NS, CP, and UP foreign power on Guilford?

NellsChoo wrote:But are the crews always Guilford/PanAm, despite the road name on the engines?

Yes. No foreign crew operate on Guilford from Mechanicville heading east, Worcester heading east and outside Gardner yard. All the coal trains and MOED trains and the link are pure Guilford crews. P&W hands their trains off to Guilford crews at Garnder or Worcester, CSX at Worcester and NS and CP at Mohawk (or nearby).

As for CSX power in Rigby or anywhere east. As has been seen, long gone. CSX will not allow there power to go past North Chelmsford for any reason nor west of Ayer. There locomotives have GPS tracking and they know where they are at all times. If the locomotives are moved outside those limits, CSX shuts them down. NS does not have satellite tracking on their units so Guilford gets a little more use out of them.

Just a little more on foreign units...

True, all "modern" locomotives are basically the same, except for minor differences in options installed by each railroad.

One time I had the chance to run my company's trains over another, using our locomotives and crews with the foreign railroad supplying an Engineer Pilot to guide us over the foreign track. Due to the track layout where we interchanged, it required the locomotives run around the train to be on the head end when we started our trip over the foreign railorad. The "interesting" part was the foreign road didn't own/operate AC traction locomotives; they only ran DC Traction EMD's. Our Engineer Pilot was quite surprised and "confused" by the computer screens our units had, and couldn't figure out how to properly set up the units to change direction. It was no problem since we were aboard the train and showed him how it was done. In addition, the foreign road's Pilot never saw tractive effort displayed in thousand pound increments, so I "translated" AC tractive effort into DC Amperes for him.

Had we not been there, the foreign crew would've had trouble changing operating ends, leading to delays while "their people called our people" to find out the correct sequence for changing ends and configuring the consist properly.

Unlike aircraft, locomotives do not have operating manuals on board to assist crews with their operation. Other than a unique situation like the one I experienced above, locomotive operation is standard. Class 1 Engineers are trained to operate everything that's out there, including old air brake systems found on very old locomotives like ALCo's. But since those occurences are very rare and simply not done, I'd be "challenged" to run a train that had old #6 air brakes ... LOL! On the flip side of that coin, the Engineer on the 12 mile Ma & Pa Central who runs a lone SW 7 all year long would have a hard time running a pair of brand new GEVO's.

Pan Am crews, while their locomotive roster is somewhat older, are very familiar with "the new stuff" that comes through via run through power, and have little, or no, problems using the computer screens.

Post Script: I personally would like to see the AAR and FRA come up with a "standard" layout for computer screens. Unlike the standard AAR control stand found in every EMD and GE unit with air brake gauges and Ammeters, computer generated displays don't have a standard layout. The displays vary from railroad to railroad, and there's differences between EMD's and GE's displays. So, even on your own railroad's locomotives, you have to "search" the computer screen to "find" the "Equalizing Reservoir" indication. However, on an SD40, whether it's CSX, PAR, UP, or FURX, the Equalizing Reservoir will always be the white needle on the gauge closest to you...

NV290 wrote:

NellsChoo wrote:But are the crews always Guilford/PanAm, despite the road name on the engines?

Yes. No foreign crew operate on Guilford from Mechanicville heading east, Worcester heading east and outside Gardner yard. All the coal trains and MOED trains and the link are pure Guilford crews. P&W hands their trains off to Guilford crews at Garnder or Worcester, CSX at Worcester and NS and CP at Mohawk (or nearby).

As for CSX power in Rigby or anywhere east. As has been seen, long gone. CSX will not allow there power to go past North Chelmsford for any reason nor west of Ayer. There locomotives have GPS tracking and they know where they are at all times. If the locomotives are moved outside those limits, CSX shuts them down. NS does not have satellite tracking on their units so Guilford gets a little more use out of them.

