A 2-2-0 configuration produced a slightly higher average speed, but did not cut lateral forces as dramatically.) Running trains 2-by-1-by-1 on tracks with friction management systems cut lateral forc-es on the low rail another 30 percent for 129-car aluminum trains and 14 percent for 115-car steel sets. From the tests, CP increased standard train lengths to 129-car aluminum coal trains, 142-car potash trains, and 168-car grain trains (with a fifth engine), helping the railroad cut train starts and improve fuel efficiency (see page 31). — Matt Van Hattem

CsX began distributed power operations in July 2008 out of just one terminal: Erwin, Tenn., on the railroad’s mountainous ex-Clinchfield main line. Trains there carry Appalachian coal over the Blue Ridge at Altapass, N.C., then on to power plants in the Carolinas and Florida.

Implementation followed 13 months of planning and preparation. The railroad had to install antenna and transmission systems through 17 tunnels between Erwin and Spartanburg, S.C. It employs “leaky coaxial” cable, which transmits signals between power sets on either side of a bore, and can also send exchange signals with locomotives inside a tunnel.

CSX has installed distributed power on 300 ES44ACs, and operates them in a 2-by-1 orienta-tion. The technology has enabled the railroad to operate 90- and 110-car trains over the line.

“Our coal trains can now run the speed limit, 20 to 25 mph, to the top of the Blue Ridge,” says Chris Corey, CSX’s Erwin-based road foreman of engines.

One Waycross, Ga., to New Orleans freight now also operates with distributed power. The railroad says it’s considering replacing some manned helper districts with the technology.

RON FLANARY is a 42-year Trains contributor. He lives in Big Stone Gap, Va.


there’s no interference in the signal between separated diesels, distributed units will in-stantaneously mimic the lead locomotive’s brake-pipe opening, and the air-pressure signal will travel from both the lead loco-motive and the remotely operated sets through the brake pipe. Simply by ensuring

no freight car is as far from a locomotive as in a conventionally operated train, GE esti-mates an in-train locomotive commanded by Locotrol reduces stopping time by 22 percent and distance by 30 percent.

Brakes release when the engineer orders his locomotives to charge the brake pipe

distriButed PoWer at the draWBar

Flat land, loaded train, engines in power throttle


All cars stretched

Slack pulled out (“stretched”)Slack pushed in (“bunched”)

Drawbar forcesConventional train

PullingPushing

Drawbar forces

Drawbar forces


66 cars stretched

2⁄3 drawbar force of conventional

2⁄3 drawbar force of conventional 1⁄3 drawbar force of head end

34 cars bunched

9 cars bunched


Drawbar forces


64 cars stretched 25 cars stretched 25 cars stretched


3 seconds after a set


10 cars set up 24 cars setting up 66 cars releasedAir reduction

Brakes releasedBrakes setting upBrakes applied

32 cars released

7 cars released 24 cars setting up

24 cars setting up 10 cars set up24 cars setting up

24 cars setting up

Conventional train (3 locos=219 feet; 100 cars=6,200 feet; total=6,419 feet)


10 cars set up



10 cars set up 10 cars set up 15 cars setting up10 cars set up


Air reduction

Air reduction

Air reduction

Air reduction

Synchronous mode (fence down). Separate operations (fence up). Both, GE

CP engineer Ken Maloney sets “dupe” AC4400CW No. 9708 (left) to the rear of intermo-dal train 102 at Coquitlam, B.C. The Locotrol screen is on the right. Trains: Mat t Van Hat tem

Locotrol hardware. Trains: Mat t Van Hat tem

KCS and BNSF power team up to pull coal loads past Noel, Mo., in 2008. Craig Wil l iams

back up with their air compressors. By keep-ing cars near the back of a train closer to a locomotive, distributed power also ensures a quicker release. This in turn reduces slack action, preventing a situation where cars near the front of a train are rolling freely while cars near the rear remain braked; these occurrences can lead to break-in-twos.

So at the physics level, distributed power offers advantages in several key arenas. But how does it work in the field?

hoW it’s oPeratedAboard a Union Pacific locomotive at

the railroad’s City of Industry, Calif., yard, Mike Iden explains how to set locomotives up for distributed power operations. Iden, the railroad’s general director of mechanical, says it takes about 30 minutes to do. Work-ing with the locomotive’s computer display on the engineer’s console, “one person pre-tests the locomotives and sets them up for distributed power when they’re still in the servicing facility,” he says. “For front and rear, it would be an ‘a’ and a ‘b’ consist. When they get in the yard, they spot the ‘b’ consist on the rear, then take the ‘a’ consist to the head end and connect the brake pipe. Once you do the brake-pipe test, you can quickly tell if it’s set up correctly or not.” Trains employing three power sets (front-middle-rear) will have an “a,” “b,” and “c” set.

