My train-calendar for September, 2019

“That thing has a slug in it!” (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

—My brother and I were in my motel-room near Altoona quietly perusing our day’s train-pictures.
“That thing has a slug in it!” I yelled, stumbling onto my brother’s photo published above.
A slug is a locomotive without the prime-mover (engine). It’s just traction-motors. It’s wired to a “mother,” and draws traction-current from it. A slug can’t run itself; it needs a “mother.”
The train is 12G eastbound on Track One. It’s rounding Bennington Curve near the top of Allegheny Mountain.
The lead unit (6918) is a Norfolk Southern modified SD60E with the “Crescent cab.” It didn’t have that cab originally, and may not be the “mother.”
That second unit (9333) may be the “mother.”
Usually slugs are used where additional tractive-effort is needed, like hump-service. The mother’s electrical output gets spread over additional traction-motors, in this case six.
874 is a former Norfolk & Western SD-40 converted into a slug (RPU6), probably by Norfolk Southern’s Juniata shops.
Most slugs I’ve seen are four-axle, but 874 is six-axle. (NS has a few four-axle slugs.)
You don’t often see slugs as road power. My guess is the Trainmaster needed engines for 12G, and the units pictured were all that was available.
“Take that slug off hump-service, and bring it over here. I need it!”
12G isn’t high-priority like a stacker. Highest priority would be Trailer-on-Flatcar (TOFC). 12G is only mixed freight, loose cars yarded into a train.
Often slugs are a complete locomotive without the engine. They can still have a cab to operate a train — or the control-stand might be removed, but not the cab.
This picture was probably taken in early October when trees are just beginning to turn.
Fall foliage for my brother and I is always a roll of the dice. We don’t live in Altoona — he’s nine hours away, and I’m five.
I look at various webcams in the area. Peak fall foliage may only be a day or two.
Last Fall my brother drove all over the Altoona area in search of fall foliage. He found only one location where trees weren’t done.
That’s next month’s picture.

• For those unknowing, most diesel locomotives are actually diesel-electric. The diesel-engine rotates a generator (or alternator) that generates electricity for electric traction-motors down at the wheels. The diesel-engine is not directly driving the wheels. It’s generating electricity for the traction-motors.
• Some railroad-yards have “humps.” Cars are pushed up the hump, then coast down into the yard. They’re sorted by which track they’re directed to, often assembled into a train. There also are “retarders” to slow the cars, making self-coupling possible without breakage. “Humping” avoids shoving cars with switch-locomotives = flat-switching. But either is loose-car railroading, expensive compared to unit-trains. Many yard humps are being removed. Not too long ago hump-yards were state-of-the-art. Unit-trains beat loose-car railroading.