2.1. GENERAL
The most important part of making a plan for rail operations is
determining how many tons of supplies and equipment can be moved over
the rail line and delivered at its forward end each day. The line
may be a short stretch of single track, or it may be one or more rail
divisions each ranging from 90 to 150 miles (145241 kilometers) in
length. The capacity of each division or branch line must be
determined separately. The three principal things you must know
before you can make an accurate determination of the capacity of any
rail line are the pulling or hauling power of the locomotives you
will use, the resistance offered to the pull of the locomotives, and
the number of trains that can be operated over the line each day.
Once this information is known, you can determine the net tonnage for
a division of railroad; when you know the net tonnage for every
division of the railroad, you can estimate the number of tons that
can be delivered at the forward end of the line each day. This
chapter explains exactly how to determine the tonnage capacity of a
rail line.
2.2. TYPES AND CLASSIFICATION OF LOCOMOTIVES
Transportation railway service personnel use most of the rail
equipment they find in a theater. Most foreign countries use steam
locomotives, dieselelectric locomotives, or both. While the TRS
does not generally plan to use steam locomotives, they may be the
only type in use in the theater; therefore, this text discusses both.
Locomotives are classified in several ways, but the Army uses
the Whyte classification system to classify both steam and diesel
electric locomotives. This system identifies the wheel arrangements
of locomotives. Locomotive wheels are grouped as leading, driving,
and trailing wheels. Numerals separated by hyphens represent the
number of wheels in each group, starting at
7
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