How does the railroad decide where to position the remote set? UP uses a formula. “This is like a science,” Iden says. “It’s not like the old days when people sometimes guessed where to run remote units. The for-mula takes into account train length, ton-nage, types of cars, and the territory.”

The gist of it is this: It’s easier and quicker to set a train up for a front-rear configura-tion, because the train doesn’t need to be separated. But, in-train diesels enable the train to set and release its brakes more quickly [see diagram, above and on page 29].

kCs: ouaChita Mountain Masters

three regional roads run, or plan to test, Locotrol. Alaska Railroad began distributed opera-tions in 2007 to help coal trains over the mountainous Anchorage–Seward, Alaska, line, operat-ing 70-car coal trains with a front-rear 3-by-3 SD70MAC setup. Loads now operate with distribut-ed power all the way from the Usibelli mine near Healy, Alaska, to Seward and Fairbanks.

Iowa Interstate began distributed power operations with a 12-unit order for ES44ACs in 2008 [see “Locomotive,” Trains, December 2008]. Operations center on the Iowa City–Cedar Rapids, Iowa, run, where the resulting longer trains have all but eliminated the need to run ex-tras; the railroad ran 12–15 monthly until it began distributing power. The railroad also uses dis-tributed power on its main line to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Front–rear is the most common setup.

Indiana Rail Road’s 10 SD9043MACs are Locotrol-equipped, and the railroad has begun oper-ating 1-by-1 front–rear test trains from the Bear Run Mine near Dugger, Ind. — David Lustig

kansas City southern employed Locotrol beginning in late 1966 with the arrival of its first SD40s. Trains operated at 12,500 tons in a 4-by-2 arrangement between Pittsburg, Kan., and De Queen, Ark. In 1977, the railroad began operating 110-car, 14,000-ton coal trains between Kansas City and East Texas, again using a 4-by-2 setup. Eventually, manned helpers won out.

With delivery of the railroad’s first high-horsepower General Electric AC4400s in 1999, how-ever, distributed power came back for good. Today, unit coal and grain trains leave Kansas City with locomotives distributed for surmounting the grades south of Neosho, Mo., and Heavener, Okla. [see “Midwest Mountain Railroad,” Trains, September 2009].

The typical coal train comes to KCS from BNSF Railway or Union Pacific with two locomo-tives leading and one pushing. Prior to leaving Kansas City, two more locomotives are inserted after the 89th car. Distributed units are set out in Wade, Ark., south of De Queen, to work back to Kansas City on northbound trains. Configurations on grain trains vary by train length, but those headed to Mexico keep their power all the way to destination. — Fred W. Frailey


Robert LeBlanc, Canadian National’s se-nior transportation engineer, says his rail-road typically prefers front–rear setups for bulk commodity and inermodal trains less than 10,000 feet. For intermodal and bulk trains longer than 10,000 feet, CN prefers to situate the remote units in the train consist. That’s both to assist in air-brake sets and re-leases, and to minimize communication fail-ures; the farther the radio signal must travel, the more likely it is to encounter interference.

On manifest trains, CN prefers in-train distributed sets. “This is done primarily be-cause of the wide variety of car types moved on manifest trains, often with a high percent-age of cars equipped with end-of-car cush-ioned devices, which tend to amplify slack action in certain situations,” LeBlanc says.

In “extremely cold weather,” he adds, trains that normally operate with a front–rear setup switch to in-train orientations.

Whatever the arrangement, locomotive fleet makeup limts a railroad’s ability to oper-ate in distributed power mode. “Locomotive assets don’t sit around for too long,” LeBlanc says, “and it’s tough to hold back a distribut-ed power locomotive awaiting a train that won’t be ready to depart for several hours.” However, the fewer Locotrol-equipped die-sels a railroad keeps on its roster, the more

likely it’ll be forced to do just that. CN plans to have Loco-trol installed on 35 tpercent of its road fleet by year’s end, and to continue to expand its fleet.

