Single-end stations at midpoints

It was slightly quicker back when the Springfield section was made up as SPV-2000's,Starting with the HEP engine startup,
then getting the 2 main engines started for traction power. This was back in the late '70's-early '80's.

Backshophoss wrote:It was slightly quicker back when the Springfield section was made up as SPV-2000's,Starting with the HEP engine startup, then getting the 2 main engines started for traction power. This was back in the late 70's-early 80's.

Springfield service was a shuttle then? I can't see SPVs in an Amfleet consist.

SPV-2000 cars were built to be part of Amfleet trains on the NorthEast corridor, to reduce the delay while splitting and combining trains at New Haven. In 1982, I did ride one of those cars being towed on the rear of a train to Boston. It was uncoupled at New Haven and went to Springfield, Mass under its own power.

JimBoylan wrote:SPV-2000 cars were built to be part of Amfleet trains on the NorthEast corridor, to reduce the delay while splitting and combining trains at New Haven. In 1982, I did ride one of those cars being towed on the rear of a train to Boston. It was uncoupled at New Haven and went to Springfield, Mass under its own power.

I have an old Amtrak national timetable dated January 8, 1978. The trains between New Haven and Springfield are listed with a symbol described as "self-propelled Rail Diesel Car". Did Amtrak run RDC's? Or were these cars SPV's?

The 1978 timetable shows a lot of trains that no longer run, including connecting services run by the Rio Grande, Southern, and Rock Island railroads. There was also connecting service to Mexico City from El Paso, and a transcontinental New York-Los Angeles sleeping car that ran via the Southern Crescent and the Sunset Limited.

Amtrak used RDC's and SPV-2000's on the Springfield shuttles,ConnDOT ordered the SPV's for the few remaining thru connecting
trains that had a Springfield section,they were able to be "plugged in" to the HEP of the train from Boston.

cobra30689 wrote:

Hawaiitiki wrote:
Also, another thing that European railroads are more comfortable doing is splitting trains mid-journey fairly seamlessly. (e.g. Coaches 1-5 go to XXX, coaches 6-8 go to YYY). I know sort of off-topic, but is there anywhere in the United States where this goes on?...seamlessly. I don't mean a 30-45 min operation. I mean 2 - 7 minutes. I know this used to go on in what is now NJT territory when coupling coaches was a lot less complicated.

Not anymore, and you are correct about NJT territory.....specifically the M&E where trains were split/combined at Summit, to/from Dover and Gladstone. The Arrow MU couplers were designed for this very thing in mind, but along with the now-defunct 6-7 minute engine change at South Amboy, FRA air brake regulations (and the tests that go along with them) make the process much more time consuming.

About this... we had the same add/drop cars at Michigan City for 80 years. The FRA's new rules stopped it. Do we know of any actual accidents that inspired this rule, or was it just gov't functionaries protecting ourselves from ourselves? I am not aware of any such incidents. Somehow those dastardly Canadian Daredevils live on the edge, splitting up consists on the fly, running over 79mph with no cab signals,and - shocker of all shockers - operating diner cars without fully affixed chairs (don't want to tip over mid-salad, might spill my Paul Newman's low-fart Italian dressing on my pleated dockers and sensible shoes!!!)



I am at a loss for how the Canadians move trains without the benevolent watchful uncle of the FRA.

Tadman wrote: I am at a loss for how the Canadians move trains without the benevolent watchful uncle of the FRA.

I've long suspected the FRA rules were set up deliberately to discourage passenger rail service by making it as unprofitable and inconvenient as possible.Otherwise, they make no sense at all in a world where non-FRA-compliant passenger trains have been criss-crossing Europe and Asia every day for decades with hardly an incident.

Does Amtrak even have enough spare power to be swapping ends at midpoints and avoid backup moves? I'd think not...

There have been a number of posts in various forums on the subject of FRA-required closing and opening doors and traps on commuter trains between local stations, pointing out the many years that suburban trains, especially in North Jersey, operated without any doors at all (how did we get through it?). To me it seems like overkill by people who don't as a matter of course ride trains very much.

charlesriverbranch wrote:

Tadman wrote: I am at a loss for how the Canadians move trains without the benevolent watchful uncle of the FRA.

