(erielack) Doubleheaders

[Rich Young <ryoungceo_@_yahoo.com>]

   Doubleheaders in a railroads eyes was a waste of
motive power and money. Expense for operating the
locomotive and crew for just one train instead of two.
 But.... Sometimes it needed to be done and it
happened more frequently than thought.

On most roads there was a predominent direction of
traffic , so there was always a motive power build up
at one terminal of the railroad. Most railroads had an
unscheduled ( but regular pattern) of redistributing
power and crews. And this went in cycles and usually
was the reason for doubleheading. Also this happened
when you had some smaller power needing to go back
home from deadending second sections. Stick two mikes
and an extra 200 tons on a train and send them home
and do a boiler wash on the locomotive. This would get
the 30 day inspection done at an interum terminal and
get two locomotives back home. This would alieviate
work for a major terminal. Though,Under the rules if a
major defect was found the locomotive would go dead
until fixed, thus stranding it a a terminal without
the capabilities to fix something. If that was the
case and that terminal deamed it not serious enough,
there was usually a phrase that was put on the cab
card indicating that the monthly was done unofficially
and there was a problem even though the 30 day
inspection line was marked not done.

This was the most common reasin for doubleheading
especially on the NKP and west end of the Erie.

Another reason was an over tonnage time frieight.
Additional power was put on just to keep time up and
make schedule. This happened at say Chicago if the
BRC, ATSF and CB&Q all dumped a load on them. If there
wasn't enough to second section it or trafiic was
light enough to break the maximum siding lenghts. Run
one train and it was one less to keep track of and the
train could make other railroad connections for their
time freights.

Or as someone else stated , transfering a train to a
branch or division that can't handle a S class berk
which pulled it there would probebly get two mikes due
to  size/weight restrictions of larger power.

Ruling grade and train tonnage on a perticular train 
would cause motive power to be double headed.

While out with the 4449 one time an ex SP (non E
related Story) trainmaster told me a story of a new
and green dispatcher that thought he was so smart that
instead of doubleheading a certain train he would send
just one engine a crew north with one of those great
big AC-9 cab forewards just sitting there. The
engineer tried to say "what was he doing" and to show
his superiority the green dispatcher told the engineer
to do what he was told. THe engineer left and said
fine but he will not run it back. When it reached the
terminal the yardmaster went nuts and called Asking
what the hell was he suposed to do with this thing.
Not know the profile of the railroad it was a 1.7 % up
hill climb followed by a 2.9 % downhill in the reverse
direction it's a 2.9 % uphill which on an AC-9 would
completely uncover the crownsheet and cause it to
explode and going the other direction was a tunnel
with a curve in the mid of it that the locomotice
pilot won't clear. Ultimately they had to take the
rods off of it and tow it back at 15 MPH. Lesson pass
your bright ideas past someone before implementing
them.

Rich Young



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