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  • Leased equipment MARC/NJT/AMTK

  • Discussion relating to Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (Philadelphia Metro Area). Official web site can be found here: www.septa.com. Also including discussion related to the PATCO Speedline rapid transit operated by Delaware River Port Authority. Official web site can be found here: http://www.ridepatco.org/.
Discussion relating to Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (Philadelphia Metro Area). Official web site can be found here: www.septa.com. Also including discussion related to the PATCO Speedline rapid transit operated by Delaware River Port Authority. Official web site can be found here: http://www.ridepatco.org/.

Moderator: AlexC

 #1487255  by MACTRAXX
 
Glenn: This is a train run during the 1977 CTD strike pictured at Trenton of a GG1 pulling old RDG
MU cars that were then in the process of being retired as new 100 series Silverliner Four cars went
into service on the Reading side. Note that some of the MU cars pantographs were up for heat and
interior lights. Trains like these only ran during times of very high demand for Commuter Rail such
as during City Transit Division strikes when one would see PRR/PC or RDG equipment together.
Hard to believe that this is now more than 40 years ago...MACTRAXX
 #1487260  by mcgrath618
 
Would be great to see a GG1 run again, though while the PRR museum has 4935, it doesn't look likely.
Back on topic, I would love to see SEPTA lease the MARC equipment long-term and throw some red and blue paint on them.
 #1487285  by glennk419
 
MACTRAXX wrote:Glenn: This is a train run during the 1977 CTD strike pictured at Trenton of a GG1 pulling old RDG
MU cars that were then in the process of being retired as new 100 series Silverliner Four cars went
into service on the Reading side. Note that some of the MU cars pantographs were up for heat and
interior lights. Trains like these only ran during times of very high demand for Commuter Rail such
as during City Transit Division strikes when one would see PRR/PC or RDG equipment together.
Hard to believe that this is now more than 40 years ago...MACTRAXX
MAC, I added that purely for levity and do remember some of the wild lashups during those strikes and also during the rotary converter failure on the Reading side in the early 80's. I have memories and pictures of diesels hauling Silverliners, also with their pans up for lighting and HVAC.
 #1487460  by MACTRAXX
 
Glenn: No problem here...I enjoy seeing pictures like these with a historical perspective.
What would have been interesting to see would have been a GG1 in push-pull service along with
those RDG MU cars - if I recall correctly GG1s were never equipped to push a train and that they
had no trainline connections to even allow this mode of operation especially with cars that they
were in reality not compatible with.

MCG: GG1 #4935 is on indoor static display at the Railroad Museum of PA in Strasburg.
This motor is definitely the best preserved GG1 of all and unfortunately will never run again.

As mentioned previously SEPTA is going to have extra ACS64s at some point. Getting some more
leased cars to run along with them would be a good move on their part. MACTRAXX
 #1487475  by mcgrath618
 
MACTRAXX wrote:MCG: GG1 #4935 is on indoor static display at the Railroad Museum of PA in Strasburg.
This motor is definitely the best preserved GG1 of all and unfortunately will never run again.
Exactly why it's such a shame. If the PRR Museum wasn't so hell-bent on treating their engines as "pieces" and not machines, we might actually have a working GG1 (or a working E6 for that matter).
 #1487480  by dcipjr
 
Somehow I doubt museum pieces will be running on SEPTA, but I think it makes sense to lease the MARC cars. It worked out well last time around, and it seems a shame to have all these ACS-64s sitting around with no consists to push or pull.

Are the ACS-64s going to be better at holding to the SEPTA schedules than the AEM-7s? I know that was one reason that the toasters weren't more widely used.
 #1487493  by mcgrath618
 
dcipjr wrote:Somehow I doubt museum pieces will be running on SEPTA, but I think it makes sense to lease the MARC cars. It worked out well last time around, and it seems a shame to have all these ACS-64s sitting around with no consists to push or pull.

Are the ACS-64s going to be better at holding to the SEPTA schedules than the AEM-7s? I know that was one reason that the toasters weren't more widely used.
As long as they don't keep breaking down, yes
 #1487521  by NorthPennLimited
 
Lease equipment seems to be commanding a hefty ransom. I was recently up in Windsor, CT for business and was impressed by the nearby station in Windsor and the rolling stock operated by CTrail. They were using overhauled GP40’s to haul 4 car train sets in push-pull.

The coaches looked familiar so I did some searching on the World Wide Web and discovered CTrail leases 16 cars/cab cars under a 4 year lease from MBTA. When you break down the lease, each car costs $5,400 per month to lease (plus the additional capital costs CTrail paid to repaint the cars from MBTA to the CTrail paint scheme.

I’m not sure SEPTA has the surplus cash in the operating budget to lease extra cars just because they have a few surplus locomotives on hand until the Chinese cars get delivered. A 6 car train of leased cars would seem to cost $30k per month judging by the lease CTrail is paying MBTA. I don’t think that cost would be recovered by one daily round trip of zone 3 and 4 monthly or weekly pass holders.

But....stranger things have happened. I look at the army of foot soldiers at the train stations, and infrastructure surrounding SEPTA Key and wonder how they will ever recover a fraction of the start-up and operating costs of this new fare payment system.

Attached photo courtesy of Google Images.
Attachments:
D028B1EA-D985-4B09-87F0-09A4755CCC87.jpeg
D028B1EA-D985-4B09-87F0-09A4755CCC87.jpeg (48.98 KiB) Viewed 4352 times
 #1487598  by JeffK
 
NorthPennLimited wrote:I look at the army of foot soldiers at the train stations, and infrastructure surrounding SEPTA Key and wonder how they will ever recover a fraction of the start-up and operating costs of this new fare payment system.
My super-skepticism re the Key says there's about an epsilon chance they'll make back what they've dumped into it. They've now got a leg in each of two tar-pits of poor project management:

(1) The political fallacy of thinking that admitting mistakes is a sign of failure. There's huge pressure to paper over deficiencies via patches and kludges instead of stepping back for a redesign.

(2) The sunk-cost fallacy* - "We know the design stinks but we've already spent X million bucks and can't afford to throw any of it away. Just keep trying to fix what we've already got."

* Also known as the First Law of Holes ...
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