AEM7 to Museum?

towed by two Amtrak work engines, 915 is out of service.

Rumor has it that 901 will be scrapped soon. I know it was held in Wilmington for awhile for a possible donation, but we know that it isn't always the case because look what happened to 902. I saw a photo of 901 taken yesterday and it's in very rough shape. I know 901 is a historic unit, but I'd rather see an AEM-7 in better condition be preserved.

Mr. AEM, 901 was the first of the most likely successful electric motive power order Amtrak has made to date (debatable; maybe even more successful than the F-40), but I think the most memorable unit was 911. I think that unit should have been adorned with a "Remembrance" livery, but it was retired (presumably scrapped) fairly early in its intended economic life.

901 is a converted unit with no significant historic value , the AC conversion left a lot of stuff on roof that was not there initially.
Don't expect Amtrak to donate any more units besides 915.

Actually, the 916 was the first AEM7 to go through the AC rebuild program. The 901's notoriety comes from being one of the units (the other being the 910) that derailed into the swamp in the Portal Bridge wreck. If any remans were to go to a museum, the 916 would be my pick.

916 is a good pick. Recently it had its cast iron bell replaced with a steel bell, perhaps from scrapped AEM-7DCs that had a steel bell like 912 or 953. Does anyone have any idea as to why Amtrak would do that?

901 was the first

No, 900 was but it has not been around since 1987

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_Ma ... _collision" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mr. Baumann, I did check a source, On Track On Line, before posting. According to their site, 901 was the first unit.

But usually, the first unit of an order by any road is -00, so we have conjecture, Wiki v. OTOL, at this time.

900(III)ZZ Scrapped, wreck (Chase MD 4th January 1987)

http://www.hebners.net/Amtrak/amtAEM7_9 ... mt900a.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The bell was most likely swapped out by somebody who wanted an aem-7 brass bell and wanted to let the 916 go to storage/scrapping with the steel bell that nobody wants.

Martin Baumann wrote:http://www.hebners.net/Amtrak/amtAEM7_9 ... mt900a.jpg

MB and Everyone:

Good Hebners picture of AEM7 900 - the original prototype unit in initial test runs along with the EMD test car.
This picture probably dates from 1979-1980 - also note the two Amfleet cars have their original color scheme.

This is the unit that I would have chose for preservation had it not been destroyed in the January 1987 Chase,
Maryland wreck along with #903 but this picture shows what a preserved restored Amtrak AEM7 color scheme
should look like - to me these AEM7 colors were their best. Another thing to note that also helps date this photo
is the original EMD numberboards that all these units wore initially...

I understand the discrepancy between what OTOL and Wikipedia has posted - with #900 gone 29 years as of
January 2016 this could be easily overlooked...

MACTRAXX

DutchRailnut wrote:901 is a converted unit with no significant historic value , the AC conversion left a lot of stuff on roof that was not there initially.
Don't expect Amtrak to donate any more units besides 915.

I agree with this. The 901 has remained in the shops for convenience. If they needed a part for a reman, they could grab it off the 901. Once they retire the remans, the 901 will likely get cut up. Which will be an easy task, since much of its innards have been removed and assigned to other units.

Rumors have it that 947 and 949 were both seen in New Haven yesterday. Both pans were down and parts were missing, so they were obviously retired. This makes absolutely no sense to me. Why would Amtrak have two retired DCs so far from the rest? Are they heading to a museum or to scrap? Also, 937 was recently reported in Sunnyside, which also doesn't make any sense to me. Can someone please clear this up? Thanks!

Somebody probably mistaked the 939 as the 937 maybe. The 939 is still out and about and I think 936. 937 was taken out fairly early and should have been scrapped already.

Unless someone can report such magic with photos I really doubt this happened. 947 and 949 were also quick to leave the game because they are those high number push pull DCs that had a lot of weird problems.