How did push-pull work with the old equipment?

Kro,

Thanks for the clarification. Larry was probably heavily involved with the nuts and bolts of physically making it happen. So someone erroneously told us it was his idea, too. (We only briefly passed through diesel territory when I was an Electrician Apprentice. Diesel equipment was, unfortunately, sort of an afterthought in the program. The program was heavily skewed to the EMU fleet.)

Tom

I always thought that the modification of the 1500's to "P" engines was a great idea. You always heard pundits complain how the engines were ruined by converting them and using them that way....I doubt the pundits cared about them in the first place.

It must have been a great time around the shops to have a free hand in what you did and have it work and work well.

167 and 172 were modified to be "P" engines, but were problematic in the "P" mode and were rarely used for this purpose. 172 was re-configured back to a traction only engine. During equipment shortages, there was talk of modifying it back to the "P" capability....I'm not sure if they ever did.

169 was definately used as a "P" engine by the way.

167 was always a P unit engine, and was never taken out of P unit status. In 1993, there was an electrical problem with 172 causing it to be a regular locomotive, and never was again used as a P unit. All engines from 161-172 were P units, but in the 80's before things really occured, 169-172 were the first 4 that were converted to P unit status.

What is a P unit exactly? I want to convert my Honda to a P unit to provide hotel power so I can camp out in it if my wife throws me out of the house. Thank you.

-Max F.

Thanks all. If I understand it right, HEP means hotel power, which means supplying electrical power, steam for heat ?, to the coaches? That means the FA's did this plus give the train controls facing west? The M-15 were not able to provide HEP till they were modified ?
Now what I don't understand is Dave shows a picture of a push-pull with a 430, they could provide HEP, right? Since the FA's were originally built to work as multible units, why not use them that way? Was having the extra traction motors that much of a headache? Why couldn't they have a FA work in series with a M-15, the FA providing HEP (as they were originally built to do, right?), traction, and controls? Is the P mod in the MP-15 basically the ability to shut off the traction motors and keep every thing else? I guess what I'm really getting at, is why go through all the hasel with the FA's, what was the advantage? Was it worth it?

I can't answer the first part of your question, but the questions "why?" and "Was it worth it?" if I remember correctly was because someone had the great idea about all the crew time they would save by not having to run the engine around the train to change direction.

Sort of like all the money they were going to realize by quickly tearing up the rails along the Manorville branch and selling them for scrap.

I remember, many times, seeing the control cab being pulled by the power unit after it had been run around the train anyway, and coupled onto the control end.

Dave Keller

The FA Push-Pull scheme worked well, not because of the crew time saved, but because it allowed the M1 fleet to take up the job being held down by steel MU cars. This allowed the MP54's, and all other standard MU cars to go to scrap, while the most modern trailers, those which did not require steam heat, could be serviced with power from the control cab. It was a shot at rapid moderninzation in Dieselized territory, and it served it's purpose beautifully. The big cost came with the re-engining the FA's with sleds and tearing out the 244's. When the ALCO C420's were retired, it signaled the end of ALCO maintainence. The FA's were not significantly impacted by this, and they had secured another 15 years of service life for fairly modern and comfortable steel coaches.

Then came the dark times, when the evil empire rose to power.

Re: why go to all the trouble with FA's. Mr. Gueck's answer seems correct and excellent, but I think the following helps. Prior to the creation of the MTA by Gov. Rockefeller, the PJ Branch was not electrified to Huntington; there were no M-1's, and off peak service in diesel territory was significantly more sporadic than it is today. The main improvements in the 1968 era were the M-1's and electrification to Hunt. This, and the evolving art and science of transit engineering, probably led management to see the potential of having "frequent", systematic off-peak service in diesel territory.

The LIRR decided to have a control stand on each end of many diesel trains. The LIRR must have considered electric heat would be better than steam heat which was the standard.

Someone must have come up with the idea of buying old cab units for combination control cabs and generators. FA's were used, partly because the LIRR was all Alco at the time, Alco equipment would not require much new training or parts for maintenance, and Alco units probably were cheaper at the time (1970).

The traction motors were not needed because traction was provided by the loco at the other end. The traction motors would have added more maintenance, and about 30,000 pounds of dead weight.

Later EMD came out with the F40 wherein the HEP power was from locomotive that provided traction. EMD and GE had few earlier models that did this, but those models were novel, and the LIRR should not be faulted for not picking the winning technology while the direction technology would go was in embryonic.

