Hey everyone! Can you help me clarify the different types of cars in the consist?
1. Locomotive
2. ?
3. ?
4. Superliner transdorm
5. Superliner Sleeper
6. Sightseer car
7. Diner car
Superliner consists?
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Hey everyone! Can you help me clarify the different types of cars in the consist?
1. Locomotive
2. ?
3. ?
4. Superliner transdorm
5. Superliner Sleeper
6. Sightseer car
7. Diner car
That is a weird consist.
Front to rear:
-3 P42 locomotives, the rear 2 elephant style, unusual for Amtrak.
-Transdorm (spotting feature: forward half window on the upper level)
-Coach (spotting feature, no half window on the lower level on the blank side of the door)
-Another transdorm (?!)
- 3 coaches. The third one appears to have a non-existant lower level window pattern
-Sightseer
-Diner
-maybe a sleeper? Small and fuzzy, may have that lower half window, hard to tell.
This is not the consist of any revenue train. I think it has to be photoshopped or an AI generated picture.
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Note that Amtrak is notorious for photoshopping together consists for publicity photos so this probably isn't a real consist.
2 and 3 are also locomotives like #1.
5 is a Superliner Coach followed by another Transdorm, 2 coaches and, I can't tell what is in front of the lounge.
6 is Sightseer Lounge
7 is a Diner
Thanks! I'm curious, how to determine how many locomotives are needed for a route? By distance? I saw some consists led by 2 locomotives.
Thanks! Is there a specific order for the consist based on safety or installation regulations? For example:
- Car 2: TranDorm
- Car 3: Coach
- Car 4: Coach
- Car 5: TranDorm
- Car 6: Sleeper
...
It’s a photoshop picture.
No need to analyze it. The lack of numbers on the locomotive, the two transdorm cars. This train set is fake.
No need to analyze it. The lack of numbers on the locomotive, the two transdorm cars. This train set is fake.
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In my experience it would be very unusual to have a transdorm in the middle of the consist as in this example. The transdorm is almost always at the front end just behind the locomotives or just behind the baggage car if there is one. If a transdorm was being hauled deadhead (out of service) it would usually be at the front of the consist and ahead of the transdorm which is in service.
Consist length/weight.
Things Amtrak appears to consider when setting consists:
- Switching where enroute switching required Empire Builder, Lake Shore Limited, Sunset/Texas Eagle are examples.
- Security of baggage cars, baggage compartments are kept locked, passengers cannot pass through them.
- No pass through passenger traffic in dorms.
- Separation of classes, minimize pass through of Coach passengers through sleepers. Diners/cafes between Coach and sleepers.
- Access to vestibules for single level cars without vestibule. Reason vestibule ends of Viewliners are always next to diners.
Typical LD Superliner consist sequence for unswitched consists is baggage, transdorm, sleepers, diner, lounge coaches. For single level, Coaches, cafe, (diner), sleepers, baggage.
Switched consists are just each constituent train's consist coupled together. Sleepers on each end.
The consist in the picture is absurd and a fake.
A deadhead additional transdorm would usually be ahead of the baggage car, between it and the locomotives.
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west point
Engineer
Number of cars on a train depends mainly on the ruling grade of a route and the max draw bar HP to that consist. A P-42 looses a lot of HP when providing HEP. The newer ALCs provide more HP to drawbar when providing HEP which is variable depending on HEP draw variations. Best examples are SW chief over Raton that used to remove 3rd loco at ABQ westbound. Or CZ which needed extra HP westbound out of DEN.
Learn a lot from all the explanations. I just saw two diesel locomotives can run together, a practice known as double heading. They're connected using electrical cables and pneumatic hoses that synchronize the engines. This technology is called Multiple-Unit (MU) control. That's cool!
MU technology has been in place pretty much since the wide introduction of diesels into service in the late 1930's/1940s.
It was a bone of contention with the unions, since double heading steam engines could not be controlled together and required an engineer and fireman in each locomotive. MU'd diesels meant lost jobs. Railroads like Santa Fe would designate strings of 4 A-B-B-A Fs as one "locomotive" to get around it.
I have never heard the term double heading used in reference to diesels, only steam. Diesel have always run in multiple units since their introduction. If you think two is a lot, railfan some freight trains. You might see seven or eight. Though these days with radio controlled distributed power, big head end locomotive lash ups are becoming rarer. These days it might be more like 2 on the head end, 2 mid-train, 2 on the rear.
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I remember riding the old Desert Wind over Cajon Pass. It only had one unit and the dispatcher often routed it up the 3% South Track. The engineer would cut the HEP on the worst of the grade to get up it. Those were F40s
Looks like the first trans/dorm and coach are deadheading.
