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GO Transit had MP40s with EMD 710s with separate Cat HEP so about 5200 “Total” hp but then Tier 4 happened. The original plan was QSK95 but something happened and that got binned in favour of 2 x QSK60, losing the HEP motor. Loco 647 was sent back and retro-ed with the two engines and a modified coo...

Similar write up in the Examiner. But it isn’t too reassuring that no cracks are apparent (and with a whole fleet inspection in 24 hours one wonders whether it was more than the Mark I eyeball used) until the cause of this failure is determined. Given the initial fault at Limerick Junction and the s...

The LRCs were mentioned above. When VIA Rail contracted with IRSI Moncton to refurb 92 cars, my understanding is that it ended up being far more challenging than expected due to, among other things, thinner than expected remaining aluminium in some places. The contract was terminated after a few car...

Loco 224 (12-710, 100mph push pull, delivered 1995) does not look so good these days, and rumour has it that Irish Rail does not know how/why it occurred, with talk of enthusiasts being quietly approached for recent pictures of the unit. https://imgur.com/ohu5Cjs The Rail Accident Investigation Unit...

The prototype cars for VIA will be built at Sacramento,the rest of VIA's fleet might be built in Canada. Seimens Sacramento might be at close to full capy by now. There was a lot of bellyaching about the VIA fleet not being assembled in Canada but I would prefer the current plan where an experience...

-With GO extending to Niagara Falls, would it be at all possible to operate to Toronto with just 2 Canadian stops (Niagara Falls and Toronto) and immigration formalities done at the station rather than on the train at the border? If so, run all service to Toronto. Better to anchor it down with 2 ma...

Separate power and generation in daily service in Ireland (well, when there isn’t a pandemic) Enterprise: EMD 12-710 at one end, generator van behind the power, De Dietrich coaches, NPCU at the other end; 90mph Cork-Dublin EMD 12-710, CAF coaches, CAF APCU; 100mph The same class locomotives (201 cla...

Why should Atlanta pay millions of dollars to build a brand new station for Amtrak that will be visited by just two trains a day? The Crescent visits Atlanta at 7:30 pm northbound and 8:30 am southbound, averages around 70,000 passengers per year (192 passengers per day). Atlanta's Metro nexus Five...

The only problem that Amtrak might have with the "Brightline" type cars is their ability to operate in the US winter weather extremes . All winter weather in the US is not the same. You have powder snow, heavy wet snow, ice, ice storms, temperature extremes down to -40 and lower, all that...

The customs for Montreal was announced a looong time ago. I suspect everything is on hold because of the goddamned REM more-or-less takeover of Montreal Central. Is there anything planned to improve efficiency at Syracuse, like building a second passenger platform track behind the “island” in the sp...

If the Alstom-Bombardier rail merger is cleared, then both halves of the Acela-HHP intellectual property will reside in the same outfit, I believe?

But it will also own the ALP46/45 and Multilevel/MLEMU designs/product lines...

The US LRC coaches may have been "stored" at VIA's Montreal Maintenance Centre after they came off Amtrak lease but I don't recall seeing any mention of VIA having run them at any time.

I'm a bit of a philistine on this but at this point I would kick VIA entirely off Toronto-London-Kitchener so that they can employ the equipment for additional and faster frequency via Aldershot. The benefit of GO being able to push out 12 more bilevels on the single track past Silver Junction to Gu...

The diesel O-Train and the VIA (Smiths Falls subdivision?) cross at Ellwood Diamond but there is a project in planning to separate them. Hopefully that might mean some double tracking and speed-up between VIA Ottawa and VIA Fallowfield.

A 60Hz system is surely more likely that a 25Hz system unless technology advances have equalized transformer core weight/size. That rules out everything south of and including NYP, and leaves MBTA (Fairmount?), SLE (unlikely unless top speed could come up substantially) or Denver, surely. The Prince...