Fortunately, not every locomotive distributed in a train needs Locotrol. The controlling unit, plus at least one die-sel in each separated

consist, must be outfitted with the hard-ware, which consists of a computer unit mounted in the nose. It also doesn’t matter which way locomotives face; you simply have to tell the computer whether a remote unit is pointing the “same” direction as the controlling unit or “opposite.”

On Canadian Pacific’s west end, railroad-ers are intimately familiar with Locotrol.

Don Gardham recalls using Locotrol 1 when he began working as a conductor out of Ka-mloops, B.C., in 1983. The control cars, he recalls, were “robot boxcars with ballast in them.” (North Electric of Galion, Ohio, in-troduced Locotrol in 1965.)

CP’s distributed power operations in this region predate Gardham’s tenure; they be-gan in the 1970s. Trains operated with four

distriButed PoWer at the Brake PiPe

the regionaL PLayers

Force against rail

Conventional train

Train with distributed power

OutwardInward

4000

4500

5000

5500

6000

Q4-09Q4-08Q4-07Q4-06

5,0715,199

5,347

5,878

Train weight* (tons)

10% improvement

*CP only

50

60

70

80

90

100

Q4-09Q4-08Q4-07Q4-06

86.9 88.8

78.7

70.1

11% improvement

Train starts (thousands)

*DM&E included in 2008 and 2009

1.000

1.125

1.250

1.375

1.500

Q4-09Q4-08Q4-07Q4-06

1.201.23

1.26

1.18

6% improvement

Fuel efficiency (U.S. galons/1,000 GTMs)

>> Find out how engineers set a train up for Locotrol at www.TrainsMag.com

A front-rear distributed power BNSF train passes the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains as the sun sets on Wellington, Colo., on Sept. 26, 2009. Scot t Lothes

Two tail-end ES44ACs shove grain past Powhatan, W.Va., in April 2010. Brent Harrison

www.TrainsMag.com 31 30 Trains SePTeMbeR 2010

summer morning, they climb aboard a three-locomotive power set and deposit AC4400CW No. 9708 at the rear of intermo-dal train 102, bound for Toronto. Workers at the Coquitlam engine terminal have already set the three units up for a 2-by-1 orienta-tion. The crew couples the two lead locomo-tives to the head of the train and, after some troubleshooting, Maloney takes a clear signal to enter the main and begin his journey.

Maloney has No. 9708 operating in “syn-chronous” mode, meaning it mimics what-ever the lead locomotives are doing. One of the two computer screens on the engineer’s desktop tells Maloney what his head-end power is doing and what his distributed power is doing. As he slides his throttle to Notch 4, the lead power set increases its load. No. 9708 follows suit, and confirmation ap-pears on the screen about 10 seconds later.

Maloney says the delay isn’t unusual in canyon country. “It varies depending on where you are,” he says. “It happens a lot more often since they put the remote on the tail end of the train rather than in the middle.

“There was a time when, if you had a loss of communication, the train would go into emergency,” Maloney says. But no more. With modern Locotrol setups, the distrib-uted units continue to operate under the last command they were given. And if Maloney doesn’t want the added power shoving from behind anymore? He makes a 15-pound air-brake set, and as soon as the reduction reaches No. 9708, it throttles back to “idle.”

Maloney will make his Coquitlam-North Bend, B.C., trip entirely in synchronous mode, so to see the alternative, we drop in on Union Pacific engineer Steve Habeck, who’s charged with taking eastbound inter-modal train LKTG1 (Lathrop, Calif., to the Global 1 intermodal yard in Chicago) across California’s Donner Pass with a 4-by-1 front–rear Locotrol arrangement. From Lathrop over the pass and starting down the

east slope to Truckee, Calif., he uses syn-chronous mode. But beyond Truckee, as his descent goes from a steady, linear drop to one more closely resembling a set of stairs, Habeck begins operating his tail-end dupe separately. With the push of a button, a green line known as “the fence” appears in the middle of his distributed power control screen. Now, Habeck can use the locomo-tive’s power throttle to control the head-end power set, while he can push buttons below the Locotrol computer screen to order the remote set to throttle up or down. The setup resembles an automated teller machine.

Habeck drops his rear unit into idle and uses the head end’s dynamic brakes to control his speed. A few minutes later, he throttles his dupe up to Notch 2, keeping the head-end power’s dynamic brakes in Notch 3.

“With the dupe pushing, it keeps the slack from going in and out,” Habeck explains.

