Re: Re:Dispatching nightmare?
Author: BOB2
Date: 01-09-2010 - 10:40
This concept has always intrigued the "bean counters", it usually causes dispatching nightmares, since the super long trains have a tendency toward air problems, and difficulty reaching speed, and maintaining balanced speed.
If you lose any of the distibuted units you are now left to crawl along. Once you have a problem with the air you have to stop to inspect the train. The concept relies on the "roving" teams out driving around to come to the rescue when this happens. BNSF tried a few of these and found that whenever there was a problem, the roving teams always managed to be 50 miles away from the problem, and the one man ground "crew" would take at least two or more hours to walk the train. So the result is that the railroad is now tied up for hours, with trains stacking up, even on double-two track.
UP's ego driven publicity stunt still shows the truth of the phrase adopted by the SP guys after the merger: "I was not always stUPid?"..............