Genesis discussion (AMD-103, P40DC, P42DC)

A worthy idea for the MP36s and remaining F40s, but those are limited to the same or less horsepower. If your service is ok with 3200 hp, an F40ECO would be a fine choice.

If LTK found excessive wear etc on 25% of the LD engines (in CHI) it could only be as worse on corridor equipment.

Remanning a freight engine is one thing because they're generally designed to be rebuilt. There are supply and tool chains that support the whole rebuilding process from start to finish. I don't think that GE intended (or thought) that Genesis 1 & 2 would be rebuilt. Rather they'd hoped that because no one offered a decent alternative (at the time they were sold) Amtrak would be a near lock for new stuff. Today's GE doesn't give a damn about the passenger market as its gone all in on freight motors (currently finding a way to manufacture 100 engines a year in India instead exporting them). Competitor's past and current efforts have been fairly lame.

IMHO, I don't think there's any real economic value for Amtrak to rebuild an engine that seems to have ended up becoming a one off for its manufacturer. Yes, there were some incremental improvements with the P40 & P42 but its still a DC locomotive. It's a monocoque car-body is limiting for any sort of engine upgrade. The P32 was kind of a step backwards in performance just to get an E-mode motor for duty within NYC. Furthermore the P32s ended up built because MNRR needed them for its GCT ops and a cash strapped NRPC could piggyback on a few. Neither gear is interchangeable as the 32 is AC with inverters and a 12 cylinder engine while the 40-42 are DC with a V16. The Genesis car-body is also difficult to repair from the inevitable damage from use (level crossing accidents occur often). There's also issues with electronics and engine management controls that were custom to each model. Finally, the production run for both Genny's 1 and 2 have been shutdown.

The Charger seems like a decent alternative as it's a real, tested, and a now shipping product. On paper it's got further reduced fuel consumption and emissions; IGBT inverters (4), commonality of parts with the ACS64, plus its manufacturer that seems to be genuinely interested in supplying North America.

The F125 looks attractive but units have yet to be delivered en-mass (4? so far). There are more SC44's running around than what Progress Rail has been able to deliver. As a NY'r it seems to be another DE/DM fiasco as the first units for test had parts missing etc. The HSP46 is even crappier (with GEVO12) availability.

The old way of building a locomotive was around its prime mover but, the requirements such as emissions, operational economy, HEP, modularity of power plant, and some others i'm probably missing, the control and switch gear are now the heart of the damn engine.

Depending on the $$$$ per unit,GE's Evo prime mover repower kit could be done "in house" at Beech Grove,
as long as Amtrak is willing to rebuild the P-40/42 bodyshell to repair/replace the weak points in the shell.

The BIG question is how well the Cummings prime mover holds up in passenger service, or need constant maintaince
along the lines of the Cat prime movers in the AL45-DP(they are getting due for top deck(heads) work)

It should be noted that Siemens is setting up a shop on the East Coast,to monitor,and help maintain their products,
With Amtrak,MARC and SEPTA as the first customers for this service.
'

Backshophoss wrote:It should be noted that Siemens is setting up a shop on the East Coast,to monitor,and help maintain their products,
With Amtrak,MARC and SEPTA as the first customers for this service.

I now wonder where...

From http://www.delawareonline.com/story/mon ... 100890248/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (fair use quote, parts redacted)

Siemens U.S. has launched Digital Rail Services, a new business unit that will have its East Coast headquarters near New Castle.

...

Dubbed the East Coast Locomotive Service Headquarters, the building at 800 Centerpoint Blvd. will house technical support along with workers who will review and assess parts shipped to Siemens' railroad operations in the nation's most populous areas. The building will be staffed 24 hours a day.

"Most of our locomotive footprint is on the East Coast," Maynard said. "We felt it made sense to be near our customers like Amtrak, SEPTA and MARC."

From what I could tell from Google Maps, it does have a rail connection to the NEC, so if they built the track, they could have some hands-on dealings with the engine... but then it's only a few minutes away from the Bear, DE shops.

de402 wrote:If LTK found excessive wear etc on 25% of the LD engines (in CHI) it could only be as worse on corridor equipment. ...

Thank you for the detail reply, the points about the mono body is interesting. One could get the impression for durability sake, Amtrak should go for a modern day F40 . Get a freight locomotive from EMD (probably offer a better deal) or GE and stick a full length cowl on it.

frequentflyer: why?

That said - I think it would be great to see Amtrak buy some GP60s and B40-8s for rebuild into GP59PH-ECOs and P32-8BWHs. They're built for speed and can also handle yard assignments (and Amtrak's P32 fleet is arguably still not large enough.) Also, they can handle LD assignments that don't venture onto the Corridor.

Uhh...Amtrak already has a signed contract for the Charger with options to tap for 150 national units at a fixed price. It is extremely unlikely that Gennie remans are going to price out anywhere close as attractive as what they already possess in-hand with the Siemens options. Since testing of the corridor units has been pretty ho-hum uneventful, there is approximately 0% chance that they're going to chuck the whole signed contract and cut in a whole new direction at this stage. A 95% or greater chance that they end up starting to drain the national options by this Fall, since that has been an imminent rumor all summer. And probably two-thirds or better odds that 90-100% of the national options get exercised, because that's how it's gone with the state orders. And when those options are exercised there will be 1:1 replacements for every non-P32 Gennie on the roster, so there's no 20-year future for whatever extra GE's are still hanging on in revenue service after the last Charger is accepted.

