Passenger Trains ABA Configurations and Drawbars

@Great Northern 17 posted:

Hi all,

Hope everyone is staying safe and doing well. I am currently considering purchasing a new MTH NYC Alco PA (20-21246-1) and had several questions.

For starters, were all passenger trains between the 50s and 60s utilizing an ABA configuration? 

Depends on the individual railroad, i.e. the Santa Fe used a LOT of A-B-B-B F Unit consists, and GN used a lot of A-B-B-A consists, west of Havre, Montana (in the mountains).

Between the two ABA sets I currently run (Great Northern & Santa Fe) and all the photos/videos I see of your layouts, this seems to be the most prevalent engine setup (inclusive of ABBA).

Just my opinion but, then they are NOT doing it correctly, as both GN and Santa Fe had mostly A-B-B-A consists of F Units.

While I love the classic look, I am trying to diversify my current Passenger fleet. Would it make much sense to run just an AB config?

On a nice short passenger train, yes.

If so, does this have any impact on my ability to go in reverse?

No.

While it would be great to save the extra $250 (non-powered A Unit), I want to make sure I am doing this right, so if you all think it would really impact the aesthetic of the train, please let me know (or if there are other 50/60s passenger train engines). 

Again, a lot depends on the railroad you are attempting to model.

Which leads me to my next question. Can anyone share insights into the drawbar on this unit / MTH current units. As mentioned above, I currently have an MTH Great Northern ABA (20-20402-1) and the drawbars having been giving me a lot of trouble as of late (does not help I have an incline/decline on my layout).

Do you mean the so-called "wireless drawbar", or the couplers between the units?

As always, I appreciate everyone's expertise!

Best,

Mike 

Appreciate the feedback "Hot Water!" In terms of the railroad, I am currently thinking New York Central. And yes, I was referring to the "wireless" drawbar. I was interested in seeing if MTH has changed the setup/technology since I last purchased an engine (around 2014/2015), given that engine has been getting disconnected as of late. 

For context, my layout is not modeling any specific line / region

@Great Northern 17 posted:

Hi all,

Hope everyone is staying safe and doing well. I am currently considering purchasing a new MTH NYC Alco PA (20-21246-1) and had several questions.

For starters, were all passenger trains between the 50s and 60s utilizing an ABA configuration? Between the two ABA sets I currently run (Great Northern & Santa Fe) and all the photos/videos I see of your layouts, this seems to be the most prevalent engine setup (inclusive of ABBA). While I love the classic look, I am trying to diversify my current Passenger fleet. Would it make much sense to run just an AB config? If so, does this have any impact on my ability to go in reverse?

Three units on a passenger train was unusual in the 50's.  A single unit could handle six to eight cars easily making 80 mph.  An ABA would be used only for long trains or mountain grades.  The only railroads that owned PA-PB-PA sets were SP, UP, RG, SF and PRR.   All of those railroads operated long passenger trains on steep grades.

If you look through photos of that era, you'll see mostly one or two passenger units on most trains.  F units were an exception.  They had on 2/3 to 3/4 of the horsepower of a PA or E-7/8, so more units were needed to reach the same top speed.

For a list of railroads using PA's and the number owned, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALCO_PA

I use a pair of Williams A-A PA-1s for  my Santa Fe passenger set, but then again I’m not trying to model one of John Santa Fe’s crack passenger trains, but one of the lesser East-West passenger trains that used to run from Fort Worth and Houston across Texas to connect with Santa Fe’s main line at Clovis, NM.

@Great Northern 17 posted:

"And yes, I was referring to the "wireless" drawbar. I was interested in seeing if MTH has changed the setup/technology since I last purchased an engine (around 2014/2015), given that engine has been getting disconnected as of late."

New production MTH A-B-A style diesel units are no longer powered/slave combos. The units are either powered and operate  independently or a dummy, they no longer have the truck mounted interunit connections. 

While the steam engine "snake" connector they had used might be visible, most of my friends with the new snap-on drawbar tender connection seem not to like it. 

Looking at NYC rosters it looks like for E Unites they couldn't have run too many with B's attached.  Of the E7's and E8's I find they only had E7 B Units and that at less than half the total of A units.  I can't find any B units in the E8's for NYC.

of The F series what I found on F3 and F7's was that they had about twice as many A's as B's.  

As on O Scale it's pretty much F3, F7, E7, and E8 only, this is all that is generally offered that NYC had.  If running the E8's for NYC it seems the B unit E8 for an ABA is all fantasy.

I own one ABA set and unless purchased at a great price would not own another.  The second powered unit being slave only limits them to a great extent.   For MTH these only have power and smoke, no sound, and can't operate individually.  I run smoke sparingly on my diesels so this doesn't interest me.  I would preferred it have sound as it would have made given it more dimension.  I was unaware of these limitations when purchased.  However at a hair over 400 for PS3 and barely used in the beautiful SP Black Widow scheme it was worth it.

I think Lionel is spot on having the unpowered Super Bass second units for F, E, and PA locomotives.  Rarely is the extra power needed for our models and the second sound unit adds much more dimension.

Sorry for going off subject here but these are just some observations I had semi relevant to the original discussion.

I've done some research on the PRR over the years, and it was interesting to see how their diesel philosophy changed during the first few years of dieselization (is that a word?).

The Pennsy's original F3 buys were mostly ABBA sets because management thought 6,000hp would be needed most of the time.  They later decided that 4,500hp was enough and its F3 Phase 4 buy was all A units.  There are plenty of pictures of Pennsy F3s in ABA and sometimes ABB sets, but not that many with just two powered units.  It ended up with 80 A units and 45 B units, pretty much an ABA fleet.

