Amtrak Siemens Charger locomotive (SC44, ALC42, ALC42E) (2015 - 1Q 2024)

[Steve4031]

My god this country is slow. Nothing is done with any efficiency.

 

[Bob Dylan]

My god this country is slow. Nothing is done with any efficiency.

First we kill all the lawyers, then the Nimbys!

 

[CCC1007]

My god this country is slow. Nothing is done with any efficiency.

First we kill all the lawyers, then the Nimbys!

Consider for a moment the fact that 70% of the worlds lawyers live in the United States...

 

[WoodyinNYC]

... Trains Magazine ... [reports] the Charger deliveries are being held off as Amtrak and the States are ... Finalizing insurance deals ... to be done by the end of spring.

This hang-up may explain why nobody has announced the post-delivery schedules for the big Stimulus-funded projects. We've heard that the Cascades will add an early morning train and an end-of-day train Seattle-Portland, trying to capture business riders. The Piedmonts will do something similar Raleigh-Charlotte. The Lincoln Service St Louis-CHI, the showpiece project, will add an unknown number of frequencies (probably 3, maybe 4). Michigan is doubtless eager to add one or more Wolverines frequencies Detroit-CHI, but with the route 'South of the Lake' thru Indiana still a mess, who knows if they can, and nothing has been announced.

(In the East, largely unaffected by the new diesels, other projects still have us hanging. Considerable work around Albany (new station tracks n platforms, double-tracking, better signaling, etc) could take minutes out of the schedules for the Lake Shore Ltd, Adirondack, Ethan Allen, Maple Leaf, and Empire Corridor trains. Or maybe not. Maybe it will be enuff to see big gains in On Time Performance. Then the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield Shuttle may be FY2010 funds, not from the Stimulus, with the project aiming to finish in January, or at least early next year.)

The Stimulus projects have a deadline this year, less than 6 months from now, with the end of this Fiscal Year 2016. But a practical deadline is less than 3 months from now, to allow time to complete invoicing, paying, and other paper shuffling.

I thought we'd be seeing new timetables announced, already, but nothing yet. So maybe they are waiting to be sure they have the new locomotives ready before they announce any schedule changes.

 

[Ziv]

It would be a good start.

My god this country is slow. Nothing is done with any efficiency.

First we kill all the lawyers, then the Nimbys!

Consider for a moment the fact that 70% of the worlds lawyers live in the United States...

 

[Steve4031]

Exactly.

 

[Agent]

This video was uploaded Tuesday by YouTube user Fan2La. It shows 1402 and 1403 on an eastbound Southwest Chief.

 

[Karl1459]

... Trains Magazine ... [reports] the Charger deliveries are being held off as Amtrak and the States are ... Finalizing insurance deals ... to be done by the end of spring.

This hang-up may explain why nobody has announced the post-delivery schedules for the big Stimulus-funded projects. We've heard that the Cascades will add an early morning train and an end-of-day train Seattle-Portland, trying to capture business riders. The Piedmonts will do something similar Raleigh-Charlotte. The Lincoln Service St Louis-CHI, the showpiece project, will add an unknown number of frequencies (probably 3, maybe 4). Michigan is doubtless eager to add one or more Wolverines frequencies Detroit-CHI, but with the route 'South of the Lake' thru Indiana still a mess, who knows if they can, and nothing has been announced.

(In the East, largely unaffected by the new diesels, other projects still have us hanging. Considerable work around Albany (new station tracks n platforms, double-tracking, better signaling, etc) could take minutes out of the schedules for the Lake Shore Ltd, Adirondack, Ethan Allen, Maple Leaf, and Empire Corridor trains. Or maybe not. Maybe it will be enuff to see big gains in On Time Performance. Then the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield Shuttle may be FY2010 funds, not from the Stimulus, with the project aiming to finish in January, or at least early next year.)

The Stimulus projects have a deadline this year, less than 6 months from now, with the end of this Fiscal Year 2016. But a practical deadline is less than 3 months from now, to allow time to complete invoicing, paying, and other paper shuffling.

I thought we'd be seeing new timetables announced, already, but nothing yet. So maybe they are waiting to be sure they have the new locomotives ready before they announce any schedule changes.

The other fly in the soup as far as the Cascades are concerned is the "Point Defiance Bypass". This is most likely the defining issue for additional Cascade trains. https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/rail/pnwrc_ptdefiance/. This is currently "scheduled" for completion in November 2017, I don't expect to see new schedules until all parties are confident that adequate locomotives with trains, crews hired and trained, the Tacoma Freighthouse station, and the bypass are all in place and working. IMHO if everything falls in place new schedules will be early 2018.

 

[rickycourtney]

... Trains Magazine ... [reports] the Charger deliveries are being held off as Amtrak and the States are ... Finalizing insurance deals ... to be done by the end of spring.

This hang-up may explain why nobody has announced the post-delivery schedules for the big Stimulus-funded projects. We've heard that the Cascades will add an early morning train and an end-of-day train Seattle-Portland, trying to capture business riders. The Piedmonts will do something similar Raleigh-Charlotte. The Lincoln Service St Louis-CHI, the showpiece project, will add an unknown number of frequencies (probably 3, maybe 4). Michigan is doubtless eager to add one or more Wolverines frequencies Detroit-CHI, but with the route 'South of the Lake' thru Indiana still a mess, who knows if they can, and nothing has been announced.
(In the East, largely unaffected by the new diesels, other projects still have us hanging. Considerable work around Albany (new station tracks n platforms, double-tracking, better signaling, etc) could take minutes out of the schedules for the Lake Shore Ltd, Adirondack, Ethan Allen, Maple Leaf, and Empire Corridor trains. Or maybe not. Maybe it will be enuff to see big gains in On Time Performance. Then the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield Shuttle may be FY2010 funds, not from the Stimulus, with the project aiming to finish in January, or at least early next year.)

