Oil Trains (RJMA / MARJ, OI-x, etc)

KSmitty wrote:The helpers are manned. Not dpu. And I assume they would be needed anyhow as there are several grades in the area. Even back in. The mec days helpers were occasionally needed through the bangor area...

Ah. My mistake. Are these at the end or in the middle?

deeptrax wrote:

KSmitty wrote:The helpers are manned. Not dpu. And I assume they would be needed anyhow as there are several grades in the area. Even back in. The mec days helpers were occasionally needed through the bangor area...

Ah. My mistake. Are these at the end or in the middle?

Knowing that PAR doesn't have any unit capable of distributed power operations and based on the description I assumed on the end. It's pretty remarkable nonetheless. Helper operations are rare in general and practically unheard of on PAR/PAS for anything more than a quick push here or there.

Just think of it this way....the railroad as built and the large diesels as operated are designed to be able to pull nearly any imaginable routine load which would usually weigh in the thousands and thousands of tons. These trains are so heavy that they overwhelm even three of the most modern AC traction diesel electric locomotives used on large Class I railroads in the U.S. today. If that doesn't tell you something about the scale of the tonnage haul I don't know what will.

Rear end helpers. Mid train would require 2 buffer cars, rear end is much quicker to add/drop the helpers and requires only 1 additional spacer car.

These trains are undeniably heavy. When CSX prefers a Rotterdam to Worcester interchange...

As info, another loaded oil train was by CPF 273 around midnight. Dist 2 told the crew they would tie it down at Wells and be taxied to Rigby. It was 100 cars, powered by 3 BNSF (all orange) units and a Pan Am SD 40-2.

Harry Gordon was in Mattawamkeag to witness BNSF power roll into town.
Shooting from the CN Brown parkinglot, he grabbed this shot --> http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?20130 ... 921076.jpg
Pan Am didn't cut the power off, so the power should run through on NBSR.

Nice shot. One of my favorite "features" of SD45s (and former SD45s) is the way that icicles form on the flared radiators.

Is this the first time that a Pan Am boxcar has been used as a buffer car on the oil train?

No sir, in fact with the exception of the first train, none of the BNSF buffers have made it to Saint John. They always put on a Pan Am box.

Thanks!

Only the middle BNSF has AC traction motors, the lead unit is a Dash-9, and the third BNSF unit is a ES44DC.

What is the purpose of switching buffer cars? Are they using it as a traveling billboard to say "Hey this is a PAN AM train"

Per a D-3 01-04-2013/0812 transmission, the LOT that had earlier gone through Gardner (more details to be posted in "Gardner Gawking") with a pair of Pumpkins, an NS, a NewBlue, three (yes, 3) Buffer Service boxes, and 96 tanks would be recrewing at Ayer Tower before continuing east. In the same transmission, D-3 referred to the Oil Train as RJMA (a first for me, at least), which makes the unit service symbolically -- in addition to actually -- an end-to-end PAR/S run.

jaymac wrote:Per a D-3 01-04-2013/0812 transmission, the LOT that had earlier gone through Gardner (more details to be posted in "Gardner Gawking") with a pair of Pumpkins, an NS, a NewBlue, three (yes, 3) Buffer Service boxes, and 96 tanks would be recrewing at Ayer Tower before continuing east. In the same transmission, D-3 referred to the Oil Train as RJMA (a first for me, at least), which makes the unit service symbolically -- in addition to actually -- an end-to-end PAR/S run.

Wow...well there you have it, after almost 30 years of combined existence it has finally happened. I've certainly never read or heard of a "system length" through train ever on the combined B&M/MEC.

Actually, I believe there were some windmill parts trains or pipe trains or somthing that ran as RJMA.

KSmitty wrote:Actually, I believe there were some windmill parts trains or pipe trains or somthing that ran as RJMA.

Interesting! I wonder if naming the trains as a regular "job" has labor implications. I would imagine that it might.