Newsday Article: LIRR Capital Plan 2005-2009

NIMBYkiller wrote: But they were talking about how the new yard could also extend the 3rd rail to Kings Park(which was one of the areas looked at for the yard).

Right but again, if 3rd rail is extended to KIngs Park it will be because that is were the yard is, not because the RR wants to electrify out there. If there was a suitable location at Huntington then that is were the yard would be built and there would be no extension of 3rd rail.

The stupidity is that by the time the MTA's done with it, it's not going to cost much more, and probbably cost LESS, to just electrify to PJ and leave it at that. Right now, at last check, it was ~~180 million for the yard.

I mean, how many track miles is it from Huntington to PJ? 30? Even if third rail DID cost 8 million a mile (and I've yet to see a justification for that number, and it's totally out of line with published data on the issue anyway), that's still only 240 million, which gets a needed all electric PJ line, plud a yard at the end which can be fixed up.

I can see why there's so much friction against a yard mid line - the LIRR's not making a good case at all why a 16 track yard needs to be put *out there*. Yes, the existing end of line is a kludge, but it's worked fine for years, and the only reason you'd need to get rid of it is to run more trains past Huntington, and with diesel service, that's pointless anyway.

My guess? the yard gets built out in Kings Park, then when it's 90% complete, the LIRR suddenly 'realizes' it doesn't have enough money to electrify, and to 'save' the project, decides to make the yard a dumping ground for the DE/DM fleet.

Which, if people paid attention when the fleet was being delivered, was what the LIRR wanted all along. They couldn't get it at the Cerro site, they decided (for whatever reason) that the PJ l;ine was going to be the location for the diesel yard, so now they're moving it up the line.

IMHO, the talk of electrification is just a smoke screen to try to get the yard past the public in the area, who so far doesn't seem to be biting.

"1.79mph/s [for the M7] is below the stated 2.0, and far below an Arrow III's 2.5mph/s."

Actually, when an M7 does cover 425 ft in 18 sec the average of 1.79 mph/sec suggests that they were doing close to 2.0 for most of that time. Dunno how long they take to ramp up to maximum acceleration, but a couple of seconds sounds reasonable. (It was in May that I watched them doing it, on the platform at Woodside.)

Maybe somebody hoped the Arrow III would do 2.5 mph/sec, but if so they were cruelly disappointed. I don't think I've ever seen them take less than 19 seconds for the first 425 feet. They do 0-80 mph in 70-75 seconds.

If our money is going to these new trains, the m9s, we taxpayers should have some say in the design. First of all, why not make them bi-level. Second of all, give the trains some reasonable luggage room. That is all I have to say.

LIRR04 wrote:First of all, why not make them bi-level. Second of all, give the trains some reasonable luggage room. That is all I have to say.

Because the Bilevels do not fit in parts of the electric territory, such as on the Atlantic Branch (where many branch's service begins from), and they also don't fit in the 63rd Street tunnel which will eventually carry the M7's to Grand Central with the East side access project.
As for luggage room, remember that the LIRR is mainly a commuter RR, but also remember that the luggage space is even smaller on the bilevels due to the fact that the ceiling height is much lower.

There will be no M9's, it's all a hoax!

GP38 wrote:That's probably why they want to redesign the M7's a bit to the M9's to correct the mistakes of the M7's. It does make sense to not continue with the M7's if they can improve upon it for future orders.

The M9s are really going to be a replacement for the M3 cars. They won't arrive till sometime between 2015-2020, I think. The last M1s are going to be replaced by another M7 option order in a couple years.

I agree with LIRR04. Any new electric fleet should be bi-level. So what if it can't fit into GCT or Atlantic? Atleast it'll help the loads on NYP bound trains. We've already got the M7s and any remaining M3s for GCT and Atlantic.

I know the Port Washington line DEFINATELY needs more seats, and up is the only direction left.

In the form factor the LIRR has to work with, a bi level EMU can't be done without losing a bunch of seats anyway. The net effect is single level seat capacity on two levels - pointless.There's nowhere to stick the inverters, air compressor, and other support gear.

Plus, the existing LIRR bilevel design is way too heavy to be made into an EMU - figure 1500lbs per motor, plus 1000 lbs for each of 2 inverters, plus another few thousand for the braking units, plus a few thousand for all the misc stuff, 900 lbs a pop for each gearbox...You'd be looking at somewhere on the order of 15,000 - 20,000 lbs extra for each car. And on the 750V DC power system, running a string of 170,000 lb (empty!) train cars would be virtually impossible - the power to do it simply wouldn't be there.

Face it - no matter how much you want it, bilevel EMUs simply won't happen on the LIRR, unless you saw a return to the much hated by everyone types that the LIRR ran in the 40's and 50's. And even THOSE are probbably not very practical under today's FRA regulations (forget the carbody stuff, the interior layout itself would likely be illegal)

Ok, so drop the idea of making the cars into MUs. Why not do what NJT does. Have an electric engine pulling the coaches. That way, it'd just be an electric engine pulling a string of C3s. Could an electric engine pull that much weight though?

You'd have the same gapping problems as you do with the DM's, which would require an engine at each end. Electrically, this also might be a nighmare to design.

Jay

I'm just saying this for the hell of it. We all know none of this would happen. I still think that it could be done. So what if they need engines at both ends? Atleast the extra capacity is there(which is definately needed).

Cant 3rd rail contact shoes be put on the C3's to take in power to provide it to the eletric engine. having the C3's pick up power would then bridge any 3rd rail gap, witch is 1 of the reasons for the DM trains to have a unit @ each end.

The real issue would be designing a decent third rail electric - none currently exist anywhere in the world, and there's a big issue of wicked high currents at the shoes.

Of course, the LIRR could always take the DMs they want to stick into storage, and rip the diesel crap out of them - instant electric loco, and probbably about 30 tons lighter, so it'll perform better to boot.

You'd still need two, though.

Electric able to pull the weight? Please, even the 'too light to function' AEM-7s are used as freight motors in Sweeden* (well, the RC-4, which is slightly lighter). Once you get the train rolling, it's an HP game anyway, you can math this out in Excel, but IIRC, the F-40's absolute (i.e., theoretical) pulling advantage goes away by about 10mph. A DM-30 could do better, with AC traction and all the extra weight, but it's so low in HP in diesel mode that overall, it's not going to win.

For doing the curves, you're supposed to be able to use:

TE = 375 (e) HP / V
TE is tractive effort in lb.
e is the efficiency of the transmission (generally 85%)
HP is the rated horsepower of the engine
V is the speed in mph.

*FWIW, EMD's book says 51,500 Lbs TE, though 'maximum short time', though they don't define short time. This is about 25% adhesion. For an AC traction loco, I think 30-35% is the expected rate.

Your mileage may vary

I tried punching in the ALP-46's published data (from Caltrain's amazingly poor review of electric equipment, but scans of AdTranz's origional published specs.), and got pretty darn close (within 1 or 2 %) with the above equation...

this sounds like John Kerry Railroad.... I think maybe the rails being yanked in W Hemp, East of Ronk, and OB, will be melted down and sold for scrap. then re-purchased at ten times the price to lay down the third main line. Here we go..somebody's brother-in-law will get rich on that deal.