All Things Cascades incl Vancouver

Can the Amtrak Point Defiance re-route begin before the completion of the Tacoma station?

If they can find a way to serve Tacoma passengers with a Temporary Station I suppose...

Is there enough traffic that using the existing platform is operationally infeasible?

Amtrak Cascades Looks Toward 2017 at Seattle Transit Blog.

Lots of interesting stuff in it.

Next year is a big year for Amtrak Cascades. The 2009-era stimulus projects will complete, Seattle and Portland will get two additional trips, and those trips will be faster and much more reliable. Since it’d been a while since we’d done an update on heavy rail projects, last month I sat down with Janet Matkin (Rail Communications Manager), David Smelser (Cascades HSR Program Manager), and Jason Biggs (Rail Operations Project Manager) to discuss the next year and a half for the Cascades program. Responses have been lightly edited for clarity.

Out of 20 Federally-funded projects, 12 are now complete, and 8 should wrap up by spring next year, because of the funding deadline. They include the Point Defiance Bypass, the Tacoma Trestle, three projects in Kelso, and various other projects. The Kelso projects include a line to the Port of Longview and what is effectively a third mainline track. The "Corridor Reliability Upgrade-South" involves fixing a lot of track and clearing up slow orders. In the north is a slide-prevention project that should be done in 3 months. Where it has been done, it has worked, keeping the tracks from being blocked.

The Cascades will get 8 Siemens Charger diesel locomotives next spring. They will have 4400 hp instead of 3200 hp.

At King Street Station, they have been replacing the remaining hand-thrown switches there.

About the Point Defiance bypass, they are laying 2400' of track per weekend -- they work on weekend nights. They should get the track done by October, and they will then work on the signaling and PTC. It will be single-tracked from Tacoma Dome to South 66th St., then double track from there to Lakewood Station and then to Bridgeport Ave. They expect that on-schedule trains should not have to stop for each other.

Their planned schedule will enable same-day business trips, with departures from both Seattle and Portland at 6 am and 7 pm.

Do the F59PHIs not have a HEP generator? If so, isn't the actual gap in net traction power a bit less than 3200 vs 4400 hp engine power might suggest.

The F59PHIs do have separate HEP generators.

The comparison is somewhat disingenuous, though, as Siemens appears to be using the 4400 HP of the QSK95 prime mover as the unit's advertised horsepower as is standard in European practice, and not the horsepower at the rail which will be somewhat lower (probably around 4200 HP). US standard practice is to advertise the at-rail horsepower, (and EMD filed a lawsuit after the Charger was selected over the F125 based partially on this difference). The SC-44 also does not have a HEP generator, which will lower traction horsepower accordingly.

However, the Talgo sets do have HEP generators of their own, so that drop means little. It also means that freight power can haul the Cascades when necessary. The trains are light enough that the added horsepower doesn't do much, anyway.

Interestingly, I was talking with one of the diesel techs I know here in Portland the other day and he was telling me about the huge differences between the prime mover in the F59 and hte new Chargers. He likes to describe the diesel in the F59 as a quite an old design but quite upgradable; hence why actually CalTrans paid for the Tier 3 rebuild on their units back in the 90s, which actually improved reliability. However, the Chargers with the QSK95, he's hearing good things about that motor from Cummins; there is a marine version that is pretty reliable so he expects that it should be no issue for a locomotive.

But its interesting reading the comments in that interview: lots of talk of running an express train between the major city pairs that would in fact bring PDX-SEA to under 3 hours and SEA to VAC to about 3.25 hours...

The 710 can trace its lineage directly back to the 567 of 1938, and partially to the Winton 201A of even earlier.

The big change is that this is the second major application of a high-speed prime mover to exhaustive daily service in place of the traditional rugged and reliable slower-running ones. Despite Siemens' attempts to extend prime mover life as documented in the other thread by Brewtality, I suspect that the more frequent full overhauls will become annoying. The jury won't be in for probably a decade.

I'll miss the F59PHIs, though.

Well, Cummins is known for their reliability so I'm sure they got this.....

Again, the engine crews will happy to not deal with an F59 again...

I'm in full agreement. I just question the long-term reliability of the SC-44s if care is not taken to swap and fully rebuild the prime movers every five years or so as NJT is doing with their ALP-45DPs. Considering the challenges the P42DC fleet has faced recently, I can only hope that they will pay attention. Anything is junk if it isn't maintained.

This is news to me! I didn't know NJT was doing a rebuild on the ALP-45DP. Only thing I know about Cat and their current engine lineup is that they are going some teething issues with dealing with emissions management, but regardless, I know from previous experience that Cat engines like to be babied, so it doesn't surprise me in some regard. But I do I know Cummins is big on preventive maintenance with its big blocks and is pretty reliable in the industrial world.

You sure that's not really the ALP-46 instead of ALP-45DP? The 46's are nearing rebuild age and are going to be upgraded during the overhauls to match specs with the more powerful second-gen order of ALP-46A's. The 45DP's were so many years delayed into full deployment because of the great Superstorm Sandy disruption that some of the last units have only been operating 2 years. I know the twin high-performance diesel engines have much shorter rated life than a typical diesel prime mover on a non- dual-mode, but they're designed to be swapped out in-house with minimal downtime and no touches to any other components. So that wouldn't constitute any sort of rebuild as intensive as a midlife overhaul. Their electric side is also already more or less up-to-snuff with the ALP-46A's technology and doesn't need the extra TLC of those special diesel engines. And despite their complexity, the 45DP's haven't had such unusually high failure rates in revenue service that there's pressing need for modifications so soon. NJT's PL42AC diesels have been much bigger pieces of crap over their lifetime than any of the current-gen ALP's.

I'm sure. It isn't an overhaul but the prime movers are being completely rebuilt. From a PDF FanRailer posted in February:
http://www.njtransit.com/AdminTemp/2016 ... _final.pdf
Page 2:

ALP45 DUAL POWER TOP DECK OVERHAUL
Authorization to enter into a sole source Contract No. 16-603 with Foley-Caterpillar,
Inc. of Piscataway, New Jersey to provide materials and services for the top deck
overhaul on 70 Caterpillar engines (2 per locomotive) in an amount not to exceed
$8,406,000, plus five percent for contingencies, subject to the availability of funds.

Cats have a reputation as expendable remove-old-bolt-in-new that Cummins doesn't have, but I wouldn't be surprised if prime mover life on the SC-44s is just as short.

Thats....odd...is NJT drag racing them on the NEC at night or something? I'll ask my diesel buddy if he has any idea.

Anyways back to Cascades stuff: I'm hearing that full pre-clearence will be coming to VAC in 2017.

Does anyone have the current trainset rotation schedule? ODOT used to show a copy on their website, but I see its not there anymore...