The auto-rack trains had CSX crews as far as the Hill Yard in Ayer when those were operating. They would arrive with a loaded train and then pick up an empty and head back to Worcester; or at least that's how it was supposed to work. Actually the CSX crews on the eastbounds work about a mile and a half onto Pan Am rails when they tie down the Q426 at Burncoat Street, but that's just to clear the P&W. They no longer go any further east.

NV290 wrote:

NellsChoo wrote:But are the crews always Guilford/PanAm, despite the road name on the engines?

Yes. No foreign crew operate on Guilford from Mechanicville heading east, Worcester heading east and outside Gardner yard. All the coal trains and MOED trains and the link are pure Guilford crews. P&W hands their trains off to Guilford crews at Garnder or Worcester, CSX at Worcester and NS and CP at Mohawk (or nearby).

As for CSX power in Rigby or anywhere east. As has been seen, long gone. CSX will not allow there power to go past North Chelmsford for any reason nor west of Ayer. There locomotives have GPS tracking and they know where they are at all times. If the locomotives are moved outside those limits, CSX shuts them down. NS does not have satellite tracking on their units so Guilford gets a little more use out of them.

It's called Guilford being too cheap to ever buy their own new power. They just buy old tired ones. Good at one time, but tired as hell by the time it reached G. Instead, "borrow" someone elses and do minimum maintenance and fuel refills. Why not let the foreign power go through to Bow? Have new, reliable third generation locomotives instead of using their own, unreliable circus of four-axle stuff. Over all these years, though, you'd think having your own power would pay off in the long run. However, it IS Guilford, not exactly the rail industy's top whiz of finance.

This is NOT to be taken as anul retentiveness, but CP crews do actually go onto D4 as far as Ferry Street/Hemstreet Park for coal drags. I often see posts of CP crews out of Binghamton, for coal, tieing down at Ferry Street nowadays. Why they call that Ferry Street at all is weird since that road is on the Mechanicville side of the Hudson. Hemstreet Park is on the east side in Schaghticoke.

You can also see CP's old SCR locals from Saratoga manned by CP crews. Unfortunately, can't think of the newer symbol for that job now. CP has trackage rights to serve the Battenkill interchange in Eagle Bridge, and their crews go all the way east for that. A very cool operation just for a once-weekly meet most of the time!

As far as CP POWER on MOED and EDMO, there have been countless times that CP has pulled their units at Mohawk for a spell after Guilford would sneak the power east of Deerfield time after time. For instance, G even had a CP SD working the local AY-1 one time! DUH! Like nobody would see and post that! A couple years back, those involved tried pooling CSX power through Rotterdam on SEED and EDRJ. I think that lasted about 2-3 months. With all the crap G has pulled with foreign power over the years, I'm real surprised some roads keep letting them have more chances.

J Bray

calaisbranch wrote:

NV290 wrote:

NellsChoo wrote:But are the crews always Guilford/PanAm, despite the road name on the engines?

Yes. No foreign crew operate on Guilford from Mechanicville heading east, Worcester heading east and outside Gardner yard. All the coal trains and MOED trains and the link are pure Guilford crews. P&W hands their trains off to Guilford crews at Garnder or Worcester, CSX at Worcester and NS and CP at Mohawk (or nearby).

As for CSX power in Rigby or anywhere east. As has been seen, long gone. CSX will not allow there power to go past North Chelmsford for any reason nor west of Ayer. There locomotives have GPS tracking and they know where they are at all times. If the locomotives are moved outside those limits, CSX shuts them down. NS does not have satellite tracking on their units so Guilford gets a little more use out of them.

It's called Guilford being too cheap to ever buy their own new power. They just buy old tired ones. Good at one time, but tired as hell by the time it reached G. Instead, "borrow" someone elses and do minimum maintenance and fuel refills. Why not let the foreign power go through to Bow? Have new, reliable third generation locomotives instead of using their own, unreliable circus of four-axle stuff. Over all these years, though, you'd think having your own power would pay off in the long run. However, it IS Guilford, not exactly the rail industy's top whiz of finance.

