One Hiawatha set will be made up of WisDOT owned Ventures while the other set will be the cars shared between the states. As for delivery. I believe mid 2025 is when they arrive, they were ordered after the original Venture order but before the Airos.
That seems like such a weird way to do equipment ownership. I guess the WisDOT Ventures are just to guarantee equipment on the Hiawatha or something?
Illini and Saluki won't be till CN is happy with crossing circuits being activated by lightweight trains
I believe CN is satisfied now, just waiting for FRA approval to install the shunting antenna.
I agree. When I saw the video of 9301 at the Siemens Mobility facility I thought the paint wasn’t done. It really sucks that it goes from those nice San Joaquins colors to a straight wall of blue.
Where did you hear this?
Thank you. I hope this plan works out so we can get the superliners currently on the Carbondale trains back onto the long distance trains where they are desperately needed.
Underslung antennas for signaling/control stuff is not all that uncommon even on very high speed lines outside the US, and certainly ACSES in the Northeast requires those transponder antennas. I don't think antenna damage is a huge issue anywhere. It is a very well understood technology with much experience under the collective belt.
Automatic Train Stop (ATS) has been in use for nearly a century and has proven to be a reliable system. The pickup shoe is mounted on the outboard side of the loco truck and is positioned to pass within 1.5" of the stationary shoe mounted trackside (per Wiki). Hopefully the shunt antenna will prove to be similarly durable.
The ATS equipment looks to be durable. Thank you for the explanation. It would be interesting to see what the new antannas will look like.
It is in the center of the body as the transponders are located at the center of the track.
That’s part of why the ALC-42s never tested on the Auto Train either. Complications with the host railroad (CSX) and the several incidents that Amtrak and CSX collectively had. So those Chargers just sat around in Lorton for a few months.
If I'm remembering correctly, most of the P40s (800s) have an older style of brakes that works better with the autorack cars. The last few weeks have seen a lot of P42s on the Auto Train, but already they've mostly switched back to P40s. One notable exception seems to be P42 no. 179, which has been there basically non-stop for a few months. I have to wonder if they refitted it with freight brakes as a test.
