B unit being used without A?

[nkalanaga]

I would imagine that, if it CAN be done, a railroad somewhere has done it.  As far as I know the Haysi mine was the only place that a B unit was used regularly by itself, but in an emergency anything that can safely pull a train will be used.

Didn't the Rock Island have a E-type B unit with a cab for one section of a passenger train?  If I remember right, the idea was that the train started with an AB set, then the A went one way and the B another at an intermediate junction.

And, of course, a little off-topic for the question, the C&NW's infamous ABs, where they added cabs to B units for commuter service. 

[Leggy]

The EMC/EMD AB6 wasn't exactly a B unit in the traditional sense.....



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMC_AB6

[nkalanaga]

No, it wasn't, but it looks more like a B than an A, and was factory built based on a B unit.  It's actually a throwback to the early boxcab-style streamliners.  It could be the inspiration for a freelanced B-to-cab conversion, though.  In the later years, with the second engine added, it was mechanically a complete unit.

From the Wikipedia article:
"so the RI had EMC build a flat-fronted locomotive based on an E-series E6B (B unit) but with an operating cab, headlight, pilot, and other features to enable it to operate as an independent locomotive.

Since the small three- and four-car trains the units would have to haul independently were very light, the AB6 pair were built with only one 1,000 hp EMC 567 V12 engine, and a baggage compartment where the second engine would have been. Later, with increasing trainloads, the baggage compartment was replaced with a second engine."

[learmoia]

Comment Removed.

[nkalanaga]

Ian:  Or when that's all you have.  How else to explain the consist in Pasco on the BN in 77 or 78.  A-B-B-A F's, which were quite common in the late 70s, but instead of a solid set, it was actually A-B-(Alco C415)-B-A.  Why not put the Alco on one end?  Who knows...

I have a picture taken from the west side of the roundhouse ready tracks in October of 1977.  The only locomotives visible were three sets of Fs, all properly arranged, As on both ends and one or more Bs between.  At the time the BN looked more like a 1940s or 50s railroad than the late 80s.  They were short of power, and decided to send all of the Fs to the Northwest, where one set of shops could maintain the fleet.  The SP&S Alcos were still in service at the time, and everything was BN green, making for a strange "time warp" effect.

Quite a few of the branch lines were still using 40 ft boxcars for wheat, due to light rail, and that added to the strange feeling.  Gunderson/FMC in Portland was building new boxcars as fast as they could, and they came through Pasco, bound for everywhere, and then you'd see a train with hardly a car newer than 1960, pulled by 30 year old diesels.