Pantographs

Original Lake Shore cars had one pan - when South Shore started running over IC to downtown, IC mandated two pans on new CSS equipment and this has been status quo ever since. When IC bought highliners, they ordered one pan only. Now NICTD is the only group out there with two-pan cars that I can think of - any reasons why? And any logic why trains operate with front pans up? Pre-1999 it was rear pans up, and pre-1957 it was front pans up. I never really picked up on that one.

The obvious reason for two pans per car is that if one pan gets damaged or torn off, you still have the other one to get you home.

I've never heard any good reason for the policies regarding which pan is supposed to be used.

My guess as to which pan is up, front or rear, has to do with 'equalizing' the wear on the pans on each car. So, if they always put up the front pan for a period of years, then later on, the rear pan. Remember that the cars are NEVER turned. So the #1 end of each car will forever face one direction, etc.

As for the IC(G) Highliners only having single pans, they are in married pairs. Hence, only one pan per car is needed. The CSS&SB cars are all individual cars, and thus have 2 pans, one to use, one for backup.

bratkinson wrote:My guess as to which pan is up, front or rear, has to do with 'equalizing' the wear on the pans on each car. So, if they always put up the front pan for a period of years, then later on, the rear pan. Remember that the cars are NEVER turned. So the #1 end of each car will forever face one direction, etc.

Not quite. The "front" pans in this case are those at the front of the train, determined by its direction of travel, not by the F end of the cars. To state that more clearly, these days the east pans are used on eastbound trains and the west pans are used on westbound trains. In the past it was just the opposite.

Thus, even though the cars are never turned, they spend equal amounts of time running eastbound and westbound, so both pans see equal use regardless of which one is used in which direction.

Also, pan shoes are usually replaced at least once a year and the pans themselves are occasionally replaced, so changing operating practices every 40 years has absolutely no equalizing effect.

As for the IC(G) Highliners only having single pans, they are in married pairs. Hence, only one pan per car is needed. The CSS&SB cars are all individual cars, and thus have 2 pans, one to use, one for backup.

Again, not quite. The Highliners are not married pairs; rather, they are single-ended single units. Half of them face north and half face south. Every now and then you'll see two of them running "elephant style" in a train.

Mike's right about the highliners - look closely and you'll notice not only are they not married pairs, but each car uses the single pan 100% of the time. It's likely he's right about the backup idea, but the last MU's I've seen ordered with dual pans were 1952 Pullmans for Canadian National (other than CSS that is).

And don't forget that the blind trailer 200-series coaches only have one pantograph.

Anyone who has seen pictures of the 1926 cars when they were delivered will notice they always used the front pan in the early years. Then throughout the years you would see trains using front pans and trains using rear pans, apparently for no particular rhyme or reason.

Right at delivery, the 1926 cars (first batch only) also had a trolley pole - probably for some street system. I don't think that lasted long. (see page 41 of Middleton's book)

Then it was front pans until about 1957.
Then it was rear pans until about 1998.
And now we're back to front pans.

And I think there are some pantograph gnomes laughing at me trying to figger this one out.

I think it may be about spreading the wear around, after so much use the treads would need changing.

The overhead is intentionaly staggered left to right to spread wear across the pan. If it ran right down the middle you would start grooving right into the pan.

On page 22 of Middleton's book, it shows an old Niles car with two trolley poles and a pantagraph! What was the reason for this? Also, in my tape South Shore Memories, the passenger trains are shown with rear pans up about 98% of the time, and the Little Joes with the front pans up 98% of the time. Can anyone explain this?

I don't know about the South Shore, but other lines that used pans had some unusual reasons for which pans they'd run with. On the Lackawanna's MU cars, the pan tension was weighted differently from one end of the car to the other. They'd normally run with the lower-tension pans but would run with the high-tension pans during ice storms to use for sleet cutting. The Milwaukee Road typically ran its locomotives with the front pans up - except on the bi-polars, which ran with the rear pans up. The reason for this was that on those locomotives the front and rear pans were right next to each other, and they figured that if the front pan snagged on the overhead and got ripped off the locomotive, it might take the rear pan with it!*

Frank Hicks

*Info from Noel Holly's book "The Milwaukee Electrics," which I highly recommend.

Just bought the book in KC a few weekends ago - great read.

Is the South Shore memories tape from Sunday River? If so, I used to have the tape too until I got sand in it. I think it was filmed in the mid 1970's, which means it was in the "1957-1998 back pans up" era. As far as the joes, I couldn't tell you why it was that way.

If you check the morning sun book, it has pics from different eras with the correct pans according to my above groupings.

I know of a south shore video from Green Frog, It's got a Little Joe on the cover I think. It's mostly 70's footage.

Tadman wrote:Is the South Shore memories tape from Sunday River? If so, I used to have the tape too until I got sand in it. I think it was filmed in the mid 1970's, which means it was in the "1957-1998 back pans up" era. As far as the joes, I couldn't tell you why it was that way.

I still have that tape, and it shows trains using front pans and trains using rear pans. Again, no apparent rhyme or reason.

Yes, the South Shore Memories tape is from Sunday River. It was filmed in the late 1970's, and nearly all the time that passenger cars had the rear pans up and the Little Joes had the front pans up. I have no idea why this was the case. BTW, will line car 1100 be re-equipped with its original pan?