The Stimulus projects have a deadline this year, less than 6 months from now, with the end of this Fiscal Year 2016. But a practical deadline is less than 3 months from now, to allow time to complete invoicing, paying, and other paper shuffling.

I thought we'd be seeing new timetables announced, already, but nothing yet. So maybe they are waiting to be sure they have the new locomotives ready before they announce any schedule changes.

The other fly in the soup as far as the Cascades are concerned is the "Point Defiance Bypass". This is most likely the defining issue for additional Cascade trains. https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/rail/pnwrc_ptdefiance/. This is currently "scheduled" for completion in November 2017, I don't expect to see new schedules until all parties are confident that adequate locomotives with trains, crews hired and trained, the Tacoma Freighthouse station, and the bypass are all in place and working. IMHO if everything falls in place new schedules will be early 2018.

Actually many here in Washington believe the additional Cascades trains will be added on September 23, 2017. That's when all the local transit agencies here in Western WA change their schedules, including the Sounder commuter train (which will be also adding two round trips at the same time). The bypass is completed and testing of the tracks is done, station construction at Tacoma's Freighthouse Square is coming along nicely (even if it's not finished, the platform is still open and functioning during construction) and there there is already enough trainsets and locomotives in the fleet to run the service.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

... Trains Magazine ... [reports] the Charger deliveries are being held off as Amtrak and the States are ... Finalizing insurance deals ... done by the end of spring.

This hang-up may explain why nobody has announced the post-delivery schedules for the big Stimulus-funded projects. ...

The Stimulus projects have a deadline this year, less than 6 months from now, with the end of this Fiscal Year 2016. But a practical deadline is less than 3 months from now, to allow time to complete invoicing, paying, and other paper shuffling.

I thought we'd be seeing new timetables announced, already, but nothing yet. So maybe they are waiting to be sure they have the new locomotives ready before they announce any schedule changes.

... the "Point Defiance Bypass" ... currently "scheduled" for completion in November 2017, I don't expect to see new schedules until all parties are confident that adequate locomotives with trains, crews hired and trained, the Tacoma Freighthouse station, and the bypass are all in place and working. IMHO if everything falls in place new schedules will be early 2018.

IIUC WADOT signed a contract with the feds to do this and this and that, to spend the grant by the date set, AND to add two additional frequencies Seattle-Portland. I expect to see two more Talgo frequencies running by the end of the Fiscal Year 2017, i.e. September 30. Nobody wants to jeopardize the grants, for fear the crazies in D.C. would love to cancel them!

 

[Agent]

YouTube user MobileRailSpotterRxR uploaded this video today of Cascades Chargers 1404 and 1405 after leaving the Siemens factory in Sacramento.

 

[Agent]

This video from Saturday by YouTube user jreichel1 shows 1404 and 1405 on the southbound Coast Starlight at San Leandro, California.

 

[John Bredin]

My god this country is slow. Nothing is done with any efficiency.

First we kill all the lawyers, then the Nimbys!

 

[A Voice]

My god this country is slow. Nothing is done with any efficiency.

First we kill all the lawyers, then the Nimbys!

Just like a plumber makes a lot of money when someone else clogs the toilet, the lawyers didn't make the Charger project into a mess but are just cleaning it up. It's generally considered bad form to shoot the messenger garbage man.

Yeah, but if lawyers did plumbing it would take them hundreds of hours of research and dozens of permits and documents filed over a period of months or years, when all that was wrong was the water valve was turned off.

Seriously, though, the Charger project isn't really a mess; There are some details to work out, which in fact are probably more difficult and complex than they should be, but compared to some other passenger rail projects of late (a rail car design which crushes like a tin can.....when has design by committee ever gone wrong before.....) the locomotive end has been fairly smooth.

 

[jis]

As have most passenger cars not designed by committees. Afterall, the Commuter and Heavy Rail Operators have been putting on line hundreds of passenger cars on line with nary a problem.

 

[Fan Railer]

So a Caltrans Charger was sent to the RR museum in Sacramento for a day. Wonder what that was about.

 

[Sactobob]

So a Caltrans Charger was sent to the RR museum in Sacramento for a day. Wonder what that was about.

Probably as background for a dinner meeting and speakers as part of a two-day "California Passenger Rail Summit" meeting.

 

[jis]

Meanwhile Brightline already has 4 and will get 4 more Chargers in a couple of weeks, all doing live test runs in preparation for service inauguration this summer.

 

[west point]

Someone who has the time it would be interesting to list actual dates of each Charger leaving Sacramento so we might get an idea of the delivery intervals. As well we may need to factor in the delivery of Brightline cars.

 

[KnightRail]

So a Caltrans Charger was sent to the RR museum in Sacramento for a day. Wonder what that was about.

An ACS-64 also made a trip there back when those were being delivered. Not much more than a manufacturer marketing and showcasing their product at a relevant venue.

 

[KnightRail]

IDTX4611 made its non-revenue testing debut today making a run from Chicago to Milwaukee and back. The consist included Amfleet I, II, and horizon equipment along with P42 #57.

 

[Agent]

Video of IDTX 4611's test train (at 0:39 and 2:49) by YouTube user A-Train4014 Productions.

 

[Steve4031]

Great to see some in the Midwest.

 

[KnightRail]

Testing continued last night with an overnight round trip to Carbondale, IL. Same consist as the Milwaukee trip.

 

[Agent]

Official Caltrans video featuring the previously-mentioned appearance of a Charger at the California State Railroad Museum.