Locomotive sets

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Spent the afternoon in Parkton today. We ate lunch at V's Sidewalk Cafe, which is across the pavement from the Parkton depot. The food is excellent, and the view of passing trains is superb!

A northbound freight came by with four units. In between two and three was a vehicle about half the length of a locomotive and about eight or ten feet tall. He was moving about fifty, so I didn't get a good look.

Was it perhaps test vehicle of some sort?

BTW, Parkton is a good plcae to watch trains.

-- Pete Wenk (petewenk@nccoast.com), July 26, 2003

Answers

Pete, it seems like you may have seen a yard slug unit. Such units are "temporarily married" to a "mother" or control unit for extra tractive effort at low speeds in yard switching and hump service, and on transfer runs. The two units may have been transferred from one CSX yard to another(e.g. from Hamlet to Rocky Mount). The only times that I have seen test cars, they have always been positioned behind all of the locomotive units, and not spliced in between the units (and, they have been of standard height, not of reduced height as you have described). Best wishes! Aaron Dowling

-- Aaron Dowling (adowling@merandb.com), October 03, 2003.

Parkton is just south of Fayetteville, NC/Hope Mills on the A-line.

-- Warren Calloway (wcalloway@nc.rr.com), August 01, 2003.

And where is Parkton?

-- Joseph Oates (jlosal@mindspring.com), July 30, 2003.

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