QR: 3900's west of Ipswich

["John McCandless" <johnmc@topend.com.au>]

James C <jamesccj@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message
393cdf9d$0$8420$7f31c96c@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au">news:393cdf9d$0$8420$7f31c96c@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au...
> WHY?????? the weight ? the heights?? or length?
>
> Cheers
> James

None of the above.  Quite simply, there ain't enough juice in the overhead
to power a 3900 west of Ipswich. AFAIK, the Rosewood line was electrified
using excess electrical capacity from the Ipswich branch.  They were able to
extend the electrification relatively cheaply, (no transformers, AFAIK), and
by the convenient fact that the majority of passengers in the
Helidon-Ipswich corridor were in the Rosewood-Ipswich section, they were
able to retire the 2000 class RM's.  (This was their 'first' retirement,
before they were resurrected for the Corinda-Yerongpilly).

The downside was that there was(is?) restrictions on the number of EMU's
allowed on the section, and 3900's were banned outright.  I don't know about
SMU's or IMU's.  I will defer to MattyQ if i've got this wrong, but i think
this is the general gist.


John McCandless
Cloncurry Qld Au
http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Port/3150/index.htm