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(erielack) Motive Power Distribution

Restricting the GP40's to Trailvan service was not necessarily smart power
management on CR's part. If the trains were reasonably on time there was an
approx 16 hour layover at each end, which is a long time for your best power
to be cooling it's wheels. Englewood-Beacon Park is actually closer to 980
miles, comparable to EL's NY-Chicago distance. When the 3600's were new, EL
claimed to be getting 18,000 miles/month out of them, and it did this with
faster turnarounds at each end. So NY-99's power often went back out on
NE-74, and NY-100's on CS-9. This permitted an additional NY-Chicago trip
every week.

I'm a bit surprised about his comment on balancing power with N&W; almost
all the photos of N&W units on LV I've seen show nothing bigger than a GP35.

Paul B

For a short period in the mid 70s we ran power
through with the N&W between Bellevue, OH and Oak Island. We had to stop
this because power was "balanced" based on HP*HR and the N&W just
overwhelmed us with their higher HP locomotives and we built up a deficit
that we just could not repay.

Also, when things ran on time, (when we weren't cleaning up a wreck
somewhere) certain power would turn for certain trains. One that I happen to
remember was that SJ-4's power would turn for AP-1 at Oak Island. Since we
had only 8 road trains that ran the whole system, our road power would lay
around more than one would like at the outer terminals like Oak Island,
Buffalo and NF. In spite of that, we were able to get 10,500 to 11,500 miles
per month out of our newer units. After Conrail took over, Joe Dryberg
(Manager of the Blue Room in Philadelphia) told me that these mileages were
pretty good and were beating the mileages that the PC was getting out of
their GP-40s which ran in dedicated Trailvan Service between Beacon Park and
Chicago. (900 miles with some 70 MPH territory). The LVRR was  about 500
miles with a maximum of 60 MPH for the Apollos (Not between Lehighton and
Coxton).



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