[PRCo] Re: M1276

[Fred Schneider]

My suspicion (I have zip to back it up) is that M1276 was not suitable because
it was not engineered to run at a very steady low speed.   The control system
on a PCC is a rate control, not a speed control.  No matter how far down you
push the power pedal, it wants to accelerate to 42 mph.  You plow deep snow at
a much slower speed.  The axle loadings were probably much lower than a
sweeper and certainly lower than a 4100 rebuild, which could make it more
prone to derailments especially on packed snow.

You could possibly rebuild it for a top speed near 20 mph if all the motors
were wired in series (instead of series pairs connected permanently in
parallel).  But it still would not run at a steady 12 mph like a sweeper
would.

Derrick J Brashear wrote:

> apropos, how about that snow removal equipment...
>
> M1276 was supposed to be able to be used to "plow" snow, but didn't work
> out, right? I don't think we've really talked about it.
>
> At
> http://lists.dementia.org/mlist/pittsburgh-railways/2000-10/msg00044.html
> we see that M1276 derailed on "the 38A loop at Shannon". Other than that I
> think we only really talked about:
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