PAR Business Train (ST 100, 101, 102 & 103; PAR 1 & 2)

MEC407 wrote:A single FP9, at 1,750 HP (or 1,800 if it has been uprated)

Going by one of my conversations with Rudy Hood while laying over at Crawford's, he told me the engines were 1,750 hp each (not to mention they usually mention that in the narration when the narrator introduces the crew and the days motive power.)

shadyjay wrote:Who would've guessed that two vintage F units from a tourist railroad would go to Pan-Am for service on their business train? Wow - the paint job looks awesome! Since they're the queens of the fleet, hopefully they'll be well taken care of. Always nice to see Fs running around! I mean, this pic right here just shows class... http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... age=5&key=

Now for the dream - if they REALLY want to improve their public image, get a few more passenger cars and run some fantrips. Yeah I know the chances of that happening are slim to none, but stranger things can (and have) happened before, and with Pan-Am, you just never know!

With regard to fantrips, I think it is possible sometime in the future. The management of Guilford before the strike in the
early to mid 80's was quite receptive to fantrips even using their executive train cars on some of them. I rode one trip
from Boston to Bangor and return going by the Back Road and returning via the Lower Road. The people on this trip were
fantastic in my book. They ran some other good trips but it was just too far from home for me to go on them.
I don't think you will see trips on branch lines with 10 MPH track but a trip over the Boston & Maine east/west mainline would
attract a lot of attention and riders in my opinion.
At this point I would say that trips are a definate maybe.
Noel Weaver

Regardless of whether they have an FP9 pulling their business train or a 4-8-4, it is just image. Until the crews aren't waiting for 4 hours in the trailer at East Deerfield for power to head out onto the mainline at 10 MPH it doesn't really mean squat... there is still a lot of work to be done, and it starts with house cleaning in Billerica. The NS is really trying to grow their business up here but they are getting stonewalled. Recently they offered to give PAR 20 Telemetry boxes that are now surplus because all of the NS units come with them - PAR didn't want them because "they would have to rewire the engines and they wouldn't be portable anymore". Every unit that runs west of Ayer should have a box, there is no excuse for this.

They are definitely growing traffic - racks to Ayer and Gardner, new interchange at Miller's Falls, steel to CT, Battenkill - but service is as poor as ever outside of the intermodal and things need to improve.

newpylong wrote:Regardless of whether they have an FP9 pulling their business train or a 4-8-4, it is just image. Until the crews aren't waiting for 4 hours in the trailer at East Deerfield for power to head out onto the mainline at 10 MPH it doesn't really mean squat... there is still a lot of work to be done, and it starts with house cleaning in Billerica. The NS is really trying to grow their business up here but they are getting stonewalled. Recently they offered to give PAR 20 Telemetry boxes that are now surplus because all of the NS units come with them - PAR didn't want them because "they would have to rewire the engines and they wouldn't be portable anymore". Every unit that runs west of Ayer should have a box, there is no excuse for this.

They are definitely growing traffic - racks to Ayer and Gardner, new interchange at Miller's Falls, steel to CT, Battenkill - but service is as poor as ever outside of the intermodal and things need to improve.

At one time the NS telemetry box (RE and HE) used a different frequency than all of the other railroads did. Maybe the boxes offered were of the oddball frequency. Why should any railroad want them when they are not the industry standard?
Noel Weaver

Please excuse my lack of knowledge, but having never run a locomotive, I don't know what a telemetry box is, can someone explain?

Noel Weaver wrote:
At one time the NS telemetry box (RE and HE) used a different frequency than all of the other railroads did. Maybe the boxes offered were of the oddball frequency. Why should any railroad want them when they are not the industry standard?
Noel Weaver

No, these are the same now. One of the MEC units that recently came back from paying off Horsepower hours has one installed.

KSmitty wrote:Please excuse my lack of knowledge, but having never run a locomotive, I don't know what a telemetry box is, can someone explain?

Kevin, it is a box in the locomotive that talks to the end of train (EOT) device. You basically plug the EOT's # in the head-end box (the telemetry box) and then it begins to communicate with the tail end. The benefits of having telemtry allows you to see the real brake pipe pressure at the tail end of the train, make emergency brake applications from the rear end of the train (in the event that someone bottles the air), easier to tell where your tail end is (with the help of a length counter), ability to do set and release brake tests without someone having to be at the tail end of the train, ability to move over 4,000 tons over "heavy" grade, etc.

Basically it is a necessary piece of equipment in 2010 for any decently sized railroad and sadly has been lacking on Guilford/PAR.

Hope this helps,

Yeah, that helps a lot!
Thanks Newpylong.
Now, whats the point in an EOT device without having a telemtry box?

KSmitty wrote:Yeah, that helps a lot!
Thanks Newpylong.
Now, whats the point in an EOT device without having a telemtry box?

Anytime.

Without a telemetry box the EOT still signifies the end of the train. This is especially meaningful in DCS "Form D" territory where you need to call clear. The EOT is usually visually inspected to denote the last car being clear of DCS territory or movement limits. Alternatively you can use a flag when it is light out.

They also mandatory (or another similar light) when it is dark out.

They are also used to do brake tests as the vast majority have a pressure gauge on them to show brake pipe pressure.

I am sure there are some more but that's what I remember!

I think we need to get back to talking about the business train...

Is there a schedule for the business train that is available to the public?

Reader#108 wrote:Is there a schedule for the business train that is available to the public?

nope.

Sometimes we’ll get lucky enough with somebody close to the source giving us a heads up that it will be out about soon... but that’s about it.

I'm assuming the former business train loco(s) have returned to regular revenue service?

I thought I just saw in another post that the Business Train doesn't carry passengers. What does it do? I saw some pictures of it on NERAIL, so was it out for a test run or was it scheduled that way? 6516 on the way...