Roseville, Calif.-based Manager of Oper-ating Practices Lonnie Dickson notes that, in years past, conventional helper operators used the same technique. Back then, how-ever, “the toughest part was trying to figure out where the head end was.” With one en-gineer now controlling both power sets, the guesswork has gone away.

distriButed FutureFor GE, the greatest opportunities to

expand Locotrol exist overseas. The com-pany has already sold Locotrol to seven countries outside North America, and it sees opportunities across the world.

“In China, we’ve gone from zero distrib-uted power units to 1,000 in three years,” GE’s Bremmer says. “We’re hoping to double that amount in another three years. Then there’s India, where they have nothing.”

But what about the U.S.? Indeed, the entire northeast quadrant of the country is practically devoid of distributed power. Norfolk Southern’s system roadforeman of

ns: taMing the PoCahontas

Qns&L: the Biggest, the heaviest

norfolk southern uses a cost-benefit approach to decide how and when to deploy distributed power, says Shannon Mason, system road foreman of engines in Atlanta. If the railroad can run a train more efficiently, saving crews and fuel over longer runs, distributed power is the choice. For this reason, the primary use is on unit coal trains — the ideal situation is a 16,000-ton coal train of 110 to 130 cars — and selected intermodal routes. NS typically has 16 unit coal trainsets op-erating with distributed power. Of 2,000 road units, only about 150, or about 7.5 percent, are set up as distributed power units, and 125 of those are General Electric Dash 9 or ES44 units. NS’s normal configuration is to run three units on the point and two on the end. Limiting NS’s use of distributed power are short hauls (average length 200 miles) and small yards, but Mason says NS will increase its use of distributed power where it makes sense. — Jim Wrinn

if any north american railroad’s daily operations prove the transformative capabilities of distributed power, it’s iron ore hauler Quebec, North Shore & Labrador. The railroad uses EMD SD70ACes, plus GE Dash 8, Dash 9, and AC4400CW diesels to move monster 240-car unit trains of ore for parent Iron Ore Co. of Canada. Trains move between mines in the Labrador City, Labrador, area, and the deepwater port of Sept-Îles, Que., on the St. Lawrence River.

QNS&L operates the behemoth trains, which weigh in at 32,000 to 34,000 tons, over its 526.2-mile route with two locomotives at the head end and a third 164 cars deep. Railroad spokesman Marcel Le Boulay says the locomotives and cars remain together throughout the trip unless a car or locomotive has to be set out for maintenance or repair.

In addition to its own trains, QNS&L uses the same arrangement to move ore trains for Wa-bush Mines. Wabush, a consortium of several steelmakers, owns the Wabush Lake Railway and the Arnaud Railway, and QNS&L serves as a bridge between the two. It picks up loaded trains from Wabush Lake at Labrador City and moves them to Arnaud Junction, Que., 8.3 miles north of Sept-Îles; Arnaud then moves the ore to its dock at Pointe-Noire, Que. Similar trains were also to start running this summer for Genesee & Wyoming’s Bloom Lake Railway, also bound for in-terchange at Arnaud Junction [see “News,” Trains, July 2010].

JOHN GODFREY is a lifelong Montrealer and former Trains correspondent with a quarter-century of experience in the railroad industry.

SD40-2s in the lead and two or three cut into the train. At the site of big climbs, ad-ditional manned units would shove on the rear. Though CP’s line follows the canyons from Vancouver to Kamloops, it’s not flat in the way that would imply. And once the can-yons are surmounted, trains must cross Rog-

ers and Kicking Horse passes, two of the nastiest mountain grades in North America.

Today’s incarnation of distributed power has greatly tamed operations over CP’s Brit-ish Columbia routes. As engineer Ken Malo-ney and conductor David Gunderson arrive at Coquitlam Yard in Vancouver at 5:40 on a

ForCe against raiL on Curve LoCotroL = Bigger trains = eFFiCienCy at Canadian PaCiFiC

>> Bonus PowerTo see video of the UP train pictured above,

plus video from the cab of a distributed power train crossing Donner Pass, go to

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Erwin, Tenn.-based CSX Roadforeman of Engines Chris Corey (left) discusses ES44AC No. 859’s distributed power controls with Trainmaster George Stevenson. Ron Flanary

On May 3, 2007, a single BNSF SD70MAC shoves on the rear of an empty coal train just north of Bill, Wyo. Tom Danneman

A UP loaded coal train with a total of six locomotives (see front cover), glides down the Front Range west of Clay, Colo. Tom Danneman

A Locotrol-operated tail-end “dupe” shoves UP containers past Dallas. Steve Schmoll inger

uP: 70 PerCent By year’s end

LoCotroL’s CoMPetitors

engines, Shannon Mason, says the shorter distances his trains operate make the setup time and logistical challenges of distribut-ed power less worthwhile.

