I took Metro North from Poughkeepsie station to Grand Central for years, but I was usually dashing at top speed to catch a train or get a good seat; I never noticed which end of the train the engines are on.
But we’ve been hanging out just toadspittle across the Hudson, with a view of the river and the train tracks. AFAICT, all of the Metro-North trains, both northbound and southbound, have their engines on the north end. (I haven’t seen enough Amtrak trains to say if theirs are the same.)
Is there an intentional reason for this?
Is it easier pulling the trains up the gain in elevation from sea level Manhattan to the higher Mid-Hudson Valley? (Or pulling them up the slope from underground GCT to aboveground Harlem 125th?)
Is it because it’s easier to swap engines between trains above Poughkeepsie station? (i.e., moving the engines around in the train yard north of the Poughkeepsie station, out of the way of the trains cars.)
The locomotive remains on the north end of the train, a Metro North spokeswoman says, to keep diesel fumes and engine noise away from Grand Central Terminal. In addition, trains can’t turn around at that terminal.
Metra (the commuter rail service in the Chicago area) does exactly the same thing. Their diesel locomotives are always at the “outbound” end of the train, meaning that trips in to the stations in downtown Chicago are in “push” mode, with the locomotive at the back of the train – they have special passenger cars, called “control cars,” which are at the opposite end of the train from the locomotive, and contain a compartment for the engineer, with controls to operate the train while it’s in push mode.
Then, when a train is set to leave the downtown station, the engineer moves from the control car to the locomotive, and the train operates in “pull” mode for the outbound trip.
As the link that @bob_2 shared notes regarding Metro North, Metra does this to keep the locomotive exhaust and noise away from the central part of the station.
Here’s a photo of one of Metra’s control cars – you can see the two windows at the top of the end of the car, which are the “windshields” for the engineer’s compartment.
I have always thought that diesel operation was not permitted inside NYC. The Adirondack, which I have taken many times always changes engines in Albany. The southbound train changes to an electric engine (actually, I think it is a dual mode engine) while the northbound train changes to diesel operation. Of course, that train uses Penn Station, not Grand Central. Although a few decades ago it did use Grand Central.
I do not recall whether the engine is pushing or pulling. North of Albany I think it is always pulling.
Historically, the city apparently has had policies which required locomotives running in the tunnels and stations in NYC to use electric power – and, as you correctly recall, some of the railroads which served those stations had locomotives which could operate both via diesel-electric power, as well as tapping electric power directly from the third rail or catenary.
But, this message board link, to a railroader message board, has several people insisting that, while it is a “bad idea” to run diesels in that area (due to poor ventilation in the tunnels), and that FDNY has been known to raise a stink about it, there is no actual law regarding it. The “FL-9” which is referred to in several posts is a type of locomotive which had both diesel and electric power.
Even if electric locomotives are used, backing into a stub-end station means it’s easy to switch out a locomotive that’s having mechanical issues since you don’t have the whole rest of the train in the way. Plus passengers don’t have to walk past the length of the locomotive to get into the station.
Stub-end stations (where trains pull up to a stopper and have to back out) are by definition a terminus, but a terminus isn’t necessarily a stub-end station. Union Station in Chicago has mostly through tracks, but many trains terminate there even though they can pull through.
I’ve commuted through Union Station on and off for the past 30 years, and while there are a few through tracks there (on the east side of the terminal, adjacent to the Chicago River), most of them, in both the North and South Concourses, have stub ends with bumpers.
Here’s a station diagram which illustrates this – north is at the top of the map, and the handful of through tracks are at the right side.
Even systems that don’t have the misfortune* of a terminal station in the core of the city do this. GO Transit, serving the Greater Toronto Area, has all of its locomotives on the east end of the train at Union Station (and, more importantly, at the yard and maintenance facility).
*Ideally, trains would run through the city, to reduce the amount of time spent taking up valuable real estate at the most important station, and to allow people to easily travel through to the other side. But there’s little that’s ideal about North American “commuter rail,” which is ossified with many 1950s-era practices; sluggish diesel locomotives hauling unpowered cars, conductors walking around in silly hats punching tickets, service only aimed at 9-5 suburban commuters, etc.
When the railways first came to GB, all lines were privately built. They all wanted to reach London but the centre was already heavily occupied with expensive property, so they had to terminate in what was then cheaper land around the edges.
This is why London has 14 current terminus stations, some of them quite impressive architecturally.
Montreal’s commuter trains (from the west) enter the stub’end terminus locomotive first. This means a longer walk for passengers down the unprotected plstform to/from the terminal building.
At Momtreal’s Central station (mostly inter city trains), diesels tend to coast into the enclosed, partly underground station. Inter city trains in the past entering from the north has to coast downhill through a three mile tunnel. Northbound - diesels were pushed by electrics uphill to the tunnel portal, where they were detached.