I've long suspected the FRA rules were set up deliberately to discourage passenger rail service by making it as unprofitable and inconvenient as possible.Otherwise, they make no sense at all in a world where non-FRA-compliant passenger trains have been criss-crossing Europe and Asia every day for decades with hardly an incident.

Messrs. Charles River and Dunville, we have had discussion around here of Chase v. Eschede. I suppose the discussion should be updated to Eschede v. Frankford.

True, the lead car at Frankford was shredded - and that is where the fatalities occurred.

Now allow me to note that I've been "going over" annually since '14, and I've likely ridden some 2000 miles on DB and OBB (not railfan joyrides, but just to get from Ehh to Bee). Even when the OBB Railjet is moving along at 240k, and with grade X-ings on the route, I worry not.

However, their grade-crossing protection is much more risk-averse than anything U. S. motorists would tolerate. Normally the gates are interlocked with the signaling so that a block signal and its associated distant cannot be cleared until the gates are down, resulting in the passage of several minutes before a train appears (and immediately disappears in a blur). There's also a wayside signal giving the engineer a positive indication that the gates are down (as on the RiverLINE and the Chicago L). If we ever tried that over here we'd have to have 4-quadrant gates and lane separators for sure, and some clown would still tire of waiting and find a way to foul the crossing. None of the above, of course, does anything to prevent a future Eschede, nor would PTC, for that matter.

ExCon90 wrote:However, their grade-crossing protection is much more risk-averse than anything U. S. motorists would tolerate. Normally the gates are interlocked with the signaling so that a block signal and its associated distant cannot be cleared until the gates are down, resulting in the passage of several minutes before a train appears (and immediately disappears in a blur). There's also a wayside signal giving the engineer a positive indication that the gates are down (as on the RiverLINE and the Chicago L). If we ever tried that over here we'd have to have 4-quadrant gates and lane separators for sure, and some clown would still tire of waiting and find a way to foul the crossing. None of the above, of course, does anything to prevent a future Eschede, nor would PTC, for that matter.

Shorter blocks and higher speeds over there (on average) keep the wait time down too. More 4-quadrant gates would be a great help regardless, and I hope the FRA, AAR, and OLI push that safety initiative.

I suspect that there's probably also less of a liability concern internationally for railroads for death/injury caused to trespassers and others who ignore grade crossing protection...

Our legal system perversely rewards those willingly who ignore laws.

In the UK changing ends en route is quite common, and is facilitated by most, possibly all, passenger consists being double-ended: MUs, power cars at each end or a locomotive at one end and a driving trailer (as we call cab cars) at the other. As British coaching stock was traditionally compartmented with seats facing each other most people don't care about direction of travel, even after most rolling stock switched to American-style open saloons in the 20th century, so UK passenger cars all have a mixture of seats facing in either direction, with some facing each other with a table in between.

But an "interesting" side-effect of the facing seats legacy from compartmented stock was that where seats faced each other at a table the seat numbers would be duplicated on each face and sub-divided as "Backwards" and "Forwards", so you could have seats "01F" and "02F" on one side of the table, with "01B" and "02B" on the other. (Non-table seats would be designated "Airline" so across the aisle you might have seats "03A" and "04A".) The seat numbers on the seats would only say "01" and "02", on both sides of the table, and would only be differentiated by printed tickets tucked into the seat backs like American seat checks, and these would frequently go missing or not even be set out in the first place...

You could imagine the confusion with inexperienced passengers not understanding the difference between "F", "B" and "A", coupled with the cars also being designated by letters, which meant that people often misread the ""F", "B" and "A" on the seat tickets as the car letter. Add to that the fun and games if a passenger boarded on a sector after the train having changed ends which meant all the "F" seats would now be facing "B" and vice versa. On a route I travelled quite frequently in the early 90s, the train would change direction twice, so many times I had to explain to people that I wasn't sitting in their seat, even if they thought they'd reserved a forward-facing seat.

A lot of newer UK stock now has electronic seat reservation systems with every seat in a car having a unique number. I've been living in the US for nearly seven years now and I haven't travelled on the older stock that doesn't have electronic reservations in well over a decade. I hope the operators that still have such stock have abandoned the "F" and "B" seats malarky, but knowing Britain, they probably haven't!

VIA has started running some Corridor consists double ended, rationale is to avoid backing moves at Quebec City, apparently.