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Discussion relating to the PRR, up to 1968. Visit the PRR Technical & Historical Society for more information.
 #1427314  by Allen Hazen
 
The Pennsylvania (and its successors up to the end of electric freight operations) regularly dispatched its E-44motors in two- and three-unit lash ups (and there is one photo in Alvin Stauffer and Bert Pennypacker's "Pennsy Power II" showing four on a train). During a snow-affecting-GG-1-traction-motors emergency, passenger trains were operated with E-44/GG-1 pairs: the E-44 leading and doing most of the pulling, the GG-1 providing steam and helping with any unaffected motors (photo in Stauffer & Pennypacker, p. 163). I ***assume*** that this was a matter of double-heading, and that the E-44 couldn't actually multiple with the GG-1.
QUESTION 1: Am I right in this assumption?

In the introduction to the electric locomotive section of "Pennsy Power II" (I suspect written by Pennypacker), p. 122, it is stated that
"Another feature of the E-44 permits its multiple-unit hookup with diesels, but the electric must be the lead, or controlling engine."
I don't recall ever seeing a photo of an E-44 in multiple with a diesel.
QUESTION 2: Did the PRR (PC,CR) ever use this capability in normal operation?

(Questions raised by discussion of GG-1 m.u. operation on the "General Electric" forum. Note that in the later years of its electric operation, the CMStP&P regularly operated diesels and electrics in m.u.: the railroad designed and built equipment that allowed its electric locomotives to "impersonate" diesels so they could order other diesels around by m.u.)