RGlueck wrote: ↑Tue Jul 30, 2019 7:45 am
There was a brief period in the beginning of the FA power car years, when both the C420 and the FA were on the same end of the train. This had to do with an electrical issue of some kind, and required the run-around of the train with both locomotives at the end of a run. It only lasted a short time, but it did happen. Perhaps that accounts for the difference?
Since the C420 (and the GP-38) locomotives were not wired to pass HEP thru to the passenger cars, the PowerPak would have to be coupled directly to the front or rear passenger car, to provide HEP to the cars. Such an arrangement with a C420 and PowerPak coupled together would require turning the 2 units when running the power around to the opposite end of the train, or an even more complicated switching move to separate them, run them around separately and then recouple them together on the other end of the consist.
These operating arrangements would work:
Locomotive (shoving) + cars + PowerPak —->
PowerPak + cars + Locomotive (pulling) —->
Cars + PowerPak + Locomotive (pulling) —->
A good number of the photos of the Powerpaks are not dated, but it appears that the more recent photos show some Powerpaks with only 1 electrical receptacle, rather than 7 electrical receptacles, on their front end. It appears they were modified (removing 6 electrical receptacles from their front end) over their years of service on LIRR.