'The Seven Engine Itch'

Greetings All,

After posting the ''Having Fun with 'Wasteful' Dispatching" blog post last Saturday I suddenly came down with "the seven engine itch". The 'seven engine itch' comes from photo on page 55 from the Penn Central Power book by Robert J. Yanosey where seven engines are powering a freight train to make sure enough of them stayed on line to keep important single track mainlines open. 

During the prep work for the "Wasteful Dispatching" blog post 1:1 PC Ralph sent me some great photos which were a catalyst for this follow up project. As noted by Ralph running this many engines from different manufacturers in straight DC is difficult but they look great in a photo.

John Bruce was already busy putting some big DCC consists together on his L.F.N.W. Check the link for how he consists his engines.

1:1 Sir Larry of Flemington also caught the bug and sent over a nice google link of prototypical seven engine lash up videos. 

Keeping the important River Line open was a major necessity for the Penn Central and utilizing extra units was considered prudent as we learned in the "Wasteful Dispatching" blog entry. Below a 1/87th scale Emery Gulash was out capturing the action on the River Line;

If that wasn't enough motivation I later noted on Page 140-141 of the Penn Central Railroad Color History by Peter E. Lynch a six engine PC powered VN-4 heading from Selkirk to New York City with some of the engines deadheading to cover the later westbound trains. Since Empire City is loosely based on New York City and VN-4 is one of the trains I run this fit right into my layout's operations.

With this in mind I hit the train room and sought out powered and dummy engines to cobble together some seven engine consists that I could actually run without overheating the controllers and blowing the circuit breakers. Here's what I came up with;

First attempt was this all PC all Athearn GP38-2-GP35-GP38-SD40-SD45-GP38-2 seven unit consist with six powered engines. It ran good but I think it has too many powered engines. I'll rework this consist in a later photo.

An all PRR, all Bachmann F7A-F7A-F7B-F7B-F7A-F7A-GP30 lash up looked good and ran very well. Five of the seven units are powered. All units belong to my oldest son. This is what happens when you buy your competition. 

The all Bachmann PRR units join the all Athearn BB PC units on the High Line.

Six Bachmann powered engines and one Athearn BB dummy U30B made up this consist that performed very well.

 Four GP30s and two B Boats provided plenty of power.

Triple Sevens on the High Line!

An all Bachmann NYC / PC consist. Three powered NYC F units, two dummy PC F units and two NYC  FM H16-44s provided plenty of power without overheating the controller.

The H16-44s bring up the rear of the consist as a seven unit consist from the High Line now sitting on Track 1 looks on. 

A reworked seven unit consist of mostly Athearn BB units that ran much better. Two powered BB GP38-2s, a dummy Bachmann GP35, a powered BB PC GP40 make up the front four units. 

A dummy NYC GP40, powered BB PC GP35 and dummy BB PC GP38-2 round out the consist. This was a keeper.

Next I got out six big U Boats and added a B boat to make up this seven engine consist. The 6500 series is pretty appropriate here as the consist measured 65 inches long. 

Four powered units and three dummies. This consist ran pretty good once I got the power and dummy positions worked out.

 The U Boat consist dwarfs the others on the High Line. 

After some mixing and matching this seven engine lash up was a keeper. Five powered and two non powered units. The NYC B Boats and PRR GP30 are powered.

Two powered NYC GP30s with a dummy U30B and dummy PRR GP35. Having the powered units on the ends worked well.

A second reworked seven engine consist sits on track 2. Powered PC GP30 2228 is followed by two unpowered F7As, a powered F7B and a non powered F7A. 

Powered GP30 2204 and 2232 are at the other end. Another consist that worked very well.

While running the seven engine consists was fun the reality is the N.Y.C.T.L. was not built to handle them on a consistent basis. Their lengths overwhelm the engine terminal, sidings and freight yards. On the positive side using the VN-4 example of having a six (or seven) engine consist coming eastbound on VN-4 to Terminal Yard and getting broken up for later westbound trains is definitely doable. I could probably make up one eastbound and one westbound seven engine consist per ops session without fouling things up so don't be surprised when these big engine consists make some guest appearances on future blog posts and in the Penn Central Car Movements! 

Special thanks to PC Ralph, Sir Neal, John Bruce, Engineer Ed, AT JOE and Sir Larry for the information and contributions. The guys sent over some great photos and info but I was unable to get the photos on the published blog for some reason.

By the way the adding of extra engines to keep the River Line open did not end with the Penn Central. Check out this Conrail nine engine consist on the River Line from February 1977. Anyone want to tackle that on their layout!

For more on the topic listen in to Mike Bednar and Jerry Hoare discussing their railroading careers. They'll cover this exact topic. 

Thanks for reading!!!