Its too bad the AII's had a relatively short life and could not be economically rebuilt. Since the AIII's seemed to operate better and were a better platform for rebuilding, I wonder why NJT didn't budget for new AIV's to replace the AII's I'm not sure of the numbers, but I think there were around 35 paired AII sets. The AIII's were over 100 units and some were made as single units. Does anyone know the exact count of AII, AIII sets and AIII singles. I belive the cost of the AIII's were close to 1 million a piece if I remember correctly. When the AII's were retired you were probably looking at 2 million plus per car to replace them, that probably is why they went to push-pull. The loss of the AII's put a big hole in the MU fleet. I wonder what NJT will do when the AIII's reach retirement, maybe the end of MU's?
Hostler wrote:Its too bad the AII's had a relatively short life and could not be economically rebuilt. Since the AIII's seemed to operate better and were a better platform for rebuilding, I wonder why NJT didn't budget for new AIV's to replace the AII's I'm not sure of the numbers, but I think there were around 35 paired AII sets. The AIII's were over 100 units and some were made as single units. Does anyone know the exact count of AII, AIII sets and AIII singles. I belive the cost of the AIII's were close to 1 million a piece if I remember correctly. When the AII's were retired you were probably looking at 2 million plus per car to replace them, that probably is why they went to push-pull. The loss of the AII's put a big hole in the MU fleet. I wonder what NJT will do when the AIII's reach retirement, maybe the end of MU's?Well, the good thing is the MUs are kind of a must on the Gladstone Branch. The yard doesn't have much room for anything that doesn't carry passengers. The only push-pull stuff currently stored in Gladstone are the two midtown Direct trains (one is an 8-car, the other a nine or ten car) and one Hoboken train (An ALP44 with four cars.) Other than that, they only have room for MUs. If NJT went all push-pull they would need to expand the Gladstone yard.