M8's and Shore Line East

CT Comm Rail Council
‏
From Council meeting: M8's on shorelineeast can't happen until electrification of 3 sidings occur, This is 2-3 years away.

Two to three years away? Seems to me they could do a lot better than that.
Noel Weaver

Would appear they're timing this with construction completion of the two remaining single-platform stations that need to get doubled-up, so probably just rolling all their deadlines up in a big ball.

The first test run to New London with the M8 operating under its own power was done last night and supposedly will repeat tonight sometime after 8pm in case anyone is around and wants to catch it.

Per Amtrak NEC Group in Facebook last night was 9106/9107/9262/9263. So they're testing 4 car consists it appears.

TL/DR.

Will the M8 consists eventually running the SLE routes have bar cars? I think that's the most important question to be asked here.

Lawd, you still participate in that farce group? LOL

Despite the state's claims they're doing bar cars I'll believe it when I see it...I would think they'd be even less inclined to go through with them since Metro North is now essentially washing their hands of commissary carts and kiosks at Grand Central and according to news reports have told everyone in that department to look elsewhere for employment.

MCL, LMAO. I concur!

GotT (im Himmel!), yes, the CEO must keep his eye on all things trains. Usually I just follow friends' posts, but I'll check in on occasion. Some of the groups I have left.

Another test run last night per the Amtrak NEC FB group. Also reported in that post that the 8's are still not ACSES compatible. Perhaps that means certified, as they were designed with ACSES, no? In any case, the report stated they were running absolute block.

I would guess that these would be operated by Amtrak crews, so I imagine the cab has both an Amtrak and MNRR engineer to qualify on the equipment and territory?

why would MN engineers need to qualify the territory ? Amtrak crew and a M-8 qualified Road Foreman or pilot.

Wire will start going up on Tk. 4 in Guilford, and the west end of Tk. 3 in Old Saybrook in the very near future. The east end of Tk. 3 has had catenary for years.
The only one which won't be for a while is Tk. 6 in NLC.

Question, would it be likely that SLE/MN would run "Super Locals" from GCT All the way to Waverly, making a what, 2.4 hour commute possible (and with that and the extension of MTA to deleware, the super commuter challenge possible)

could yes, but untill its in schedule don't get hopes up, so far the ACSES on M-8's still needs full upgrading .

Question, whats the max speed of a M8l 100 MPH, or are they 79 MPH limited?

100 mph but currently they have ATC set lower to 80 or 90.