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

[cirdan]

I am more curious about the shape of the nose than the color schemes. This shape differs significantly from the earlier pictures of Chargers that we have seen which appear to resemble the Sprinters a lot more. This nose resembles the Acelas more than the Sprinters.

I guess the outer shell of the nose cone is plastic anyway and customizing that to what the customer wants is much easier now than in the past.

 

[cirdan]

Seeing the Brightline train is supposedly based on the Railjet concept, it would be appropriate to compare to this ....

(a ca car, and I know AAF won't have that, but the comparison is interesting anyway)

 

[jis]

RailJet is push pull using standard EuroSprinter locomotive at one end with no specific integration between the consist and the locomotive to give it a articulated train look and feel. I think what Siemens is peddling to AAF is significantly different from RailJet. The only common thing is the basic passenger car design - the Viaggio Comfort.

The fact that RailJets are capable of 140mph operation suggests that the Viaggio cars are designed for something like 140-160mph operation, and could potentially be adapted for use on other corridors supporting such speeds.

 

[Andrew]

Will the Chargers have outward facing cameras?

 

[CCC1007]

Almost certainly

 

[seat38a]

Received email confirmation from LOSSAN today that all 14 Chargers will be for LOSSAN, replacing almost all of the 15 F59s currently used.

And it also says in this article the order is for the Surfliners: http://www.masstransitmag.com/press_release/12135837/caltrans-orders-14-diesel-electric-locomotives-for-amtrak-pacific-surfliner-route

 

[neroden]

I am sooo confused by California's plans.

Washington is simple: they're replacing all locomotives on the Cascades.

Missouri is simple: they're replacing all locomotives on the River Runner.

Illinois is fairly straightforward too: 12 for Chicago-St. Louis; 2 each for Carbondale, Quincy, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Port Huron, 3 Wolverines, 2 Quad Cities, 1 Rockland or as a spare. So they're replacing everything too.

But California! California's ordered 14 for the Surfliner and 6 for "unknown". I don't know how many they use right now, but it seems obvious they're keeping some of their old locomotives. Which ones? Where will they be used?

 

[seat38a]

I am sooo confused by California's plans.

Washington is simple: they're replacing all locomotives on the Cascades.

Missouri is simple: they're replacing all locomotives on the River Runner.

Illinois is fairly straightforward too: 12 for Chicago-St. Louis; 2 each for Carbondale, Quincy, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Port Huron, 3 Wolverines, 2 Quad Cities, 1 Rockland or as a spare. So they're replacing everything too.

But California! California's ordered 14 for the Surfliner and 6 for "unknown". I don't know how many they use right now, but it seems obvious they're keeping some of their old locomotives. Which ones? Where will they be used?

The NorCal Locomotives are owned by the State. Surfliner locomotives are owned by Amtrak. If anything, it looks like their priority is replacing the leased once first before replacing the ones the State already owns outright. There is always the good talk about Tier 4 compliant etc etc, but the reality seems to be that they are trying to offload the ones they pay Amtrak for. BTW the ones owned by California carry the CDTX mark according to Wikipedia. I found this picture from my last trip on the San Joaquin

DSC01949 by B H, on Flickr

 

[neroden]

OK. California owns 15 F59PHIs and 2 P32-8s. Amtrak owns 21 F59PHIs and 18 P32-8s.

Washington is replacing 8, Missouri is replacing 2, Illinois is replacing 4 on Lincoln Service, & Illinois is replacing 13 on other services, not counting the locomotives for expanded service; so that probably allows Amtrak to retire 27 locomotives.

California is buying 14 locomotives for Surfliner service and 6 for "unknown". If their priority is replacing Amtrak leased units, this should displace all remaining leased Amtrak-owned units -- and leave a bunch of additional locomotives, but not enough to replace their whole fleet. Expansion plans aren't going to require more than a couple of locomotives. Which California-owned locomotives is California going to retire? I'm guessing the P32-8s, but I've heard no word...

 

[blondninja]

There's supposed to be a new line added to the coachella valley to replace the through way buses to Palm Springs. That will require new engines and cars I'd think. They plan two trains a day in each direction.

 

[keelhauled]

I should certainly hope Amtrak doesn't leap to retiring locomotives. I would much rather see them use the freed-up power to allow for major overhauls/preventative maintenance of the P42 fleet.

 

[PerRock]

OK. California owns 15 F59PHIs and 2 P32-8s. Amtrak owns 21 F59PHIs and 18 P32-8s.

