BACKING UP TO CHICAGO

AMTRAK DUMMY LOCOMOTIVE

BACK IN 2004

What you see here may look like a locomotive, but it isn't. A number of years ago it undoubtedly was, but since then it has been stripped of its Diesel engine and generators. That compartment is now available for storage or baggage, if needed. However, the unit still boasts headlights and all the controls it once had when it was used as a locomotive. It even boasts a very loud air horn.

Although this appears as the front end of a train headed from Pontiac, Michigan to Chicago, Illinois it is actually an AMTRAK passenger train backing up from Pontiac to Chicago. The real locomotive is at the other end of the train, running in reverse. Like all three trains making round trips each day between the two cities, it was pulled into Pontiac by the locomotive at the other end. Since it costs money and takes time to turn a train, AMTRAK does not turn its passenger trains in this area. It runs them in what is known as push-pull service. Trains are pulled to Pontiac and pushed to Chicago.

This photo was taken in the fall of 2004, a quarter of a mile north of the Birmingham, Michigan AMTRAK station. If you look at it closely, you can see the exhaust smoke from the pusher Diesel at the opposite end of the train.

You may wonder why a Dummy locomotive is used at one end of the train. It is so that the engineer has a certain amount of physical protection if he is involved in a railway crossing accident. When AMTRAK first put these trains into service over a decade ago, they used former electrified commuter passenger cars from the eastern seaboard at the tail ends of the trains. They were referred to as cab cars since they had a small cab with controls for the Diesel at the opposite end of the train. However, these cars offered little physical protection for the engineers who might be involved in accidents. A lightweight passenger car is hardly as strong as a former heavyweight locomotive.

Consequently, as the older locomotives wore out, AMTRAK rebuilt them into dummies which offer much more protection to engineers controlling the trains operating in reverse on their way to Chicago

FOUR YEARS MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE

Now, in 2008, the Amtrak trains usually run in true PUSH-PULL service. A powered locomotive pulls them to Pontiac with a dead locomotive on the rear. When the train is ready to leave Pontiac the locomotive on the head end is shut down and the one on the rear end powered up so that it can pull the train back to Chicago.

This photo was snapped September 17, 2008
in almost the same spot as the one above which was taken in 2004. You can see from its black exhaust that Locomotive #126 which was loafing on the tail end going into Pontiac has now become the powered head end of AMTRAK #355
enroute to Chicago.

The train has just passed the camera position and is about to arrive at the Birmingham, Michigan depot. Locomotive #29 which pulled the train to Pontiac a little over an hour previously, has now been shut down and is emitting no exhaust. It is merely trailing along for the trip back to Chicago.

As of this writing, six AMTRAK trains pass through Birmingham each day running between Chicago and Pontiac via Detroit.

Keep in mind that you can enlarge the photos in this blog if you left click your mouse while the cursor, when shaped like a human hand, is on a particular picture.

You can see and hear a sound video clip of AMTRAK train number 355 passing this location and then stopping at the Birmingham station by clicking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SdS7_RNIeg