Genesis discussion (AMD-103, P40DC, P42DC)

Hopefully some of the ConnDOT units in service will get some needed shop work soon,
some have been called "Honorary ALCOs" by all the exhaust smoke they pour out!

Backshophoss wrote:Hopefully some of the ConnDOT units in service will get some needed shop work soon,
some have been called "Honorary ALCOs" by all the exhaust smoke they pour out!

Honorary Pooches (P30CH) would probably be the more accurate and historically-correct nickname.

From what has been reported,the current P-40's ConnDot owns are laying down RS3 like smoke trails!
Have no idea how well the ex-NJT P40's were maintained.

Backshophoss wrote:From what has been reported,the current P-40's ConnDot owns are laying down RS3 like smoke trails!
Have no idea how well the ex-NJT P40's were maintained.

The NJT P40's got the same overhauls the 15 Amtrak stimulus-upgraded ones got, so they're a little fresher than CDOT's chain-smokers.

It smells so bad in the Cars in the AM too


FDL are Basically Alco's HiHi

Inside of every GE beats the heart of an Alco.

Its a 4 stroke diesel, what do you want? The reason the rebuilt P40s and the P42s dont do it as much is they have electronic fuel injection and the computer manages the fuel trim to keep emissions lower.

There are new trucks that amtrak has had to buy for the P42 fleet. Only certain cracks etc can even be repaired with welds on trucks depending where they are. Anything that cannot be repaired must be replaced. The big reason why they borrowed the P40s stored in bear for trucks is they could not repair or replace p42 trucks as quickly as they were dropping out of service. The P40 trucks that were not damaged were a direct replacement onto the p42, same traction motors etc. I believe they did a quick overhaul on them before they swapped them out. New bushings, shocks etc and fresh TM combo units if the wheels were worn.

only one of the NJT units was operational as of the sale. The rest didnt run anymore for whatever reason. Just to show how transit has no idea what they are doing with some things. Those engines had the exact overhaul as the TIGER units which are still doing well for amtrak. i operated the P40s on transit when they were fresh and they ran well with no issues.

Amtrak motive choices

Refurbished Genesis
1. Will be lower CapEx than buying new.
2. Should be grandfathered from the tier 4 rules
3. Not sure of what support GE is offering on these
4. Maintenance familiarity
5. Increased reliablity................hopefully.

New Chargers
1. More expensive
2. Tier 4 ready with more sophisticated diagnosis systems to prevent on the road failures (Genesis has something similar? We how well that works).
3. Is Siemens offering onsite maintenance?
4. Increased reliability..............better, its new........teething problems

GE may or may not still offer a EVO prime mover repower kit,based on the HSP-46 used by MBTA.
That has had mixed results in commuter service,of note, GE is replacing all the turbos on the HSP-46.

Suggest read the HSP-46 thread in the MBTA forum,for more details!

We should only support the rebuilding of P-42s if they are converted to AC traction. Many will have good frames and can be rebuilt then scrap the rest. Probably Amtrak will need some Chargers as well but until it can be determined the number of P-42 and P-40 upgrades available any argument is premature.

Amtrak will gain some idea if the Charger SC-44 will be the next "purchase" or not, from the midwest fleet of state owned units out of Chicago,
and the WSDOT/ORDOT owned Chargers out of Seattle.

Backshophoss wrote:Amtrak will gain some idea if the Charger SC-44 will be the next "purchase" or not, from the midwest fleet of state owned units out of Chicago,
and the WSDOT/ORDOT owned Chargers out of Seattle.

They'll probably wait until MARC has them on the NEC to get some of the high-speed data on them. Right now, they'll be getting the nominal travel speed and only half the picture.

since they did testing on NEC with one unit , they would not need to wait.

As Dutch said, they tested one at high speed on the NEC already... It cranked along at 130 mph pretty nicely if I do say so myself.

A possible third alternative would be an ECO style of remanufactured unit that the successor to EMD has been doing on freight units. You will get, in effect, a virtually new unit, I suppose, that is if EMD's successor could do it.