Washington is replacing 8, Missouri is replacing 2, Illinois is replacing 4 on Lincoln Service, & Illinois is replacing 13 on other services, not counting the locomotives for expanded service; so that probably allows Amtrak to retire 27 locomotives.

California is buying 14 locomotives for Surfliner service and 6 for "unknown". If their priority is replacing Amtrak leased units, this should displace all remaining leased Amtrak-owned units -- and leave a bunch of additional locomotives, but not enough to replace their whole fleet. Expansion plans aren't going to require more than a couple of locomotives. Which California-owned locomotives is California going to retire? I'm guessing the P32-8s, but I've heard no word...

It's not a straight forward replace. All the Amtrak F59PHIs are used on the west coast. So the 15 Midwestern Chargers will be replacing P42s. Those P42s probably won't be retired but distributed elsewhere in the system.

While the B32s aren't that well loved for revenue runs, they are decently liked for yard service (which is what most are used for anyways) the P42s. Full-cowled/cabbed units are less useful for yard work (harder to reverse, harder to jump on/off, etc)

 

[jis]

A few B32s are used in main line duty out east on the Pennsylvanina and occasionally on the Silvers too.

 

[afigg]

There's supposed to be a new line added to the coachella valley to replace the through way buses to Palm Springs. That will require new engines and cars I'd think. They plan two trains a day in each direction.

The proposed Coachella Valley corridor service is still in the Service Development plan study phase. Then it has to go through the EIS and record of decision phase followed by funding and agreements with UP. Until then, Caltrans is not likely to commit funds nor make official plans for allocating and purchasing rolling stock including locomotives for the service. Given that the Siemens plant is in Sacramento, shouldn't be politically difficult to obtain state funding to order more Chargers when they are needed for new and expanded California services.

 

[afigg]

I should certainly hope Amtrak doesn't leap to retiring locomotives. I would much rather see them use the freed-up power to allow for major overhauls/preventative maintenance of the P42 fleet.

I seriously doubt that Amtrak will retire any P-42s (that have not been too badly damaged to be repaired) until they get new replacements (within Amtrak's owned fleet). Older locomotives, some of the P-40s and P-32-8s are likely to be retired first, but only when there are enough Chargers for the state corridors to fix the current locomotive fleet shortages.

 

[blondninja]

There are multiple options for the coachella route and equipment shortages are one of the issues. There is also the option to run down the bnsf route via Fullerton rather than Pomona but then yes over to up trackage by Colton. Having more equipment makes one of the issues not so much of an issue. I assume old Surfline cars could go to this route. I spoke to some people at the last railroad days in Fullerton as they staffed a booth there.

 

[blondninja]

Also the numbers are always reported as good for the Fullerton to Palm Springs/Indio Amtrak bus, which is basically a test to see about the viability of service to that region.

 

[PVD]

If I recall, the P 32-8 gives up a fair amount of traction power when providing HEP while the F 59PHI has a separate genset for HEP, as well as being geared for 110 max instead of 100, which might matter if a unit were to be relocated to some of the areas where 110 mph running occurs. Many of those areas will now see the Chargers as their primary, but not neccessarily exclusive power. The F 59 might be a better fit for a "Sub"

 

[Paulus]

But California! California's ordered 14 for the Surfliner and 6 for "unknown". I don't know how many they use right now, but it seems obvious they're keeping some of their old locomotives. Which ones? Where will they be used?

The six unknown are replacing existing Amtrak locomotives in the Oakland pool for the Capitol Corridor and San Joaquins. Not sure exactly how many are leased. Don't forget that there are also substantial increases planned for the San Joaquins and Capitol Corridor (more frequencies and extensions).

 

[blondninja]

True, and then there's the oft rumored Coast Daylight.

 

[seat38a]

But California! California's ordered 14 for the Surfliner and 6 for "unknown". I don't know how many they use right now, but it seems obvious they're keeping some of their old locomotives. Which ones? Where will they be used?

The six unknown are replacing existing Amtrak locomotives in the Oakland pool for the Capitol Corridor and San Joaquins. Not sure exactly how many are leased. Don't forget that there are also substantial increases planned for the San Joaquins and Capitol Corridor (more frequencies and extensions).

These are probably candidates for replacement. San Joaquin at Bakersfield. Also don't the Comet Consists run with leased locomotives as well?

DSC01944 by B H, on Flickr

 

[neroden]

OK. California owns 15 F59PHIs and 2 P32-8s. Amtrak owns 21 F59PHIs and 18 P32-8s.

