# VRE's leased Sounder equipment



## Superliner Diner (Apr 29, 2003)

Here is a shot of Virginia Railway Express' leased Sounder equipment, shot in late December 2002. Sounder runs in the Seattle area, but has been slow in getting their planned services up and running, hence the availability of these bilevel consists. The interesting water-oriented motif looks a bit out of place for a rail service that (except for the Potomac and Quantico Rivers) does not run near much water. This was taken from the station parking lot near the Broad Run station at the end of the Manassas Line, as the train was in a yard. It sits off the Norfolk Southern mainline, allowing commuter trains to layover between runs without blocking the main. In fact just before I shot this photo. Amtrak's northbound Crescent came by, about an hour late because of recently-imposed speed restrictions on the now-embargoed material handling cars.


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## battalion51 (Apr 29, 2003)

Well leasing equipment really presents many smaller commuter operations (like Sounder) with options. Many recieve a large lump sum of money to buy cars and locomotives at one time. While they buy as many cars and motives as they can, the demand is not always there for that many cars and motives. For larger commuter operations (or even small ones) leasing presents them with an oppurtunity to run more trains, even if they don't have the money to buy the trainsets. This was seen with South Florida's Tri-Rail recently. Tri-Rail leased out a trainset to GO Transit as Tri-Rail currently only needs six trainsets, but had the cars and motives for eight (one set was kept on hand for spares etc). This is also seen with the Sounder-VRE partnership as VRE doesn't have the funds to buy the Bombardier coaches, but they need them. All in all, leasing is a great thing for everyone.


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## amtrakadirondack (May 21, 2003)

Yeah, I saw pictures of the car, at first I thought that the Sounder and VRE were partner, then my friend told me different.


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