Hi,
The Railroad killed the 161-172 running them as P Units. They were not made to run constantly in the 6th notch generating power for the 2700-2800 series cars. As I said in a post a long time ago when I was a car cleaner I remember 165 being on the cannonball train 16(2710 before the yecccchhh new stuff came about)165 was always the likely candidte to provide power for the 6 Parlors 1 bar car(2833) and 7 coaches for its Friday jaunt to Montauk. Bar Car 2829 was always on train 30 (2718) that train was 1 PLr 5 coaches and 1 bar. Ahhh the good days.

The concept of the power cars originated as a discussion between managers in the LIRR M of E Dept. and Alco, back in '68 or '69. The conversions were to be an FRS project-done to the side of the main production line. Alco was supposed to source the locomotives, do all the engineering and perform the modifications. A 'back of the envelope' job.

By the time the funding was in place to do the work, Alco had left the locomotive business and closed the Schenectady plant. So, GE picked up the business. I believe the locomotives were drawn from trade-in stock-and the engineering was done at Erie. The actual work was performed by the GE Apparatus Shop (which repaired all manner of GE equipment-not just railroad) at N. Bergen, NJ.

The first six units came off the L&N and became the pattern for the rest that followed. The work to convert the locomotives to power cars was not all that involved on these six. The controls were modified to such that the engine operated at two speeds-either idle (when isolated) or notch 6 (when making 650 VDC). Much of the HV switchgear was removed, and the remaining equipment was set up to deliver power to HV couplers on the A & B ends. There was a selector switch that could supply power to either the A end, B end or both ends. Thus, the cars could be positioned anywhere with the train.

Additionally, the diesel engines were overhauled, the LIRR speed control set-up was added, the pilots were modified, the lower mounting of the various handrails was moved up about 6 inches and some other smaller modifications were performed. This was not a 'gold-plated' job by any means.

The remainder of the fleet were much more expensive to do-as much of the control equipment had to be replaced so that they would be indentical to the first six electrically.

Sorry to resurrect this nearly year-old thread, but I wouldn't want to catch heat for starting a new thread on something we already have one for. Anyways, I was just wondering if anyone could provide the approximate dates of P-unit service. I know we already have this info

The "temporary" mod lasted more than 10 years

but I was hoping someone could give some more exact dates. Thanks all.

All I know is that as a Yardmaster what I was looking for was reliabilty. And the P170-171 and 172 were great. I would always prefer to see them on the train rather than the 600 power packs.

The LIRR used to say that they "invented" the push/pull idea. Is that right Master Dave?

While I was told at the time by an old LIRR veteran conductor (long since passed on) that the LIRR didn't invent the concept of "Push-Pull" (can't recall at this point which railroad did) they certainly were the only ones that I know of in "recent" times to have used it so long and to excellent advantage and it seemed to serve their needs just fine!

They also managed to keep the older passenger cars around much longer as a result! (and railfans got to photograph the resurrected FA units as well!)

Dave

BMC wrote:The LIRR used to say that they "invented" the push/pull idea. Is that right Master Dave?

It's basically true; the LIRR did invent the P-unit idea and as far as I know no other railroad has ever done the same. I am actually researching this very topic, which is why the precise dates would be helpful. The guys at EMD told the LIRR that doing something like this would be impossible, but alas, they did it. I think the slightly more technical explnation is somewhere in this thread, so I won't repeat it.

No, LIRR did not invent the "push-pull" concept. I believe that title can be safely given to the CNW as early as 1960.
Purchasing FAs for hotel power makes excellent sense. No traction motors to maintain, the shop forces have extensive background in repairing Alco engines and generators, and you have this big honking locomotive to intimidate cars a rail crossings, and best of all, CHEAP power!. Imagine an M1 set hitting what ever it was that destroyed that FA!

I can see why extended use of an MP-15 in "P" mode would cause engine damage or excessive wear. Those twelve cylinder engines had a bazaar firing sequence and caused lots of harmonic vibrations in the crankshaft when operated at less than full RPM. Also, diesel engines do not fair well when running at prolonged periods of light loading. They tend to glaze liners and load the airbox up with oil, causing oil to puke out the stack. On GE engines, same thing, glazed liners, but the intake ports tend to build up heavy carbon. Amtrak experienced this with the GEs not running at 1050RPM when in hotel mode.

Just my .02¢ worthe, but then what do I know?