Decision made to replace the Arrows

Head-end View wrote:Re: the above photos of the European DMU's, where is the actual diesel engine located in those cars? Is it within the carbody somewhere, or on the underside of the car. It doesn't appear to be in the roof-line like in the RDC's of yesteryear.

Not to get off topic but on the RDC's the engines are always under the carbody, the roofhump was only the exhaust, radiator and air conditioning equipment/compressors.

but does removing the control stands from one end of a pair limit the fleet flexibility by forcing them to run in 4 car sets instead of 2 car sets?

The only way they are going to blank out control stands is if they turn the singles to married pairs and the married pairs to quads. There is no logical reason at all to loose cabs on these things. If any of them right now have a cab that is not operational they are sitting dead at the MMC because legally, they could never operate in revenue service that way!

I haven't heard about blanking out any cabs - it was discussed a few years ago, when they were considering rebuilding the entire fleet, as they would have made the engineers cab more crashworthy and sealed up the traps in the entire cab, so making a quad set would allow a minimum amount of traps lost for low level platforms, as one whole set of doors would not be able to access a low level platform. If every cab was rebuilt like that, only every other car would have low level capability. Instead, there would be 3 sets of end doors with low level access then one set without.

As I understand it, most of, if not all the singles are "safe". There are some married pairs that would be retired and parted out or whatever you want to call it, to keep the rest of the fleet going. There are some married pairs that "work" but have some issues. They certainly are legal to lead, but not fun to run from or with, and the most troublesome cars tend to get buried in the middle of long NEC trains.

Princeton Dinky

amtrakowitz wrote:LRT conversion entails a lot more than switching one vehicle for another; the entire branch will have to be signaled, where it is currently dark territory, and dedicated storage and maintenance facilities will have to be built, whereas the current Dinky can travel back and forth to the MMC. LRT will have a slower top speed as well (55 mph versus the Dinky's 60 mph), and will require reconverting Princeton Junction's Dinky platform back to low from when it was converted from low to high in the late 80s. Not only that, but assuming NJT would want to save a little bit of money on this, they'd have to buy dual-voltage LRTs for the first time, which themselves would require extra maintenance (there are "tram-trains" in Germany that run on 15 kV 16⅔ Hz on the general railway network as well as 750 V DC on the street). And of course, if this were to run on the street, one accident with a road vehicle takes the Branch out of service for a number of hours.

I don't see how you come to some of your conclusions:

1. Why would they need to signal the branch for LRT? You say they can now run conventional trains with no signals. It's a pretty straight line, isn't it, couldn't they just use CTC (See Trolley Car)? Also why would they need signals unless they increased the service? Isn't it right now just a single train, so no meets, cornfield or otherwise?

2. Why would LRT have to have a 55mph speed limit? I've never heard of any such regulation, although I admit I don't know of any light rail today that runs that fast. Isn't it possible in fantasy land (Cincinatti and Lake Erie, Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee) someone might invent a double truck lightweight 600 volt DC trolley pole railcar that can go, let's say, 70mph?

3. Why would light rail absolutely need low level platforms? Edmonton, Calgary and Los Angeles have high level, San Francisco and Pittsburgh have cars that can board high level and street level.

4. Why do they need 2 different voltages? I'm guessing here you think, and maybe are right, that 15kv AC electricity is dangerous on street running, but that makes me wonder how railroads handle that same, or higher, voltage on grade crossings. But if they wanted to save money why wouldn't they just make the whole line 750 volts DC? I'm guessing it's easier to convert a high voltage AC line to lower voltage DC than the other way around. Also even though being able to use Princeton streets to get further into downtown is one of the excuses for making the line light rail, I can't figure anything's written in stone.

5. Although it's a big pain, I don't see how 1 accident takes the branch out of service for several hours. There are many light and heavy rail operations that have highway accidents that sometimes get cleared up in less time than that. And if there's street running doesn't that make it more likely that there will be increased service, so that there would be more than 1 set of equipment on the branch? One accident with a road vehicle on the street running portion might only mean they use the other 30 cars of their newly produced light rail fleet and cut service back to the grade separated PJ&B right of way we all love.

Thinking so much of the Princeton Junction and Back makes me hungry. I'll go have a PB&J. By the way, wouldn't Peanut Butter and Jelly make a good name for an N-scale layout?

