Question about double-heading.

[Gumboots]

I was just thinking about whipping up some double-header Connies for the game, and was wondering about something. The big cowcatcher out the front is not the sort of structure that's meant to carry high tension loads. It's basically meant to work in compression, like when you hit a cow.

So it occurred to me that back when they were using such locos on real freight trains, the cowcatcher would be a real problem if you were wanting to double up on locos. You couldn't hook up to it because you'd pull it apart. You could have a long chain coupling from the front of the loco. That would be ok under tension, but then what happens when you have to slow that train down? You'd be shoving the cowcatcher into the back of the tender in front, and it pokes out so far that you couldn't rely on buffer beams to make things behave.

Which leads to my question: when they were double-heading such locos (and I assume it must have been done sometimes) did they remove the cowcatcher from the B unit?

I've had a look around, but can't find any information or pictures yet. Does anyone here know?

[Just Crazy Jim]

There were a couple of solutions used in that era, arguably three solutions, but more on that later. All told, I have not seen very many photos of double-headed Connies or Americans in the period.

One work around was to use a knuckle coupling on a longer bar at the fore of the back engine, or on the rear of the tender of the fore loco, or both.

Another workaround was to remove the pilot of the rear locomotive. But pilots varied widely across the continent, some were light constructions of sheet metal on a wooden frame, some were little more than a lot of metal pipes on a metal frame, but some were brutes of cast iron, so you might see the problem faced by a yard master detaching and re-attaching pilots.

The last, and most usual, method was to have a fore and aft arrangement, sometimes with the locomotive at the rear running in reverse (I've seen some photos of this), or the loco at the rear running normally with a knuckle-coupling on a longer than usual bar (I've seen more photos along this arrangement). Sadly, this is not a proper double-headed arrangement.

Generally speaking, the disappointing truth is that the usual methodology back then was to break up the consist and have two or more trains running, one close behind the other.

[Gumboots]

Ok thanks for that. I can rig up a longer coupling bar for the modelling. That's easy enough.

[Hawk]

Here's some not-so-good pictures of them.

http://www.drhs315.org/blog/drgw-315/history/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowcatcher

[Gumboots]

Cheers. I just noticed that the default Connie has the graphics in place for this anyway. All it would need is a custom long drawbar off the rear of the first tender.

[Gumboots]

Spotted something while I was looking over "Thatcher Perkins". It has the bar for this built in. Hinged to the front cross beam, and when not in it use flops down and sits over a lug at the point of the cowcatcher. Simple and effective.