New Electric District Railcars

Since the MP36s are all here (well, except the wrecked ones ... but they WERE here!), I'll start a thread on the new MUs that should be arriving on the electric district soon. Supposedly, a set of two of them should be arriving in late 2004 for testing purposes. For those who don't know, the shells are being built by Sumitomo, and the rest of the assembly is being done at Super Steel in Milwaukee (same as all the latest diesel coaches). That's all the info I have, though. Anyone else have know anything more?

Hate to bring up an old thread, but I found this a few minutes ago and thought it might be of interest: http://www.electricrailroaders.org/slid ... ra_01.html. It's a slideshow of the new ME railcars being built in Japan (I guess the prototypes are being completed entirely over there). The pictures were taken in September (according to the date-a-print on the pictures themselves) and the cars look pretty far along then, so maybe we'll see them downtown pretty soon.

Cool! Thanks for posting the link. I must admit, when I first saw a sketch of the new cars last year, I thought they were hideous. But after seeing photos of the prototypes, I think if you can accept the more modern design, they're actually better looking than the Highliners. It's interesting to note that the new cars are numbered in the 1200 series, same as the old IC heavyweight motors.

I think these new cars look pretty good too. Like a regular bilevel cab car except with a pantograph on top and high-level loading doors. I always liked the Highliners aesthetics, mainly because I liked the old burnt orange and brown paint scheme they used to have. When they were rehabbed by MK and repainted, they still looked pretty good but I liked the old paint more - it was a throwback to the IC days and helped make the ME unique (although it was probably easier for Metra when they ordered paint in bulk, since there would be no special orders of orange/brown paint for the MED while all the other smooth-side cars on the system had the new scheme). From what I understand, the old cars are a pain in the butt to run so if these new ones are easier on the crews then I'm all for them. I'm also wondering how new components will work out for them. Seeing as how the current fleet of Highliners dates to the mid-70s, they're obviously not "cutting edge" in any respect and the new ones are going to have a lot of unfamiliar technology to the shop forces.

they're obviously not "cutting edge" in any respect and the new ones are going to have a lot of unfamiliar technology to the shop forces.

I doubt it would be much of a problem for the guys at kyd. remember that they do all major overhauls on all of metra's cars. ive seen both 7400's and 8400's in the kyd yard. if anything it would just be an awkward change for some

what happened to everybody!?!

im curious to know about the couplers on these new cars, they look to be the same style as the ones on the highliners/nictd, are they? (anybody know the correct name for that style coupler, remote coupler??)

also....

obviously they are going to come from japan via boat, how about the rest of the journey? from the picture theyre obviously not compatable with standard knuckle type couplers so shipping them such as the mp36's came, isnt an option. trucking something of that weight and size over the rockies doesnt seem logical? (if anybody still reads this forum) any ideas? flatcar?

Replacing the funky coupler with a standard coupler so it can be moved wouldn't be too hard, would it? I'm sure they won't truck a bunch of new railway cars halfway across the US...

Earlier automatic couplers of very similar design are called Tomlinson couplers. I'm not sure whether the present-day design goes by the same name. Yes, the ones on the new cars are the same as those on the Highliners and NICTD's fleet. Adapter couplers are available that allow them to mate with standard railroad couplers, but these are not practical for much more than emergencies and switching. It's not very difficult to replace the automatic coupler with a standard one for shipping, although I don't know whether that's what they'll do.

Maybe they'll be shipped by C-5 cargo planes...

I can't imagine the current Highliners are any harder to run than any other EMU in the US (save for the one handle operation on LIRR and Metro-North equipment, which is quite easy - they also handle the braking in such a way that loss of dynamic is simply made up by friction braking automatically, on the fly).

What's the specs on the new ME equipment? Is it any lighter than the existing cars, and is Metra finally going to get AC traction like the rest of the industrialized world? The latter could be useful - the motors are much more snow friendly and overall reliable, plus the cars can return power through the catenary and 'boost' another car in the area, though they'll automatically dump it into braking resistors if the catenary won't accept the power (I think it just looks for an unchecked rise in the catenary, then cuts the feed and lets the brake unit clamp the DC link).

Are these things going to top out at the lethargic 60mph the current stuff does? Out here, a straight line stretch under the wires tends to be 90 or 100mph

Oh yeah, can they support 3kv operation? I ask because it probbably wouldn't be hard for Metra to bounce the catenary up to 3kv if the equipment can support it, and they'd get a <b>major</b> performance boost, too. And, I know in Europe, 1.5kv stuff tends to also run on 3kv these days. With AC propulsion, it's really just an issue of the DC-DC converter at the front end being able to handle 3kv +- a few hundred volts, though to do regenerative braking, you'd then need a unit to bounce the DC link up to 3+kv, but that's fairly common anyway.

Of course, if they stay with DC traction motors and all that acient tech, they're locked into 1.5kv.

