Hi folk! What is the use of bumper car. I saw them between a consist of CN locos pulling a new ACELA trainset in Montreal. The bumper cars was between loco and ACELA set. The bumper car was regular flat cars. I also saw them (5 bumper cars) each side of a Schnabel car. I beleive that in this case it maybe to spread the weight on bridge. But each side of an Acela set... ??? Yvan-Martin
Freight cars attached to the Acela and most other passenger equipment moved in freight trains is to provide additional braking ability and also to avoid the need to couple/uncouple directly to passenger equipment that might not be as familiar to freight crews. Much cheaper to bypass or miss the hitch on an empty freight car than to damage the nose of the Acela. Most railroads refer to these as 'idler' cars. [ 29 August 2001: Message edited by: Big Al ]</p>