Patrick Boylan wrote:Princeton Dinky

amtrakowitz wrote:LRT conversion entails a lot more than switching one vehicle for another; the entire branch will have to be signaled, where it is currently dark territory, and dedicated storage and maintenance facilities will have to be built, whereas the current Dinky can travel back and forth to the MMC. LRT will have a slower top speed as well (55 mph versus the Dinky's 60 mph), and will require reconverting Princeton Junction's Dinky platform back to low from when it was converted from low to high in the late 80s. Not only that, but assuming NJT would want to save a little bit of money on this, they'd have to buy dual-voltage LRTs for the first time, which themselves would require extra maintenance (there are "tram-trains" in Germany that run on 15 kV 16⅔ Hz on the general railway network as well as 750 V DC on the street). And of course, if this were to run on the street, one accident with a road vehicle takes the Branch out of service for a number of hours.

I don't see how you come to some of your conclusions:

1. Why would they need to signal the branch for LRT? You say they can now run conventional trains with no signals. It's a pretty straight line, isn't it, couldn't they just use CTC (See Trolley Car)? Also why would they need signals unless they increased the service? Isn't it right now just a single train, so no meets, cornfield or otherwise?

2. Why would LRT have to have a 55mph speed limit? I've never heard of any such regulation, although I admit I don't know of any light rail today that runs that fast. Isn't it possible in fantasy land (Cincinatti and Lake Erie, Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee) someone might invent a double truck lightweight 600 volt DC trolley pole railcar that can go, let's say, 70mph?

3. Why would light rail absolutely need low level platforms? Edmonton, Calgary and Los Angeles have high level, San Francisco and Pittsburgh have cars that can board high level and street level.

4. Why do they need 2 different voltages? I'm guessing here you think, and maybe are right, that 15kv AC electricity is dangerous on street running, but that makes me wonder how railroads handle that same, or higher, voltage on grade crossings. But if they wanted to save money why wouldn't they just make the whole line 750 volts DC? I'm guessing it's easier to convert a high voltage AC line to lower voltage DC than the other way around. Also even though being able to use Princeton streets to get further into downtown is one of the excuses for making the line light rail, I can't figure anything's written in stone.

5. Although it's a big pain, I don't see how 1 accident takes the branch out of service for several hours. There are many light and heavy rail operations that have highway accidents that sometimes get cleared up in less time than that. And if there's street running doesn't that make it more likely that there will be increased service, so that there would be more than 1 set of equipment on the branch? One accident with a road vehicle on the street running portion might only mean they use the other 30 cars of their newly produced light rail fleet and cut service back to the grade separated PJ&B right of way we all love.

Thinking so much of the Princeton Junction and Back makes me hungry. I'll go have a PB&J. By the way, wouldn't Peanut Butter and Jelly make a good name for an N-scale layout?

1: If you have more than one trainset/vehicle... you'll need signals somewhere to keep them crunking into each other.

2: HBLR travels at 55 mph, no not in the street but it does get that fast.

3: Large numbers of tram style LRV's are low floor, requiring a mid height (think hoboken terminal) platform or lower.

4: The current branch is wired into the NEC, you'd need to sever that and have no service while the DC power is hooked up. Where would the substation go?

5: I once witnessed an automobile vs LRV collision in jersey city. The automobile ran the red to try and beat the train, the automobile lost that one (only minor scuffs on LRV front cowling). We waited at the nearby station for 45+ minutes while the train involved was evacuated, inspected for equipment failures, train operator questioned, automobile moved out of the way, and automobile driver questioned. During this time the line was single tracked, and several trains behind the one involved wrong railed past. The train did not move for about 30 minutes. After that it was put back into service. All that time the crossing was closed to automobile traffic. If you think this would not irritate many people if it happened in downtown princeton, you'd be wrong, hours or not.

If it isn't broke don't fix it.

I'm not trying to say it's your intent, but it seems to me that amtrakowitz and 25Hz are listing these as insurmountable obstacles. I'm just saying that they're not definitely insurmountable.

25Hz wrote: 1: If you have more than one trainset/vehicle... you'll need signals somewhere to keep them crunking into each other.