The current Highliners aren't particularly hard to run, they're just unpredictable and unreliable. See this article (mainly the bottom half): http://diesel.freewebsitehosting.com/Ho ... uter4.html. The braking seems to be the worst of the problems, but there were more, like the tendency to get flat spots if the rail was wet. The new cars are going to have AC traction, and I also read somewhere that the existing highliners were converted to AC when they were rebuilt in the early 90s by MK. Not sure about that, though. And I don't think Metra will be changing the voltage of the wire anytime soon, since there are only like 20 or so new Highliners being delivered. Maybe when a whole new fleet is in place and the older cars are completely gone, and if the new cars can take 3kv, they'll change it, but not anytime soon.

Keep in mind that the line voltage on the Metra Electric cannot be changed without affecting South Shore trains. NICTD has no plans to alter their voltage, so I would not expect to see Metra make any changes in the forseeable future.

With regard to the problems of operating the Highliners, I'm not sure they're quite as bad as the author makes them seem. Given his obvious distaste for working electric commuter trains, I have a feeling he's exaggerated the problems a little. I've spoken with a few Electric District hoggers and they never seemed to have as many difficulties as this guy did. It's true, though, that the Highliners' braking system is a little wonky ... the South Shore fleet, which uses a simpler 26B1 air brake system with blended dynamic brakes, tends to be more reliable.

<i>Keep in mind that the line voltage on the Metra Electric cannot be changed without affecting South Shore trains. NICTD has no plans to alter their voltage, so I would not expect to see Metra make any changes in the forseeable future. </i>

Ahhh.... It's nice to see there's a region besides NYC where transit planning goes barely 5 minutes into the future I suspect interagency communication is just as horrid there, too? Actually, the line doesn't have to be all 1.5 or all 3kv - I don't know if the NICTD's AC traction stuff was ever intended to handle 3kv, though. We have a lot of voltage switching around here, and what goes on around NY is actually harder than a 1.5kv/3kv switch. I believe such switches with AC traction stuff is just the converter being able to regulate the DC link..

<I>With regard to the problems of operating the Highliners, I'm not sure they're quite as bad as the author makes them seem.</i>

I'm not really sure what about them is any different from any other conventional DC MU with dynamic braking. I'm not including the LIRR/Metro-North stuff here, though, as it's braking is nothing like anything else out there*.

<i> Given his obvious distaste for working electric commuter trains, I have a feeling he's exaggerated the problems a little.</i>

Yeah. His articles are fun and entertainning, but he seemed to really look down on commuter service, particularly the ME. Afraid of a 1.5kv wire? Too bad he's never run anything on the NEC

<i> I've spoken with a few Electric District hoggers and they never seemed to have as many difficulties as this guy did. It's true, though, that the Highliners' braking system is a little wonky ... the South Shore fleet, which uses a simpler 26B1 air brake system with blended dynamic brakes, tends to be more reliable. </i>

It probbably acts a bit funny, but if it were a disaster, I'd imagine it'd be fixed.

BTW, you can tell if a car's got AC traction - listen for a 500 - 1000 hz "eeeeee" noise as the train motors. Sometimes it shifts frequency, depending on inverter design. AC traction has been great at the LIRR, they're reporting better than 200,000 mile MDBFs on the new stuff (and they're still debugging the cars a bit).

How heavy are the new cars going to be - I know the older ones are a bit heavy at about 150,000 lbs a car...

* The M-1 car has a single handle controller, which combines brake and propulsion. Brake control is *entirely* electric - the trainlined air hose only supplies air, and provides for an emergency application. The actual, normal control is via a current loop. When a brake selection is made, the current in the loop drops (0 amps = emergency). This is detected by each car's braking unit, which then converts this into a braking commands for the propulsion system. The propulsion system then feeds back the braking current, and the brake unit then computes, based on car weight and speed and a few other things, the amount of air that's needed to supplement the dynamic braking. If the propulsion system clicks out , the air makes up the difference immediatly (or close enough). There's also a notoriously flakey slip/slide function, plus the ASC interface (LIRR's cab signal system), which sometimes fights with the slip slide to do interesting things to the train (and us poor passengers ). Braking rates are automatically tapered from IIRC 1.2mph/s at 100mph, increasing to 3.0mph/s at 50mph, which stays in effect to 0mph. That's regular service braking. IIRC, the M-7s have an emergency rate up around 3.2mph/s. I've witnessed them hit a platform at 45 and stop smooth with room to spare.

The M-7's system is a bit different. They can also stop 'on the motor', i.e. entirely with the traction motors and no air. This has been changed to have some air to keep the wheels cleaned. Crews I've talked to give the system high marks though - it's supposed to have very nice brake control and is a bit 'smarter' than the older system (though that works pretty well, too).

Metro North's system is, naturally, entirely different. You can tell when you're in a dead car on the New Haven Line - it *smells* from the brake use. For some reason, the MTA has tended to request 3.0mph/s performance for it's equipment.

When is delivery to Chicagoland?

2 prototype cars should be here in May, other cars should follow in 06.