This thinking exercise isn't a real-world scenario. It's a fantasy that has no basis in any action Amtrak is contemplating or ever likely to contemplate. Amtrak is not going to rebuild the P42's. Not as engines, and not as somebody's foamer fantasy of next-gen cabbages (because the cabbages are being phased out with both coasts' new coach-bag orders). It might keep 20 or 30 P42's on active reserve for some indefinite period of time, because as year-to-year extras they're cheap to feed with cannibalized parts from other engines in dead storage. Certainly they'll hold onto most of the fleet in dead storage for X many years because that's S.O.P. for AMTK power dispersals, though some will surely get leased or rented-to-own to commuter rail operators immediately (a la CDOT with the pre-rebuild P40's when they were put into storage). They are more likely to rebuild the Dash 8's because of their utility to the work fleet than they are to ever poke under the monocoque hook of a P40/P42.


All of the straight-up 7FDL rebuild potential and Tier 4 re-kitting potential...both of which are considerable...is going to be done on the aftermarket. That's a juicy thinkpiece for commuter rail land, because the supply glut of well taken care of passenger power will be extremely attractive for filling short-term needs. Look at what rent-a-wrecks some commuter agencies are currently leasing from the aftermarket brokers: ancient F40PH Screamers and F59PH's beat-to-snot by GO Transit, past-prime for further rebuilds. A fresh infusion of Gennie leasers is a godsend, and many will consider grander rebuild options for what they can snap up because value-over-lifespan may indeed be better than buying all-new. But that's not an Amtrak thing because they're already sitting on those fixed-cost options.

[quote="mtuandrew"]frequentflyer: why?

That said - I think it would be great to see Amtrak buy some GP60s and B40-8s for rebuild into GP59PH-ECOs and P32-8BWHs. They're built for speed and can also handle yard assignments (and Amtrak's P32 fleet is arguably still not large enough.) Also, they can handle LD assignments that don't venture onto the Corridor.[/quote]

Previous post mentioned about the mono bodies of the Genesis being hard to repair. Though Amtrak was smart enough to spec a replaceable nose on the Genesis. The post gave me the impression something a little more heavy duty would be needed.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:...

Thank you for the detailed post, did not know if Amtrak actually firmed up the order.

When will Amtrak start testing the Charge on LD trains? Its one thing to run up and down on the NEC, its another to run for multiple days from CUS to the west coast. Other than a larger fuel tank will interesting to know what other "options" the Amtrak units will spec out at.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Uhh...Amtrak already has a signed contract for the Charger...

Say what?

If Amtrak decides on the Charger or F125 as its standard full-network diesel, using high-speed diesels instead of medium-speed conventional locomotive diesels, it'll be a sea change the likes of which hasn't happened since NRPC gave up on six-axle power and ordered F40s for the full system.

frequentflyer wrote:Thank you for the detailed post, did not know if Amtrak actually firmed up the order.

When will Amtrak start testing the Charge on LD trains? Its one thing to run up and down on the NEC, its another to run for multiple days from CUS to the west coast. Other than a larger fuel tank will interesting to know what other "options" the Amtrak units will spec out at.

The national options (AMTK mothership-owned) are sequenced after the state-owned units (and the MARC commuter rail units, since they were laundered from IDOT's options). Amtrak has not officially picked up the national options yet because the Siemens factory will be busy manufacturing the corridor units until at least January, so there won't be any pilots to test until 2018 and thus no hurry this fiscal year to make the first payment. Pickup of the first batch of national options is strongly rumored to be imminent, so we probably won't have to wait long to know when first units are slated to arrive. The options can be drained piecemeal, just like the state orders...so it'll be spread out over several installments and we won't know if each and every one of the 150 national units get produced until they pick up all the installments. Specs are already baked-in per the terms of the contract; larger fuel tank is the primary differentiator. There may be some differing computer optimizations to tailor the national units to LD-or-corridor operation, as opposed to strictly corridor. But that's probably going to be more a software difference than hardware. AMTK employees have speculated in the main Charger thread what those minor optimizations might be.

D.Carleton wrote:Say what?

The existence of the 150 national options has been known since Day 1 of the Charger contract. It's on Wikipedia and the document dump is all over the net. Nobody should be shocked/surprised/kerfuzzled at this, least of all in a fantasy thread such as this. It's been discussed extensively in the main Charger thread. It's been discussed extensively how the nat'l options are real no-foolin' AMTK ownership despite being attached to the same contract as the state-owned Chargers. It's very old news that these options are coming due for pickup soon.

frequentflyer wrote:Thank you for the detailed reply, the points about the mono body is interesting. One could get the impression for durability sake, Amtrak should go for a modern day F40. Get a freight locomotive from EMD (probably offer a better deal) or GE and stick a full-length cowl on it.

Since the operational environment of hauling people opposite hauling cargo, aggregates, finished goods etc, (Brits call it binary railroading) it just makes sense to have a manufacturer take the best of their engine family and see if it can tailor it for said environment.

Siemens took their Vectron locomotive (which is a modular design btw), their engineers modified it for NA use and smartly built their entire supply chain in the US the same way they did for the ACS64, sourcing their engine from parts manufactured all over the US.

http://w3.usa.siemens.com/mobility/us/e ... amtrak.jpg

The F125 looks like another EMD parts bin: Spanish shell and trucks, Mitsubishi inverters, CAT US engine, Mexican EMD motors, alternator made?

The Charger is a done deal... However, anything can happen, like nuclear war?

Not saying any of the above assessments are necessarily right or wrong, but the existence of options for a long-distance version of the SC-44 Charger is not the same thing as a firm order or a signed contract for their construction. Contract options may - or may not - ever actually happen (note unexercised options on the Viewliner order). For one thing, you have to actually have a budget to pay for those options you want to exercise.....

Serious consideration of rebuilding the P-42 fleet did come straight from the horse's mouth - Wick Moorman - in the past months.