8th Notch wrote:So are you telling me that 1 MP36 with per say 5 or 7 per doubles is going to accelerate at the same rate as 2?
F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Unless you're compensating for an above-and-beyond extreme weight performance penalty like a hypothetical overstuffed monster Penn Line consist.
↑ ↑ ↑
Otherwise...on the vast majority of schedules MARC runs during its service day, not enough to make any tangible difference on acceleration that'll net any change in schedule. Regardless of whether one's own stopwatch from trackside shows a minute improvement out of a dead stop double-draft vs. non- double-draft; it's too minute to reflect in the timetable. Because they're not built or configured to have an extra performance tier to reach for that way. Other locos are built that way. These are built for a pretty narrow midrange performance, and that range ain't something that'll fare well as an rush hour electrics replacement on the Penn Line. Hence, the purchase of a higher-performance Charger.
Why are we still framing this in terms of "generic loco" when it's MP36PH-3C numbered 10-35 as-configured by MARC...and specifically MP36PH-3C's #10-35 as-configured by MARC...that are the locos with too negligible room for acceleration improvement in a double-draft configuration to institute that as a standard practice? The best they can do as double-draft is not arrive to destination slower because they were tasked with carrying a consist more overweight than a single engine's average performance can accelerate without suffering some schedule drag. A ↑stop-loss ↑ scenario that only comes into play on a very small and variable % of the Penn Line schedule...not an above-and-beyond enhancement to the Penn Line schedule.
MP36. MARC's. MARC's MP36's. MARC is buying not-MP36's because their MP36's can't be made to accelerate zippier and arrive at destination sooner.