---
You've got to remember that each car in a current three-car set
carries specific equipment for the entire set to run, remove one of
these cars and none of the other cars work, add another car and
you've got to work out what ancilaries need to be expanded and where
best a car can be put into the consist. Its not going to be a matter
of putting a trailer in between two sets - after all which set is it
going to slave power and air off? Do six/seven car sets become
permanently coupled - therefore meaning you lose 7 cars for each
service instead of three at a time? Unless a fourth car is designed
into the current three car design, trouble aplenty is going to happen.

And in the end, running two or three six car trains every half hour
is going to carry a lot more than one seven car set every thirty
minutes. This concept is a pretty expensive bandaid that doesn't fix
the real problem - train frequency.

Cheers
Arthur

In qrig@yahoogroups.com, richard williams <debnrich66@...> wrote:
>
>
> Why would QR (or whoever - don't care and it is not relevant) need
to re-engineer an SMU? All they would need are some single units
that they could run between the 6 cars. But wouldn't 7 cars need
station lengthening anyway?
>
>