Silver Star Consist

I've seen a couple of recent reports of the northbound Silver Star loading to 13 vehicles and departing Miami behind three locomotives. This occurred at least on Sundays 6th March and 24th April. Does anyone know if this is a regular occurrence, and if so, only on Sundays or is it likely on other days of the week? Thanks for any information.

Graeme Salt wrote: ↑Sun May 01, 2022 3:37 am I've seen a couple of recent reports of the northbound Silver Star loading to 13 vehicles and departing Miami behind three locomotives. This occurred at least on Sundays 6th March and 24th April. Does anyone know if this is a regular occurrence, and if so, only on Sundays or is it likely on other days of the week? Thanks for any information.

I think it's because the Silver Meteor and Silver Star are running as combined trains until later on in the year, but in all honesty its current consist should be the model as to what every LD train should be: five coaches, two diners (counting the Amfleet cafe car since that can be converted into a diner if necessary [that happened on my trip on the Cardinal]) and five sleepers. Most flagship passenger trains of decades past had consists just like this, so this way it offers more sleeper car and coach accomodations.

Pensyfan19 wrote: ↑Sun May 01, 2022 5:09 pm I think it's because the Silver Meteor and Silver Star are running as combined trains until later on in the year, but in all honesty its current consist should be the model as to what every LD train should be: five coaches, two diners (counting the Amfleet cafe car since that can be converted into a diner if necessary [that happened on my trip on the Cardinal]) and five sleepers. Most flagship passenger trains of decades past had consists just like this, so this way it offers more sleeper car and coach accomodations.

Makes sense, thanks. My Sunday triple-header theory is out of the window anyway; according to a contact, 92 was indeed load 13 today but just the usual pair of P42s on the front.

I think the NB Silver Star on 4/29 had an extra locomotive and 3 private cars on it and was included in the Virtual Railfans 5/1 Grab Bag.

RandallW wrote: ↑Mon May 02, 2022 4:53 am I think the NB Silver Star on 4/29 had an extra locomotive and 3 private cars on it and was included in the Virtual Railfans 5/1 Grab Bag.

That should have been 4/30 Grab Bag. I don't have the time in the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seqIwq4HLZg starting at 12:00. (I think its the Star even through we can't see the full train due to the Amfleet II equipment.)

This limit of 12 passenger cars ( forget bag ) is probably due to HEP loco limitations of 600 kWs. Now if the private cars were on a train maybe a higher HEP P-42 was available?