Yes, if you have more than 1 train signals would be a good idea, and if they're going to go to the trouble of converting the Dinky I hope it's for more reasons than just to maintain the current single train service. But since, as Amtrakowitz says, they're getting away with no signals today I don't see why if after conversion they still have a single train on the line that just the fact that it's light rail means they would need signals.

25Hz wrote: 2: HBLR travels at 55 mph, no not in the street but it does get that fast.

What does HBLR's speed limit have to do with light rail's speed limit? I alluded to 2 historical cases, Cincinatti and Lake Erie, Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee, which went faster than 55 mph. Both of them used trolley poles, and I believe 600 volts DC.

C&LE equipment was trolley cars, much lighter than what I believe most would consider to be light rail vehicles today, although if I remember my William Middleton correctly they didn't run that fast in regular service, only in 'race the plane' demonstrations.

CNS&M equipment in the era when their advertisements said 'ever go 70mph?' used heavier equipment, almost to mainline railroad standards, but it was still with trolley poles, not the presumably better for high speed pantographs most light rail uses.
And what's the great advantage of 55mph vs 60mph on such a short run? The schedule http://www.njtransit.com/pdf/rail/R0070.pdf says 5 minutes, mapquest says 3.33 highway miles, or just under 40mph. They don't seem to be taking advantage of any 60mph top speed.
And rail miles must be less, since it's more of a straight line than mapquest gives the highway. And who's to say that a light rail vehicle might not accelerate better than an arrow?

I'm not suggesting we suffer death from 1000 cuts and eventually get a 5mph ride, and if a bean counter decides it's worth it to convert the Dinky I'm sure they'll find the extra half billion or whatever it would take to get LRV's that can go 60mph.

25Hz wrote: 3: Large numbers of tram style LRV's are low floor, requiring a mid height (think hoboken terminal) platform or lower.

Do you feel that because 'large numbers' are low floor that it's a given that possible Arrow replacement LRV's must also be low floor? A valid argument could be that NJT would want a uniform LRV fleet, but if they went with a car that could use the existing Dinky platforms it wouldn't be the first time that an agency tried to maintain a non-interchangeable fleet.

And maybe they would use San Francisco's or Pittsburgh's, and I forgot to mention Buffalo's, methods of having LRV's for high and low level loading.

25Hz wrote: 4: The current branch is wired into the NEC, you'd need to sever that and have no service while the DC power is hooked up. Where would the substation go?

I don't know where the substation would go either. How big would it have to be? At the Penn's Landing Trolley we had a diesel generator in a prefab backyard style shed, it handled 1 mile, 600 volts and up to 4 cars at once. Is it too much to imagine that comparable state of the art substations for probably not much more than 5 times that mileage for probably no more cars would take up not much more than 5 times that much space?
I hope they would first prepare to set up the replacement power so the 'no service' period could be as short as possible. That's not necessarily a given though. I remember a building put in a new emergency call system. The first thing they did was disconnect the existing emergency call boxes. The next thing they did was paint 'emergency phone' where they were going to put in the new boxes. Over the next few months they installed the new boxes, ran conduit to them, and finally put phones in the boxes.

25Hz wrote: 5: I once witnessed an automobile vs LRV collision in jersey city. The automobile ran the red to try and beat the train, the automobile lost that one (only minor scuffs on LRV front cowling). We waited at the nearby station for 45+ minutes while the train involved was evacuated, inspected for equipment failures, train operator questioned, automobile moved out of the way, and automobile driver questioned. During this time the line was single tracked, and several trains behind the one involved wrong railed past. The train did not move for about 30 minutes. After that it was put back into service. All that time the crossing was closed to automobile traffic. If you think this would not irritate many people if it happened in downtown princeton, you'd be wrong, hours or not.

Yes, any increase in rail and street coexistence increases the risk that we can have accidents that cause delays.
I'm not sure if you're supporting amtrakowitz's 'number of hours' delay example or not, your example indicates that it wasn't the entire line that got the delay.. Also I'm not sure if you're saying your train delay was 45, 30 or 45+30 minutes.

25Hz wrote: If it isn't broke don't fix it.

I agree wholeheartedly. I didn't say that I support converting the Dinky, just, as I said above, that the points amtrakowitz and 25Hz raised aren't absolute.

