Cannonball to operate out of Penn Station.

onorclose7 wrote:They don't have any extra cars to do that, even if they wanted to. And for some reason, they refuse to buy or lease any. A railroad run by bean counters, not railroad people

Do to the way the C3 cars are designed (36 point jumpers compared to the industry standard 27 point jumpers), there is NO WAY to add any other cars to a DE/DM train set other then more C3 cars. No leased cars, no borrowed cars, no nothing. C3 cars and that is it. It was tried years ago with Amtrak Amfleet cars and DE/DM locomotives for a proposed Amtrak through service to the Hampton's and Montauk and it did not work for a variety of reasons.

So, as much as I hate to say it, the bean counters here, as far as leasing or borrowing equipment are concerned, are correct.

LIengineerBob wrote:

LRail wrote:I just read on the LIRR website that the Cannonball is sold out for the remainder of the season. I was just wondering if the railroad is restricted to just 12 cars on the train or could they increase the size to 14 cars, with a total of 4 Reserved Cars. The old Cannonball with the Sunrise Fleet cars had 8 coaches and 6 parlors if I remember correctly. It's obvious that the reserved seating is popular.

The maximum number of cars that can be reliably fed HEP is 12 cars from the DE/DM locomotive and you will need a pair of them to do so. That is also the maximum number of cars that can be reliable pulled by the pair is 12 cars. Adding an extra engine won't help the HEP situation any as one might think, but it would help the power problem. That is why you would rarely ever see anything more then a 12 car set running anyplace.

Place a mid-train helper, like freight trains do, and split the train in two. The front half would a be a vomit comet slip and slide express and the rear half would be the hampton reserve socialite shuttle. Problem solved! How come I'm not running the railroad?

[/sarcasm]

awtprod wrote:

LIengineerBob wrote:

LRail wrote:I just read on the LIRR website that the Cannonball is sold out for the remainder of the season. I was just wondering if the railroad is restricted to just 12 cars on the train or could they increase the size to 14 cars, with a total of 4 Reserved Cars. The old Cannonball with the Sunrise Fleet cars had 8 coaches and 6 parlors if I remember correctly. It's obvious that the reserved seating is popular.

The maximum number of cars that can be reliably fed HEP is 12 cars from the DE/DM locomotive and you will need a pair of them to do so. That is also the maximum number of cars that can be reliable pulled by the pair is 12 cars. Adding an extra engine won't help the HEP situation any as one might think, but it would help the power problem. That is why you would rarely ever see anything more then a 12 car set running anyplace.

Place a mid-train helper, like freight trains do, and split the train in two. The front half would a be a vomit comet slip and slide express and the rear half would be the hampton reserve socialite shuttle. Problem solved! How come I'm not running the railroad?

[/sarcasm]

Yeah, and they could be called first class and steerage!!

LIengineerBob wrote:

LRail wrote:I just read on the LIRR website that the Cannonball is sold out for the remainder of the season. I was just wondering if the railroad is restricted to just 12 cars on the train or could they increase the size to 14 cars, with a total of 4 Reserved Cars. The old Cannonball with the Sunrise Fleet cars had 8 coaches and 6 parlors if I remember correctly. It's obvious that the reserved seating is popular.

The maximum number of cars that can be reliably fed HEP is 12 cars from the DE/DM locomotive and you will need a pair of them to do so. That is also the maximum number of cars that can be reliable pulled by the pair is 12 cars. Adding an extra engine won't help the HEP situation any as one might think, but it would help the power problem. That is why you would rarely ever see anything more then a 12 car set running anyplace.

In other words, a single DM or DE locomotive can't supply HEP to more than six cars. That's not very much. Just curious, with six cars, with the A/C on max, how much horsepower is left for traction from the 3,000hp prime mover?
Maybe they should have gone for a more powerful engine, but it's a bit late now.

Even Metro-North's P32's can barley keep up with 7 cars these days.

Most of MNR/CDOT P-32dm's have been overhauled to make the EPA happy,that killed off some of
the horse power for traction/HEP inverters, so now 7 cars is now "a bit" too much to hande.
Believe the DE/DM's were "underpowered" from the get go.

A single DE30 can handle more than 6 cars. It's the RR's norm though to limit single engine trains to 6 cars as the HEP load would effect keeping the schedule. In the past single engine 7 car trains have existed.

Now that the Cannonball departs from Penn Station (underground), does this pose a major threat to long-term hearing loss for the passengers in Penn Station since the locomotives are quite loud?!

Thomas wrote:Now that the Cannonball departs from Penn Station (underground), does this pose a major threat to long-term hearing loss for the passengers in Penn Station since the locomotives are quite loud?!

No, since this isn't the first dual mode train into Penn.

Thomas wrote:Now that the Cannonball departs from Penn Station (underground), does this pose a major threat to long-term hearing loss for the passengers in Penn Station since the locomotives are quite loud?!

?????

I'm sure the small amount of time it takes a person to get from the staircase to the closest possible door will not adversely effect their hearing. And the DM's aren't even that loud in E mode...

Dual Modes have been operating into Penn Station for over two decades and into Grand Central for much longer.

What is the train number for the East bound Cannonball and what time is it expected to pass Valley Stream?

2798 and roughly 4:37pm (that's just an estimate on my part—I don't have an official ETT)

Good guess. 4:37pm is correct.

Does it ever run via the Central? Didn't it often in the past? I'm talking near and distant past here.

When will the LIRR replace these DM Locomotives?