Wyhog posted:For short heavy trains on rolling terrain the best combo in my opinion was 2 GEs and an EMD. You could wipe the throttle from idle to #8, the single EMD would rev up, make transition, and dig in to stretch the train coming thru the sag. About the time the EMD got most of the train stretched the GE's would finally be loading and take the train up the next hump. Worked great.
Wyhog, that's a perfect example of the difference between a "trained" Engineer and a "made" Engineer. The railroad does not train you to do things like this; it is seat-of-the-pants common sense train handling that is now fading away as more Engineers who have been very well trained to run the train in a standardized manner replace older Engineers who learned how to use feel and logic from working with the generation of Engineers who started in the years from the 1920's through the Korean War years. I can't say it used to be better, but it was different, and the Engineer could make a real difference.
Big Jim, I understand your comment perfectly. We leased a lot of N&W EMD's, mostly SD45 and SD40, but also some GP38 varieties, during the long N&W Mechanical Department strike in the 1970's. I found them to be very well-maintained and definitely products of their home road as well as their builders. It would not surprise me at all if they had different rack settings, and other equipment, and could easily have been more unfriendly to rapid throttle advancement than BN's engines of the same type. Both railroads had modified their engines to suit their preferences. I have previously mentioned a few times, my fondness for running the 307L, a passenger F7 built in 1952. I had a regular assignment as Fireman on San Diegan Trains 76-77 between Los Angeles and San Diego. At that time, Santa Fe kept some rednoses captive on the San Diegans for a couple of weeks at a time, trading them out, on and off of the Grand Canyon and the Super Chief-El Capitan, as needed. So, for almost a whole month, we had the 300L, 306L and 307L rotating on San diego passenger trains. The track along the coast from San Onofre to Del Mar consists of broad undulations, with sags a mile or more in length. To make the schedule, it was necessary to come over the top of each hump at about 88 MPH and shut off straight to Run-1*. As the train went down into the sag, it would pick up 2 or 3 MPH. At the bottom the throttle came straight out to Run-8, to go up the next hump. Most of the F7's, including the 300 and 306, would choke up as they revved up to full RPM, but not the 307L -- it revved right up smoothly. Many of the Santa Fe second generation EMD freight units could not take rapid throttle advancement smoothly, though a few could respond like the 307 did. I can only recall one time that an SD45 died from loading the alternator too fast for the engine RPM's, but a lot of the ATSF engines struggled to rev up if the throttle was quickly advanced.
* The reason for stopping at Run-1 instead of going to IDLE is that, by staying in Run-1 at high speed, the engines would stay in series-parallel and be ready to instantly pull hard on the up-hill side of the sag. If the throttle had gone to IDLE, when it was opened straight to Run-8, it would be several seconds before the F7's produced any amperage, and then they would have had to go through transition. By the time the train got to the top of the hump, the engines would have barely arrived at series-parallel and the train speed would have fallen to the low 80's or high 70's and the train slack would have been a fruit basket turnover. When you're running on single track against opposing passenger trains, you have to stay on time, or a meeting point will be changed by the Dispatcher, and then both trains will be late for the rest of the trip. Seconds lost here and there can turn into a minute, which, combined with the possibility of a lot of slow old ladies causing a long passenger stop (bless their hearts, we love them), can be enough to cause the Dispatcher to cause the Dispatcher to call calf rope and change the meeting point. Staying in series-parallel helps you stay on time, but caused the diesel engine to struggle more when revving up.
And, yes, this stuff is not in the training program for Engineers. 