I certainly feel they probably won't convert the Dinky, it's not worth the effort, it's probably a lot easier to get some kind Arrow like replacement to the Arrows, not something drastically different.
The only reasons I feel that could justify converting to LRV, or, shudder, BRT, would be to increase service and extend the line. I also feel that they probably won't increase service or extend the line if they continue to use conventional railroad equipment.

4632 has one of the four car Comet sets, just saw it in Maplewood, CV 6069 is the cab

I've remember hearing some of the more reputable folks on these boards claiming that a mainline caternary-diesel powered dual mode was impossible. Creating a Multi-level EMU seems alot less out of the question than creating Dual-Modes did seven years ago. Interurban EMUs, albeit single level, that can use a multitude of platforms already exist in this country in Northern Indiana, so interoperability with street running in places like Princeton isn't quite as impossible as one may think. If NJT wants a North River tunnel compliant multi-level EMU that can be boarded on various platform heights, somebody can/will build it for the right price.

I think the Chicago South Shore and South Bend, along with Metra's IC electric, is 1500 volts DC. All I know about electricity I learned from sticking a fork in an electrical socket when I was young. I think the argument here is that it might not be as safe to have Amtrak's much higher AC voltage going down city streets as 600-1500 volts DC.

As I asked a couple of posts ago, how do high voltage railroads then handle grade crossings? Perhaps they just assume the risk is less crossing a street than running down a street.

Patrick Boylan wrote:As I asked a couple of posts ago, how do high voltage railroads then handle grade crossings? Perhaps they just assume the risk is less crossing a street than running down a street.

The M&E, Montclair Boonton and NJCL are all high voltage railroads with grade crossings. So, I guess Transit handles it well.

Patrick Boylan wrote:I think the Chicago South Shore and South Bend, along with Metra's IC electric, is 1500 volts DC. All I know about electricity I learned from sticking a fork in an electrical socket when I was young. I think the argument here is that it might not be as safe to have Amtrak's much higher AC voltage going down city streets as 600-1500 volts DC.

As I asked a couple of posts ago, how do high voltage railroads then handle grade crossings? Perhaps they just assume the risk is less crossing a street than running down a street.

Trust me I'm no electrician my self, but I can agree that the dangers of mainline caternary over street running are likely more dangerous than that of common light-rail DC power, but I think we can all agree, regardless of AC or DC or voltage or amperage; If its strong enough to power a train, you're probably not going to be living after touching it.

Silverliner II wrote:The Arrow III's are going to be around for a while to come, whatever happens. Especially since the 100 incoming multilevels are slated to kill off the Comet IV fleet, as mentioned on the multilevel thread.

I didn't have time to look to see if it was a few dozen pages earlier in this thread or not, but one of the things I read speculated that when they give the selected 170 Arrows their light overhaul to keep them going, one car of each married pair would be made "blind" thus while still able to operate as pairs, be restricted to 4-unit sets for bi-directional operation. Silly idea in my opinion, if that was indeed true.

I really hope one of the retirees is 1342. Karma sucks, i badmouth it earlier, and watch as my favorite single (1305) heads for hoboken on 426, and then to my horror 1342 comes in on 425, and had the only open seat on the train... Right over the front axle -____-

beanbag wrote:

Silverliner II wrote:The Arrow III's are going to be around for a while to come, whatever happens. Especially since the 100 incoming multilevels are slated to kill off the Comet IV fleet, as mentioned on the multilevel thread.

I didn't have time to look to see if it was a few dozen pages earlier in this thread or not, but one of the things I read speculated that when they give the selected 170 Arrows their light overhaul to keep them going, one car of each married pair would be made "blind" thus while still able to operate as pairs, be restricted to 4-unit sets for bi-directional operation. Silly idea in my opinion, if that was indeed true.

I really hope one of the retirees is 1342. Karma sucks, i badmouth it earlier, and watch as my favorite single (1305) heads for hoboken on 426, and then to my horror 1342 comes in on 425, and had the only open seat on the train... Right over the front axle -____-

You'll survive.

The "rebuild" will do -NOTHING- but make them more reliable & structurally sound. No speed increases, no blind cabs, same old arrow 3, just less breaking down as they age.

And, what's all this about grade crossings and electric trains? The wires are at 15 feet or more. 3rd rail ends well before the crossing on any system I've ever heard of. No offense but we've had electrified lines with grade crossings for like 75 years. I think if there was an issue it'd be resolved by now.