Washington is replacing 8, Missouri is replacing 2, Illinois is replacing 4 on Lincoln Service, & Illinois is replacing 13 on other services, not counting the locomotives for expanded service; so that probably allows Amtrak to retire 27 locomotives.

California is buying 14 locomotives for Surfliner service and 6 for "unknown". If their priority is replacing Amtrak leased units, this should displace all remaining leased Amtrak-owned units -- and leave a bunch of additional locomotives, but not enough to replace their whole fleet. Expansion plans aren't going to require more than a couple of locomotives. Which California-owned locomotives is California going to retire? I'm guessing the P32-8s, but I've heard no word...

It's not a straight forward replace. All the Amtrak F59PHIs are used on the west coast. So the 15 Midwestern Chargers will be replacing P42s. Those P42s probably won't be retired but distributed elsewhere in the system.

While the B32s aren't that well loved for revenue runs, they are decently liked for yard service (which is what most are used for anyways) the P42s. Full-cowled/cabbed units are less useful for yard work (harder to reverse, harder to jump on/off, etc)

OK, I'm starting to figure this out. So with Cascades currently running 8 F59PHIs, California is running 13 F59PHIs owned by Amtrak, 15 F59PHIs owned by California, and 2 P32-8s owned by California. The other P32-8s, owned by Amtrak, are probably relegated to yard service or will be soon, and may be retired if there are enough P40s and P42s available for backup.

So California is buying 14 Chargers for the Surfliner; this replaces all 13 F59PHIs owned by Amtrak and adds 1. (For this calculation, it doesn't really matter whether the Amtrak-owned F59PHIs are running on the Surfliner or on the northern services, so I assumed for simiplicity that they were running on the Surfliner.) I'm not sure how many locos Surfliner uses as a whole, but 14 seems close to correct.

Meanwhile California is buying 6 Chargers for the northern services (Capitol Corridor & San Joaquin), which currently run various leased locomotives, 15 California-owned F59PHIs, and sometimes the P32-8s. I'm not sure how many California uses here, but it looks like 8 on the San Joaquins and 12 or so on the Capitol Corridor, maybe less, which adds up to about 20. So the 6 Chargers should replace P42s leased from Amtrak, because adding them to 15 California-owned F59PHIs gets you to 21. There don't really seem to be any for expansion.

So it looks like California will keep operating all or most of the California-owned F59PHIs on the northern services. Which means that Oakland will be stuck maintaining F59PHIs for California after Amtrak has stopped using them. Curious.

It's not clear to me what happens to the California owned P32-8s, but it seems like they probably won't be used in regular revenue service. Relegated to yard service? Does California really have a use for them? While running HEP they have relatively poor power and California wouldn't want to use them on the Surfliner. Apparently they're sometimes used on the Capitol Corridor, but that doesn't seem very desirable either.

----

Anyway, if we assume that Amtrak has no further interest in its displaced F59PHIs (apart from possibly leasing them to states), and that the P32-8s are already not used in routine revenue service any more, this also allows us to figure out how many P42s are "freed up" to provide spares and relief for the trains which will continue to run P42s. The answer is 2 from Missouri, 4 from Lincoln Service, 13 from other Illinois, and 5 or 6 from northern California service. So about 25. This should help with the ability to keep the P42 fleet running reliably... for a few more years.

 

[PVD]

With the power problems of tis year, I'm not so sure the displaced F59PHI won't be around for a while. Does anyone have MDBF or maintenace cost data that would make them signifigantly worse than the P40s or 42s to have around? Two questions for the tech folks out there... Can they MU with the P42 or P40? Can the separate genset run for HEP with the prime mover shut down? A lot of trains go out with one unit and really could use a second for reliability.

 

[CCC1007]

They mu with p42's every time they are sent to beech grove. No problem there.

 

[neroden]

It would be interesting to MU the F59PHIs with the P42s and use the F59PHIs as HEP generators.

But there really is the issue of keeping parts and training current for "oddball" units, and these are Amtrak's last EMD locomotives apart from the switchers.

I would expect them to remain concentrated at a small number of maintenance sites. California was ideal because they're used by Metrolink and Coaster as well as the northern California Amtrak services. NCDOT uses F59s for the Piedmont, so the Carolinian might be a possibility. Beech Grove has to maintain everything, so the Cardinal might be a possibility too. I suppose the Coast Starlight or the California Zephyr is possible, but they don't really have as much power as is desired.