The newly released CSX Heritage series locomotive, 1976, Conrail Quality unit, pokes its nose above the train as it runs south as the DPU on CSX M513, at Adams, Tennessee on the Henderson Subdivision, on July 31st, 2023.
DPU – Stands for Distributed Power Unit, which is a locomotive set capable of remote-control operation in conjunction with locomotive units at the train’s head end. DPUs are placed in the middle or at the rear of heavy trains (such as coal, grain, soda ash and even manifest) to help climb steep grades.
According to Wikipedia: Conrail (reporting mark CR), formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company’s legal name. It continues to do business as an asset management and network services provider in three Shared Assets Areas that were excluded from the division of its operations during its acquisition by CSX Corporation and the Norfolk Southern Railway.
The federal government created Conrail to take over the potentially profitable lines of multiple bankrupt carriers, including the Penn Central Transportation Company and Erie Lackawanna Railway. After railroad regulations were lifted by the 4R Act and the Staggers Act, Conrail began to turn a profit in the 1980s and was privatized in 1987. The two remaining Class I railroads in the East, CSX Transportation, and the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS), agreed in 1997 to acquire the system and split it into two roughly equal parts (alongside three residual shared-assets areas), returning rail freight competition to the Northeast by essentially undoing the 1968 merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central Railroad that created Penn Central. Following approval by the Surface Transportation Board, CSX and NS took control in August 1998, and on June 1, 1999, began operating their respective portions of Conrail.
Tech Info: Nikon D800, Sigma 150-600 @390mm, f/8, 1/1000, ISO 220.