12 cars 10 m-3's

Today playing mini golf at heartland in deer park a train stoped and it was 12 cars but one thing was 10 of them were m-3's i thought only 4 m-3's can be runed in one conesit

At one time, large complete M-3 consists were not allowed to be opertated due to the overloading of the wayside sub-stations. That no longer applies, so any amount (up to 14 cars) can be operated in the same train.

on a side note, this past sunday, I worked trains 7726 and 1603 which had a consist of 12 M-7s. That was actually the first time that I have been a brakeman on a 12 car M-7. I was begining to think that 12 car M-7s were going to overload the sub-stations since all I have seen until this past Sunday were a maximum of 10 cars. If we were the Guinea Pigs, well I'll tell you, everything worked pretty good for the most part on that trip.

mark777,

On paper, the M-7 is designed to run up to 14 car consists without tripping a substation. The communication network tells each car to limit it's current draw to 875 amps maximum. (The whole thing is detailed in one of these threads in this LIRR forum.) 14 times 875 = 12,250 amps. I believe, but am not positive, that the average LIRR substation circuit is breakered at 12,500 amps. I am definitely open to being corrected on that by someone who is in the know.
If a car cannot communicate with the network, the car's current draw is supposed to default to 1040 amps maximum.

Hopefully, an improvement in this regard over the early days of the M-3.

Tom

well for starters you'll never see an MU train with 14 cars, what a nightmare that would be. It wouldn't even fit at most stations. I actually heard though that with some engineers, by placing the M-7 throttle into max power at start up spped can cause it to exceed the amperage of the sub stations. Don't know if thats true, but like I said before, not too many poeple have seen or worked on a 12 car M-7.

mark777,

you'll never see an MU train with 14 cars

I know the LIRR runs max 12 car MU consists. The M-7 is designed to run up to 14...it's simply a factual statement.
And you'll see I always say "On paper", or "supposedly", etc. , when discussing the equipment specifications.
I know the equipment does things it's not supposed to do.
I've certainly seen my share of things that "cannot happen":
Doors open at 80 mph; R-1 crew door opens when you turn on the headlights; cars sitting in the yard drawing propulsion power with no PKO, PIR, or brake pipe; etc., etc, etc.

If you tell me M-7s are tripping substations, I do believe you. They're just not "supposed" to.

Tom

mark777/N340SG: Do you know if its true that both Bellmore and Hicksville are 14 car platforms? Do you know of any others that are?

N340SG wrote:mark777,

you'll never see an MU train with 14 cars

I know the LIRR runs max 12 car MU consists. The M-7 is designed to run up to 14...it's simply a factual statement.
And you'll see I always say "On paper", or "supposedly", etc. , when discussing the equipment specifications.
I know the equipment does things it's not supposed to do.
I've certainly seen my share of things that "cannot happen":
Doors open at 80 mph; R-1 crew door opens when you turn on the headlights; cars sitting in the yard drawing propulsion power with no PKO, PIR, or brake pipe; etc., etc, etc.

If you tell me M-7s are tripping substations, I do believe you. They're just not "supposed" to.

Tom

Islesfan,

Gotta leave that one for transportation dept. people. I don't have that info. Sorry.

Tom