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dill, Okla., and north to Tulsa, and east toward Springfield, Mo., or north to Kansas City. Declines in the volume of oil and coal
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traffic have made more power available to BNSF, which has allowed the railroad to assign more power to trains operating west out of Wellington, Kan., to Amarillo and points west. Often, such trains will pick up power at Black, Texas (west of Hereford), to attack grades west of Her- eford and west of Clovis, N.M. The addi- tion of a fourth locomotive brings grain trains up to 1.1 to 1.2 horsepower per ton, an improvement over the 0.8 h.p. per ton that three locomotives provided. This makes certain that the trains do not stall on Curtis Hill west of Wayno- ka, Okla. Manifest trains on this route are also receiving additional locomotives and are profiled for 1.5 h.p. per ton as opposed to 1.0 or 1.2 previously. Trains H-KCKBAR (High Priority Manifest, Ar- gentine Yard, Kansas City-Barstow, Ca- lif.) and M-WQMBAR (Manifest, West Quincy, Mo.-Barstow) need to have 1.8 h.p. per ton when operating with DP lo- comotives, whereas stack trains call for 2.0 h.p. per ton (unless running with DP engines, in which case, 1.8 h.p. per ton is sufficient). In April, double-stack container trains
up to 12,000 feet long and mid-train and rear end DP locomotives returned to BNSF’s network after being noticeably absent throughout the winter months. Such trains were primarily eastbound, which is a departure from last year’s trend when these massive trains were traditionally westbound. On April 18, Train S-LBTLPC1-15 (Intermodal Dou- ble Stack Service, Long Beach, Calif.-Lo- gistics Park Chicago, Joliet, Ill.) was seen at Emporia, Kan., with 114 cars. On April 22, Train S-LBTLPC1-20 passed through Clovis, N.M., with 131 loads.
Southwestern Railway Collision
During the early morning hours of
April 28, Train M-CLOCRL1-27 (Man- ifest, Clovis, N.M.-Carlsbad, N.M.), a BNSF train operated by Southwestern Railway, collided with a local train tied down near Melena Siding, north of Ros- well, N.M. Train M-CLOCRL1-27 con- sisted of 27 loads (mostly frac sand) and 52 empties. Although no official cause for the collision had been determined as of press time, investigators were focused on the north siding switch at Melena, which may not have been lined for main- line movement after the local crew had last used it. The southbound train then entered the siding and struck the stand-
ing train at an estimated 37 m.p.h. Both crew members of the southbound
train jumped prior to impact, which re- sulted in fatal injuries to the engineer and major injuries to the conductor, who was airlifted to a nearby hospital. The lead locomotive remained upright, whereas the second unit rolled on its side and the two trailing engines tipped slightly and were resting about 90 de- grees relative to each other. The two locomotives of the standing train were shoved south about three car lengths with the lead three cars of this train de- railed and on top of the trailing engine of the local. Between the two trains, some 20 cars were derailed as a result of the collision.
Derailments On the afternoon of April 21, BNSF
Train H-PASBAR1-18 (High Priority Manifest, Pasco, Wash.-Barstow, Calif.) derailed two loaded covered hoppers plus two DP locomotives near Westwood, California, on the Gateway Subdivision. Although the track was out of service for about 24 hours while the derailment was picked up and the right-of-way restored, few trains were delayed by the outage as this corridor is not heavily trafficked. On April 12, Train G-PTXSHM4-09 (Fertilizer loads, Pasadena, Texas-Shel- by, Mont.) derailed the 13 cars at the rear of its train in Colorado Springs, Colo., which resulted in the spillage of some dry ammonia sulfate and closed several streets in town for about a day. There were no injuries as a result of the wreck, though some local residents were without power for a day.
Locomotive News
In April, BNSF took delivery on new ES44C4s 8339-8359 and pressed these into service primarily in the southern half of its network. These locomotives are “Credit User” locomotives in that they’re Tier 3 compliant locomotives built after the implementation of Tier 4 requirements. Manufacturer General Electric was able to generate and later bank emissions credits through certain energy saving design features, including Distributed Power and Consist Manag- er. The credits are then used to offset the more stringent requirements of Tier 4 compared to Tier 3. Also in April, BNSF hosted sever-
al pre-production Tier 4 demonstrator units, which carry the builder’s nomen- clature ET44AC. Those locomotives on BNSF property include GECX 2021-
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