For passenger service, the Pennsy went again for 6,000hp sets with several E7 ABA sets (its first E7 buy was an AA set for evaluation).  It again stopped B unit buys and ended with 46 A units and only 14 B units.  Like other roads, the Pennsy only bought E8 A units although there is at least one photo of a Pennsy E8 AA with an E7 B.

I'm personally leaning towards AA or AB sets.  Why.  Because I personally want sound in all my units; no "dead" units on my layout.  The only way to get sound, outside the super bass units, is to buy a powered unit.   That gets expensive when you buy three.

It would be interesting to know how much difference there was on the PRR east and west of Pittsburgh.  I can see the need for three units on many trains to the east.  To the west, three units would have been a waste of power on trains not more than 12 to 14 cars.  NYC used two units on most trains.  Even on the Century, which had the most need for fast acceleration, the standard was six cars per unit.  Another exception was the New England States which had to go over the Berkshires,  the only long grades on any NYC passenger route.

@mlaughlinnyc posted:

It would be interesting to know how much difference there was on the PRR east and west of Pittsburgh.  I can see the need for three units on many trains to the east.  To the west, three units would have been a waste of power on trains not more than 12 to 14 cars.  NYC used two units on most trains.  Even on the Century, which had the most need for fast acceleration, the standard was six cars per unit.  Another exception was the New England States which had to go over the Berkshires,  the only long grades on any NYC passenger route.

You may be overlooking one important factor concerning the number of units MU'ed on a passenger train (no matter whether E Units or F Units), regardless of which railroad, and that would be; steam generators and required water supply for same. Some railroads had steam generators ONLY in the B Units (the Santa Fe immediately comes to mind), plus additional boiler water supply tanks inside the carbody. Thus, depending on the time of year, i.e. winter, there would be more units on the headend than during mild weather months.

That sounds penny-wise and pound-foolish.  Maybe it was cheaper to put steam generators only in B units, but that would mean you could use only an A-B configuration to use only two units.  But that would become a problem at a terminal where it is not convenient to turn the power, not necessary on an A-A.

@mlaughlinnyc posted:

That sounds penny-wise and pound-foolish.  Maybe it was cheaper to put steam generators only in B units, but that would mean you could use only an A-B configuration to use only two units.  But that would become a problem at a terminal where it is not convenient to turn the power, not necessary on an A-A.

I dunno, the concept worked pretty well for the Santa Fe.

Rusty

During my several periods of working on the NYC, they always used three units on the 20th Century Limited, often AAA sets.  Aesthetics were NOT a consideration on the NYC.

@Rusty Traque posted:

I dunno, the concept worked pretty well for the Santa Fe.

Rusty

I do know, from professional contacts in 1968 to 1980, that the Santa Fe did not count their pennies as carefully as the NYC and some other eastern roads.  They had plenty of money, from being the railroad  with the longest transcontinental haul.  No other railroad got a 2242 mile division of revenue from an east-west gateway to the west coast.  They even cleaned the engine rooms of their diesels.  

The takeaway from this is that what was done on the Santa Fe was sometimes not representative of best management practices for long term profitability.

Appreciate everyone's feedback as well as the history lessons! I never realized all the differences that existed amongst the various railroads. After learning this, as well as about the update regarding the wireless drawbar, I was leaning towards the AB. But of course, the recent MTH news may change that. Have some thinking to do. I currently run predominately MTH via DCS, with one Lionel TMCC engine. Not sure I'm ready for Lionel Legacy, but also don't want to buy an engine where there will be no support over the years. 

Thanks again for all of your feedback. 

@mlaughlinnyc posted:

I do know, from professional contacts in 1968 to 1980, that the Santa Fe did not count their pennies as carefully as the NYC and some other eastern roads.  They had plenty of money, from being the railroad  with the longest transcontinental haul.  No other railroad got a 2242 mile division of revenue from an east-west gateway to the west coast.  They even cleaned the engine rooms of their diesels.  

The takeaway from this is that what was done on the Santa Fe was sometimes not representative of best management practices for long term profitability.

As I recall, the Santa Fe F3/7 A-units carried a water tank where the steam generator would be, the extra water capacity important due to the arid regions the Santa Fe ran through.

Rusty

@Mister_Lee posted:

I use a pair of Williams A-A PA-1s for  my Santa Fe passenger set, but then again I’m not trying to model one of John Santa Fe’s crack passenger trains, but one of the lesser East-West passenger trains that used to run from Fort Worth and Houston across Texas to connect with Santa Fe’s main line at Clovis, NM.

I saw Nos. 75-76, the "California Special", several times in the 1960's, always running with three Alcos.  That was on the west end of the run, between Brownwood and Clovis.

Unless you are from Texas, you might need to consult a Texas map or a Santa Fe map to understand the following.

The train started out of Houston with cars for California and for San Angelo behind two Alcos (usually a PA1 and a PB1), and, at Temple, diverged onto the Lampasas District toward Brownwood.  At Brownwood, it arrived in the wee hours just before or after a train which came down from Fort Worth, headed for San Angelo behind a pair of back-to-back Alcos, carrying chair cars and a Valley series 6-6-4 Pullman sleeper for California, as well as chair cars and a heavyweight Pullman for San Angelo.  There was a lot of station switching there, and the Clovis train departed Brownwood with the California cars behind three Alcos, A-B-A.  The San Angelo train gave up its rear-facing Alco to the Clovis train and went into San Angelo with a single Alco.  Sometimes there was an Alco at the Brownwood roundhouse that was used, and then the San Angelo train used back-to-back PA1's

75 and 76 were pretty healthy sized trains right up to the date that the post office took the mail off of them, mostly streamlined equipment, and including a dining car.  After the 1967 removal of mail they were reduced to a baggage and express car, 2 or 3 chair cars, and were often pulled by a single GE U28CG or U30CG.