RandallW wrote: ↑Thu May 25, 2023 3:45 am
The KISS and Flirt MUs are FRA compliant in mixed traffic (and assembled in Salt Lake City). It seems NJT prefers to use foreign locomotives as the ALP-45As, ALP-45DPs, APL-46s and APL-46As are all imported from Germany.
According to Wikipedia, FLIRT operators in the US are TexRAIL, Arrow, and DART, none of which are FRA-compliant lines and all of which use time separation with freight the same way the NJT River Line does.
The only KISS DMUs that exist in the world are operating in Azerbaijan. The Caltrain KISS EMUs (not DMUs) are FRA-compliant on an alternative approval track that, for example, requires PTC installed on all trains that are not time-separated, which is not something achievable for passenger roads that share tracks with long-distance freight. Only 4 train sets have arrived on the property at this time.
NJT prefers to use locomotives for operations that require it. An MU is not going to be the optimal choice for all agencies and service patterns. If they aren't dependent on federal funding to procure their equipment, why limit themselves to rolling stock that's manufactured in the US?
Paul Borokhov
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