Railroad Forums
Moderator: GOLDEN-ARM
UPRR engineer wrote:Signal department? Hats off to you buddy if thats the right answer. Every guy ive ever talked to is a working son of a gun. Good bunch of guys here on the UP. If im not right my next guess would be car department. I would say those two because they sometimes get upset when things get torn up.Signals...no
Is there any difference in the getup and go factor? does one get moving better then the other if they have an equal train to pull in terms of weight and same track conditions?The main difference would be at low speed. According to the EMD website, the SD70ACe has 17% more starting tractive effort and 39% more continuous tractive effort than the SD70M-2. However, keep in mind that this is at very low speed, and that in those conditions the AC motors have a major advantage. At higher speeds (I'm guessing anything above 25 mph or so) the advantage of the AC motors would be smaller, and it's horsepower that comes into play. Since both models have the same horsepower, I'd assume their higher-speed performance would be similar.
Also, both CN and NS are fairly conservative regarding motive power, and haven't felt a need for AC motored locomotives.I think in CN's case it's more because they have a lot of flat track than because they are conservative in their motive power. After all, they're the ones who pioneered ditch lights, the wide-nosed cab and the Draper-taper carbody. Of course, their recent SD70M-2's were built to NS specs, so I could be wrong...