Official M2 / M4 / M6 Retirement Thread

[Jeff Smith]

Apparently, some of the cars meant for the scrapper (in this case, a set of M-6's) are being used on the CSOR for fire department training:

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 2&start=75 about halfway down the page.

[Train538]

Whatever happened to 8985 to make removal from 8934/8935 necessary? Just out of curiosity.

I heard it had some kind of fire that made it permanently OOS.

[ant6n]

How many of the m4/m6 have been retired so far?
Has there been any talk about selling them to some other agency as used equipment?

[DutchRailnut]

No other agency uses dual power or high platform and the technology is so old they can't get parts.

[lirr42]

How many of the m4/m6 have been retired so far?
Has there been any talk about selling them to some other agency as used equipment?

The H&H is really the only other place they could be used. (just because they have overhead wire systems doesn't mean they have to use them)

[DutchRailnut]

but why tow 16 tons of equipment around??

[Clean Cab]

The M2, M4 & M6 have caused enough problems over the years. They were poorly designed and poorly maintained. Let them head off to the scrappers where at least some of their metal will be put to good use.

[ant6n]

Well somewhere in the threads it was mentioned that the m4/m6 also support 25kv operation. There's a bunch of places that support that along the NEC. Montreal as well.

[DutchRailnut]

They use to support 25 hz operations, but do no longer do so due to component replacements.
for example the Motor alternator for auxiliaries was replaced by inverters which are not 25 Hz compatible.
The cars are shot, and basicly already sold to Frontier Metals of Ohio.

[Clean Cab]

Well somewhere in the threads it was mentioned that the m4/m6 also support 25kv operation. There's a bunch of places that support that along the NEC. Montreal as well.

M4's and M6's did have the "capability" to handle 25,000 volts. But, all that means is there was room for a multi voltage tap to be added onto the AC transformer. No M4 or M6 was ever modified in such a way. Heck, it took them over 10 years just to modify the sliding bathroom door!!!

[ant6n]

In what way are they "shot"? From cdot and mnrr documents, it seems that their mdbf is between 80k and 130k miles - maybe not great, but not abysmal either. (I'm not being sarcastic, I'd like to know - some of these cars don't seem to be very old, and their performance on paper not that bad, but in the forums they tend to be panned).

Any secondary use would probably be without toilets anyway, so at least that source of problems would be gone.

Even 60-year-old Budd RDCs have been bought by at least two commuter rail agencies, refurbished and are in service again. Doing something like that with the m-trains would probably be cheaper than for example what Denver is doing, buying silverliner V's from Hyundai-Rotem at like 4$million a piece -- especially when only getting a small number of trains.

[Clean Cab]

They are shot because of their piss poor design and very complex wiring. The main electrical cabinets were under the cars and exposed to snow and ice which is to be expected here in the Northeast. The wiring of the cars uses many points of contact from line voltage to traction motors causing many traction power and/or dynmaic brake failures. It was not unusual for a train of 6 M2, M4 or M6 cars to have only half the cars with operating traction motors. All the railroads and agencies that operated the cars over the years were never able to correct these repeated failures despite the optimistic PR. The figures used to claim great reliability are a matter of how they arrived at those figures. An example is if a car has a traction/dynamic failure, it is not removed from service just for that reason. It is normally reported and when the car gets its periodic inspection (usually every 92 days) when it will be addressed. So just because a car was in service, it does not mean it is performing at 100 %.

I operated the M2, M4 & M6 for over 20 years and it was a rare event to have all cars with fully operational traction power and dynamic braking. The M2's have put in more than 40 years and they have earned their retirement. Granted both the M4 (in service since 1987) and the M6 (in sevice since 1994) are relatively new, but the cost of keeping them in service is astounding and just not worth it. Why keep less than 100 unreliable cars in service when you have (eventually) over 400 new cars with 10 times the reliability?

[ant6n]

Oh I agree that Metro North shouldn't be operating them anymore. It totally makes sense to switch to an all m8 fleet for all sorts of reasons. My question was related to the possibility of other agencies using them, possibly just temporarily. Agencies that have smaller rolling stock requirements and won't be able to buy m8's as (relatively) cheap as the mta, because small contracts means high costs per car. That's why I mentioned the example of the Budd RDCs. TRE (Trinity Rail Express) has like 13 of them (10 of which were leased to another agency for a couple of years) and they were used in small consists of three cars or so. Of course if you run multiple triplets, and one doesn't work, then the train still runs -- but if a small agency runs a triplet by itself and it doesn't work, then you have a non-functioning train.

[Clean Cab]

Two reasons no other agency would be interested in the M4 & M6 cars.

1. The design is uniquely for Metro North. There is no other railroad that could use them. Transit agencies like to design their own self powered trains. Adapting these cars would be quite costly and due to the age of the cars and the tons of mileage they've racked up, they're just not worth it.

2. Their legacy of problems. No one else wants to by MU's from another agency and have them be unreliable.


Yes, there are cases where certain types of trains have had long lives working for several different railroads. But those are always coaches and engines, not MU's. Even using them as de-powered coaches wouldn't work. You'd have to remove all the components from under the cars causing them to become top heavy. Add in the cost of rewiring and renewing the interiors and it would be much cheaper just to buy new coaches.

[NH2060]

Did any other agencies (NJT, SEPTA, etc.) look into using the M-1/M-2 carbody as a starting point for their own MU fleets?