Even UP’s Iden, a distributed power proponent, says he believes it’s a tool that’s not for use everywhere. “You cannot look at distributed power as a technology you can just plug in and use,” he says. “You have to have the right operation and the right railroad to use it properly.”

In 2010, NS and CSX officials believe only certain routes in their networks justify the expense and effort that distributed pow-er entails. The future of Locotrol in the East-ern U.S. lies in their hands.

As to the technology itself, GE contin-ues to make upgrades. In particular, it’s reconfigured some railroads’ systems to function with one another. Kansas City Southern, for example, can operate its units in concert with UP and BNSF power sets. However, interoperability remains limited between certain railroad pairs, and is nonexistent among others.

That’s also the reason GE’s Locotrol is likely to remain dominant. Though Canac (now Cattron) and Wabtec [see “Locotrol’s Competitors,” page 33] have offered dis-tributed power hardware, GE’s dominance ensures Locotrol is likely to remain the in-dustry standard. Indeed, it’s difficult to imagine a Class I railroad maintaining two fleets of distributed-power-capable diesels that can’t talk to one another.

Radio signals have their limitations, and those will continue to plague rail lines like CP’s Fraser Canyon route. Short of adding lineside repeaters, communication interrup-tions will continue to occur.

Whatever its limitations, distributed power is a powerful tool that’s caused rail-roads to rethink the limits they once placed on freight trains. To CN, it’s about running

union Pacific is ramping up its ability to run trains with distributed power. By year’s end, it plans to run distributed power on all types of road trains equipped with the technology, with just 30 percent of its gross ton-miles traveling conventionally.

Currently, UP’s fleet includes 2,832 Locotrol-equipped diesels of a total fleet of just un-der 8,000. Equipped units include all A.C.-traction General Electric-built diesels, plus all EMD SD9043MACs and all road-service SD70ACes.

UP has focused its expansion in recent years on its fleet of manifest trains, having long em-ployed the technology on bulk and intermodal trains. Bill Oates, the director of locomotive man-agement at UP’s Bailey Yard in North Platte, Neb., notes that from early 2008 to late ’09, he went from no distributed power manifest trains to 13 daily (of 20 total).

UP runs both front-rear and in-train configurations, depending on territory and tonnage. Some trains have Locotrol-equipped lead units, two separate mid-train setups, and one on the rear. Powder River Basin coal trains run with front-rear setups, while those traversing the knuckle-bust-ing “Moffat Route” west of Denver employ three separated power sets — David Lustig

general electric’s Locotrol dominates the North American distributed power market, but it’s not quite alone. Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway and Northshore Mining Co. employ a Canac- designed system that functions similarly to Locotrol.

W&LE operates trains of taconite (iron ore) and limestone with a single SD40-2 on each end using the system. For Wheeling, an engine on each end of its train enables crews to change di-rection at places like Bellevue, Ohio, where junctions necessitate such a move.

For Northshore, trains of tailings (waste rock separated from raw iron ore) shuttle seven miles from Silver Bay, Minn., to a landfill, and again, quick turnarounds are needed. Northshore typically puts an SD40-3 on each end of its tailings train.

Under the Canac system, the tail-end power always mimics what the head-end power is do-ing. If the two ends lose communication, the tail-end power will gradually throttle down to “idle.” Cattron, Canac’s successor, says it’s not actively marketing the system.

Wabtec Corp. markets its own distributed power product, but Trains was unable to find any North American operators, and the company declined to comment for this article. The only con-firmed current operator is Spoornet, on its COALink line in South Africa. — David Lustig

www.TrainsMag.com 33 32 Trains SePTeMbeR 2010

lengthy freights through 30-below-zero cold in Manitoba while keeping trainlines pres-surized. To CSX, it’s about keeping 14,000-ton coal trains at 25 mph even as they climb the Blue Ridge. To UP, it’s about a 5 percent fuel savings that adds up to staggering sums, and sending long coal trains across Colora-do where they otherwise couldn’t go.

The railroad industry has pulled itself back from the brink by gradually imple-menting practices that have enabled it to do more with less. In the first decade of the 21st century, distributed power must be seen as the dominant technological advance that’s pulling — and pushing — the railroad in-dustry toward greater efficiency. 2

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