CDOT to lease 8 P40 Amtrak locomotives

MNCR as part of Tier 1 emmisions prommised the EPA that running Diesels on Reveneu trains was history. only emergencies and lite engine moves.
The P40 besides not having third rail gear also lack the Emergency hatch in the nose, for engineers to get out incase of fire.
To place a hatch in tose noses would require structural redesighn. and relocation of Cab signal gear.

Dutch, what's your take on why they want to make this purchase?

Fred G wrote:Dutch, what's your take on why they want to make this purchase?

"The additional locomotives, which the state will lease from Amtrak for $20,000 a month, will allow the state to employ all 26 used passenger rail cars it bought last year from Virginia, adding 2,000 seats."

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/lo ... 1237.story

What's still not clear however is how these locos are going to accomplish that goal. They can't go into GCT, and the equipment they are intended to replace also cannot go into GCT, so unless they are going add new SLE or branch trains, I don't see the point.

Why does CT want them if they're such bad locomotives? It doesn't make any sense.

you know the saying about who is running the assylum.
Conndot seems to be the model for that.

To be fair, CDOT's road projects aren't any better. They've been working on Bridgeport for YEARS now, it's still a mess. The I-91/I-84 interchange is a dangerous disaster that clogs traffic, and they massively overbuild anything and everything....

You know, noted from the FL-9 thread, if Gennies are so frequently on shuttle trains, then maybe those P40s may free up some P32s for GCT service?

You are correct that genny's occasionally turn up in shuttle service. But if I'm not mistaken they are really there as protection for the GCT through trains. So in theory they want to have dual mode on one of the shuttles just "in case." So you really dont gain anything by buying a bunch of non-dual modes.

The cab units are aging. It is time to have replacements. The P40s might save fuel, but their acceleration is an issue. What would be cool is for MN to maybe ship some of their geeps across the river and use them for branchline service. Maybe even paint them in the McGinnes livery.

Why would they use the GPs in revenue service - those are for work trains, etc exclusively. In addition, there are only six of them.

I thought MN had a few Geeps on the WOH lines?

I think Jay is talking about the GP40PH-2's that are used on the trains on the West of Hudson, NOT the GP35R's used in work train service.

That's them, thank you Otto. In any case though, I don't think MN has that many of them to go around -- and then there is catenary problem (being too low for these engines), yes?

What are the engines used for SLE called? They look similiar to those in Otto's pics but are in NH colors.