by Patrick Boylan
When and why do railroads, passenger in particular, regularly use a tanker truck to refuel their diesel locomotives as opposed to using a fixed fueling station?
It has been a long time, 2001 and earlier, but I remember at Amtrak Albany-Rensalaer station my through trains to Montreal or Toronto would have their locomotives pull off and go to the yard, then a different locomotive would come out of the yard, and couple up to the train. Then what looked to me like a home heating oil company's truck would pull up next to the locomotive, at or near the station platform, and fuel the locomotive. I wondered why the locomotive didn't come out of the yard already fueled. Once when I asked the crew person said that rules required unionized Amtrak employees to fuel locomotives, but allowed private contractors, presumably cheaper, to fuel locomotives attached to trains. Does anybody know if that was true?
In the NJT Double Header Question thread http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.ph ... 1&start=75 there's some talk of a deadhead fueling move from Bay Head to Meadowlands. Does anybody have any thoughts about why NJT runs the locomotives so far, looks like about 50 miles each way, instead of using fuel trucks at Bay Head?
It has been a long time, 2001 and earlier, but I remember at Amtrak Albany-Rensalaer station my through trains to Montreal or Toronto would have their locomotives pull off and go to the yard, then a different locomotive would come out of the yard, and couple up to the train. Then what looked to me like a home heating oil company's truck would pull up next to the locomotive, at or near the station platform, and fuel the locomotive. I wondered why the locomotive didn't come out of the yard already fueled. Once when I asked the crew person said that rules required unionized Amtrak employees to fuel locomotives, but allowed private contractors, presumably cheaper, to fuel locomotives attached to trains. Does anybody know if that was true?
In the NJT Double Header Question thread http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.ph ... 1&start=75 there's some talk of a deadhead fueling move from Bay Head to Meadowlands. Does anybody have any thoughts about why NJT runs the locomotives so far, looks like about 50 miles each way, instead of using fuel trucks at Bay Head?