by farecard
What's the acceleration rate of MARC Diesel-powered trains vs. the electric consists?
Railroad Forums
Moderators: mtuandrew, therock, Robert Paniagua
dt_rt40 wrote:*HOWEVER*, I am convinced they are driving them more gingerly than they used to. Nowadays they will sometimes only go 110 on many segments where they could go 125, except for a few stretches like Aberdeen-Edgewood. They don't accelerate them as aggressively as they used to but it depends on the engineer of course, and I guess whatever other reasons. (dispatcher telling them to hurry up?) It's sometimes harder to tell now what is pulling the train just based on first acceleration. Once or twice I've even been sure it was an MPI until getting past Seabrook or Bowie State and then they will start movin'.These are HHP-8's after all, and they got a rather long history of breaking down if they're pushed hard in high heat conditions. Plus, 4910 was just rebuilt, so they're taking things easy. They gotta let the dust settle down and get all the kinks out. Still, 110 MPH isn't something to sneeze at.
I've finally been in a couple trains pulled or pushed by an SC-44, and I think it does have better acceleration than the MPIs, but not as fast as HHP-8 when they are 'driven hard'. Again the issue being, they don't push the HHP-8s like they used to so it's harder to have a baseline for what that feels like. (Once in a while an engineer will really gun it) For some reason although they are finally being used some on the Penn line, it's not for trains going north of Baltimore.