Metra Locomotive Assignments And Maintenance

126 was on UP-W last night

210 was on UP-NW #641 yesterday and #610 this morning

185 leading BNSF train 1259 this afternoon.

137 ran behind 169 on the 5:20 UP-NW train last night. 128 ran with (probably behind, but I'm not 100% sure) 142 last night on UP-W #41.

The thing that concerns me about these rebuilt F40PH-3's is the quality of the horn rebuilding. While some horns are coming back in great shape (the horn on 119 used to be on 124 and sounded like garbage before rebuild--but sounds great now), the opposite is also occurring. 110 already has a different horn than when it came back from Progress Rail, and it appears to have had it for a while now; The horn on 117 came back with one bell [note] totally not sounding; and the horns on 120, 101, and 121 have bells that don't sound half of the time. I can't be sure yet, but it sounds to me like 126 has a dead note on its horn as well. While most P horns squeal when bells are fouled, these horns either sound great or terrible--either the notes play or they don't, no inbetween. At the price Metra is paying for these engines to be rebuilt, one would think they would do the horns properly and use quality parts. Being into the audio aspect of railroading, this is very frustrating for me.

RI has seen some recent additions, 401 from BNSF and 413 from MD. 181 has been out of service for a few weeks, which brought over 413. 401 was first spotted today, not sure why it has come to RI.

Here are some recent tidbits I've gathered from good sources:
The rebuilt F40PH-3's going back to UP are having some problems with their trucks. Apparently, at high speed and at idle, the trucks hunt--that is, shake from side to side. How do they know it's the trucks causing the problems and not something else, you ask? A few weeks ago, as the story goes, the folks at the Metra-UP shops took the trucks off of an unrebuilt F40 and put them on a rebuild and then ran it. Problem solved. (I'm not sure if the unit in question still has the unrebuilt trucks or not.)
While we're talking about trucks...a trusted source reported that F40PH-2 #151 has the rear truck from former F40PH-2 #134. (How we know this: the number "134" is written in chalk on the rear truck.) Engine 134 left for rebuild in March; I am wondering if, perhaps, some of the problematic trucks were sent back down to Mayfield on 134 to be worked on? In any event, this leads me to think that 151 may have been the unit involved in the truck swop that took place a few weeks ago.
And, finally, some good news: several of the rebuilt F40PH-3's now on UP run (and accellerate) like the wind.

#182 has a new P5, sounded similar to #180 and #181

I caught 401 at Joliet today, kinda interesting to see the Oliver Tibbles unit on any line other than the BNSF!

EJ&ESDM809 wrote:I caught 401 at Joliet today, kinda interesting to see the Oliver Tibbles unit on any line other than the BNSF!

I caught #401 at vermont street, also i saw #413. and #181 is still MIA (Missing in action)

F40PH-3 #102 has a new horn as well...still waiting to hear how it sounds.

401 actually got its start on RI before it was moved over to BNSF and named Oliver Tibbles.

Yes it was, the Rock is where 401 started. This is the first time it's been on the Rock since being named Ollie. I went to Blue Island today, I saw 413 but didn't see 401 today. No 181 today either. I did catch 182, it now has a nice P5 horn instead of that horrible one it had before. 179 could use a new horn, however.

181 was leading 412 this morning on a BI set, so it should have been running around yesterday evening as well. Should have been assigned to yesterdays train #605 and #617.

AMTK84 wrote:And, finally, some good news: several of the rebuilt F40PH-3's now on UP run (and accellerate) like the wind.

I'll second that. Lately, when a rebuild has been on the point of one of the rush hour trains, they seem to run several minutes early at times. Case in point: Last week, UP/W 47, the OTC-Wheaton express, was doubleheaded, one of which had a rebuild in the consist (wrote the engine numbers down somewhere, can't remember offhand). Anyway, it got into Wheaton at 1733, a full 5 minutes early. Once we got past A2, the engineer opened it up, and we flew...

If it was the night I am thinking of, #47 had the 137 and 128, both of which were rebuilds.

I just got back from recording Metra 146 on the Union Pacific West Line. The horn, freshly rebuilt, has only 2 out of the 5 notes working...incredibly disappointing.