Some engines work, some don't. I've only been on one GP20 that doesn't make me want to scrap the entire class (i.e. it can actually pull); and if I were in charge, it would be banned from leading due to excessive hunting. Sure, there is probably some explanation for why it has a unnerving habit of hunting when leading (in places where the other engines don't hunt). However, there's not an explanation for the fact that it is maintained just like all the others on the railroad and it is the only one that can pull.

Hunting is a term I am unfamiliar with. Would you please explain it to me?

Hunting...as in truck-hunting. Must've had to do with the weight distribution on that particular model, because the Blomberg B was used on everything, and continues to be common as nails on railroads.

I don't know if I could handle individual steam-personalities.

At least with diesels, you can write-off entire classes (much easier). "Oh, it's an SD70? I know this trip is going to be terrible".

[quote="Hunting is a term I am unfamiliar with. Would you please explain it to me?[/quote]

"Hunting" is a term used to describe a truck that does not track properly between the rails. Instead of running comfortably in a straight and stable line it wobbles back and forth between the rails causing a very harsh ride and excessive wear on the wheels. A common phenomenon when the truck is not in tram or the wheel profiles are bad, among other issues.

Aha! I have experienced it firsthand, yet hadn't heard that term before. Thank you, hamster!

Personalities: DL&W locos always had a big smile on their face:



Scot

Wikipedia has an interesting entry on hunting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunting_oscillation#Railway_wheelsets


On locomotive personalities and hunting, many years ago I had the privilege of a cab ride in Bridgton & Saco River #8 at Edaville (the same engine is now at the Maine Narrow Gauge Museum) and remember being nearly thrown off my feet by the engine's dramatic hunting at speed, a long standing behavior that is clearly visible in film footage of the engine on its original road in the 1930s (yes, so bad that you can see it on film -- the engine looks like it's waddling) and so appears to reflect something inherent in the design. Yet somehow Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes #10, an almost identical locomotive (both two foot gauge outside-frame Baldwin 2-4-4Ts which I'm sure shared many if not most parts) is remembered as having been so stable and easy riding that veteran SR&RL engineer Dana Aldrich called her "The Dancing Lady". Sadly #10 was scrapped back in 1935 so we will never know what was responsible for this difference.

-Philip Marshall

Even to this day, the 5 NA's (copies of Baldwin 2-6-2T's built at the Victorian Railways Newport workshops) that run at Puffing Billy in Melbourne all have different 'personalities'. And this can change each time the loco comes out from an overhaul.

Likewise there was an article in a railfan magazine overhere about a class of 2-8-0's where the same fireman had been on almost every one of the 30 coal burning versions. He covered off all of the differences that he had found in running each of the loco's over many years, and there was a big range between those that would do anything that was asked with no effort to fire, to others that were just complete 'dogs' even straight out of an overhaul.

Cheers, AL.

The new computer control systems are starting to compensate for the differences in operating characteristics, at least on most equipment I have run. I can't speak for locomotives because I only run two, a GE 50 ton and and SW9, (if anybody ever questions what hunting actually is, run an SW on rough track. 14mph will almost throw you out the window).

Where I really notice operational differences is when I am dialing in twin engines in a boat. The same 350 chevys or DD 8V-92s with almost sequential serial numbers will be so far apart on how they perform and what needs to be adjusted. And you can't say the reverse rotation engine is the problem. I have been working on an old Chris-Craft with 327's in it. The standard rotation engine will only perform about 75% of what it should even though everything is in line with it's "mate".

They are all alive, cranky, troublesome, and on the right days, your best friend.

"Hunting" is a term used to describe a truck that does not track properly between the rails. Instead of running comfortably in a straight and stable line it wobbles back and forth between the rails causing a very harsh ride and excessive wear on the wheels. A common phenomenon when the truck is not in tram or the wheel profiles are bad, among other issues.[/quote]

BART did extensive research on reducing hunting. It discovered that the countour of the wheel tread influenced the amount of hunting done by a truck. It made videotapes of different wheel contours in use. BART uses the countour developed experimentally. Unlike the early days, today you feel almost no hunting on BART cars.

Hunting can also be caused by excessive cross-level issues; most of the hunting that I have experienced, with the exception of what I mentioned above, has been caused by an amount of cross-level variation that I would define as "barely tolerable" to "where the heck is the track gang?"

You mean like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrvLK24VlEs (Drayton Blackgrove video)

http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/3/4/8/5348.1331879562.jpg (J.E. Landrum photo) (click once to enlarge)

Apparently when they purchased the MAW in late 2012, Progress Rail was planning to invest in some track maintenance. Don't know what conditions are like now on the former Wabash 5th District.

First, its Pioneer Rail Services/Michigan Southern Railroad Company/d.b.a. Napoleon, Defiance, & Western.

Second, the ND&W's track all leans the same way; for some strange reason.

The short of the current situation there is: shockingly good. Carloads up, trains originated are up, speeds are up, cars on railroad per month up, car hire costs down, operating costs down, derailments massively down, employment by the railroad has tripled. Last year they moved over 2000 cars. They also re-opened the center of the railroad.

I can keep going, but the gist is that it is amazing what putting a little of the profit back into the track will for for you. Don't even get me started on my opinion of the former management.

Back to hunting, I meant where it changes which rail is lower or higher frequently. Though the MAW did do it's share of hunting; usually you see what I'm talking about places where ties have just been replaced without the proper jack/line/tamp and bolt tightening that a Class One would do on jointed rail.

If anyone rode parts of the now closed Carthage, Knightstown & Shirley railroad, you know what I mean. I can't find a good CKS photo that shows what I'm talking about, but basically one of the ideas there seemed to be if we stuff enough ties under the track, the train will stay on the rail. One of the few places that I much prefer sitting down while on a train ride. If the cross-level induced hunting could throw me around like it did, I don't know why the FRA didn't shut them down.

I have been told some interesting things about N&W 611 and 1218. Though, I'd like to hear more abour either engine to weigh against what I've heard. Having never seen them run and 611 moving only when they pulled her out of the museum on May 24, I unfortunately do not have any personal viewpoints to offer. However, I will tell you that I've heard 611 is a smooth riding fast stepping lady and that alone makes me wonder what she'll be like when she is finally running.
lois

1522 had something unique that I had never heard before. Running along at a light throttle with the engine hooked up towards center, she had a chirp in the exhaust.
We figured there must be a cavity in the exhaust passage somewhere to cause this.
Several people had commented on it.
She was a gutsy engine, more powerful than a lot of folks thought and rode like a Pullman.
No wonder the Frisco engineers and dispatchers loved them.