Guilford perfected the art of buying cheap power that noone wants and running into the ground. Until recently this purchasing theory worked very well. It is overall much cheaper to buy a semi-junk unit, piece it together for a few years and then scrap it versus dropping the cash for new units. Add in a few borrowed units and your overall cost is much cheaper. Remember that Guilford doesn't seem to be concerned with customer satisfaction or scheduling. Guilford has always been able to squeeze the most money out of cheap equipment and system.

Those GP40-2Ws that G got from CN are pretty sound units. Like a lot of their power, these units were well maintained on their original home roads. They're just tired as hell. From a photo standpoint, I have LOVED some of the oddball power G has had over the years. Where else could you get SD26s, SD39s and SD45s on the same railroad in the modern world? The subject of old-to-new power saving money wasn't really my main point anyway. It would just be nice if G could get ENOUGH eclectic power one of these days to keep from having trains "die on the main" so often.

For the most part, the bit about G being low on the pole for customer service is so true. It's funny though, because they seem to be damn good in certain places. I'm thinking of the Bucksport jobs and out in D4 on the North Adams Branch. Yeah, the track sucks, but that another subject. I just figured I bash them enough without going into big detail on that!

J Bray

emd_16645 wrote:Guilford perfected the art of buying cheap power that noone wants and running into the ground. Until recently this purchasing theory worked very well. It is overall much cheaper to buy a semi-junk unit, piece it together for a few years and then scrap it versus dropping the cash for new units.

Heh...sounds like my strategy for owning a car. I have never owned a car whose purchase price was more than a year's worth of insurance for it. And I have an excellent (step 9) driving record.

I don't think they actually run the units "into the ground", but instead keep them running until they suffer a catastrophic failure, determine whether the unit is salvageable, and if it is, restore it to operating condition and put it back in service. Many of the six-packs seem to have gone through this cycle a number of times. Most of the roster has been in Guilford/ Pan Am service for a long time now.

cpf354 wrote:I don't think they actually run the units "into the ground", but instead keep them running until they suffer a catastrophic failure, determine whether the unit is salvageable, and if it is, restore it to operating condition and put it back in service. Many of the six-packs seem to have gone through this cycle a number of times. Most of the roster has been in Guilford/ Pan Am service for a long time now.

How they have operated on late is not the same as a few years back. This is due to significant increase in the cost of locomotives, which could be attributed to the development of the hybrid/gen set locomotive. With this increase in locomotive cost, Guilford has been forced to rebuild units a few years ago they would have cut up. This has resulted in the same roster staying in service. Guilford has rostered 470 units since taking over the MEC in 1981.

cpf354 wrote: Guilford has rostered 470 units since taking over the MEC in 1981.

Notice the irony in that sentence!
-Alan-

emd_16645 wrote:

cpf354 wrote:I don't think they actually run the units "into the ground", but instead keep them running until they suffer a catastrophic failure, determine whether the unit is salvageable, and if it is, restore it to operating condition and put it back in service. Many of the six-packs seem to have gone through this cycle a number of times. Most of the roster has been in Guilford/ Pan Am service for a long time now.

How they have operated on late is not the same as a few years back. This is due to significant increase in the cost of locomotives, which could be attributed to the development of the hybrid/gen set locomotive. With this increase in locomotive cost, Guilford has been forced to rebuild units a few years ago they would have cut up. This has resulted in the same roster staying in service. Guilford has rostered 470 units since taking over the MEC in 1981.

They used to run through the so called "eclectic" power, mostly six axle stuff, and then in the 1990's picked up a lot of GP 40s' from CR and NS. The GP 40 has become the standard of the fleet, which has helped stabilize it. The 40s that are too far gone are simply used for spare parts. I would have thought that by now the surviving SD 45, the SD 26s' and the SD 39 would be gone or cut up, but as you say, new power is too expensive. I've often wondered why they never lease power. Must be some financial reason for that. All this being said, even when in operating condition, many of the units are in a precarious state!