DM's Running on Ronkonkoma

I Was at Deer Park Today And Seen The 508 And 519

I shot a load of video and some B&W shots on film.

Did those NY bound dual modes end their trips at Jamaica or Penn Station ?

I Think it went dual mode right to Penn Station

why not...thats why they were bought...

newkirk wrote:Did those NY bound dual modes end their trips at Jamaica or Penn Station ?

They went to Penn.

I did a semi roundtrip on one(Jamaica to Farmingdale, then Farmingdale to Penn), and the way they sounded and felt(jerking etc...) It seemed they switched to diesel mode just to go over the central. Once they crossed the central they apparently went back in to E mode. It seemed when they went in to Babylon or Beth Interlocking they switched into or out of E mode as appropiate.

E mode? they shure sounded to be in D mode the whole way.

Long Island 7285 wrote:E mode? they shure sounded to be in D mode the whole way.

I'm not sure... we apparently lost HEP when they changed ends. So I assumed they were switching from E to D mode, then back at the second reversal.

I doubt very much they ran in E mode. Why would they not follow normal operating procedure today? HEP could be lost for a number of different reasons.

Here's my shot of a DM passing PineLawn NY. My gang of 5 cought the DM's at Multipule locations. A nice treat on the MainLine! That train was in Diesel Mode all right! I got 70 photo's today!



Photo taken by me! Enjoy,
-Barry

Wow! 8 cars. This is going to be some trip on Sunday.

I didn't realize that behind the 517 was a Cab car. And I got a pic too of it from KFRG. Nice Barry!

Just curious, why were the DMs running on the KO line?Was this a one time deal? Thanks in advance.

If HEP was lost at some point of the trip, it was most likely NOT because of the engines changing over to electric or vice versa. It was probably something to do with the battery in the C-3 car that you were in, or a bad connection on one of the HI-voltage cables. The DM's are AC powered so just like the M-7's, if the train hit's a gap on the third rail, the train does not lose power. The HVAC might stop for a few seconds, but the lights stay on. The transition from Electric to Diesel and vice versa is done without any notice to the pax. Upon exiting the tunnels, the engineer will have the locomotive start it's engine, the computer on the ICE will inform the engineer when the engine is ready to load, once it informs him, he turns the knob from Electric to diesel, and in a flip of a switch the engine is now diesel powered with the HEP never having to even stop for a few seconds. The same is done when changing over to electric. Also, the jerking feeling that you felt was when the DM's hit a gap on the third rail while operating in electric mode. For some reason, the speed drops sharply when the engine looses contact with the third rail, so you feel the train jerk as it looses speed and then picks it up as soon as it makes contact again. It's something similar to what Amtrak calls a GE moment with it's DM's gapping.

Also, the DE only operated on electric mode around the Harold area (eastbound trains)before changing over to Diesel, while they switched over to electric on westbounds before arriving at Jamaica. On Sunday, train 8061 was operating in excess of a 20 minute delay due to stuck brakes when having to reverse at Beth interlocking up the central Branch. Upon arrival at Jam, 8061 was canceled there, and pax were changed over to an electric for the remainder of the trip to Penn. The end result was that train 8066 originated at Jam with DM equipment with passengers changing over from an electric from Penn. Yep, things didn't run as smoothly as was expected, but we got it done. For those who missed it, next Sunday will have the same operations, so get your camera's ready.

"Just curious, why were the DMs running on the KO line?Was this a one time deal?"

A two-time deal-- construction at the Roslyn Rd xing in Mineola. Like he said, same schedule next Sunday. There's a special timetable out for the two days.