M-8 Cars - Delivery and Acceptance

I saw a 12 car M8 set running out of Stamford today. Did they update the third rail substations already?

This was the picture I tried to link to, as I have said its tough to see since a building is covering the majority of the car.

never mind building, you take pictures for midgets ?

It was on my phone, must have got compressed. Also it was really bright so I couldn't completely see what I was shooting.

truck6018 wrote:No cabs and no power for propulsion. Should be interesting since powered cars will have dynamic braking but these will only have friction brakes.

You'd need motors for dynamic braking, and at that point, you've basically got a blind motor car rather than a trailer. I also believe motorization would upgrade the inspection requirements, making it classified as a locomotive under FRA inspection guidelines. Dutch, am I far off?

truck6018 wrote:No cabs and no power for propulsion. Should be interesting since powered cars will have dynamic braking but these will only have friction brakes.

I think this is why we got the notice regarding a change in dynamic brake requirements for the M8 and M7 from the Road Foremans Office.

actually these cars will require more switching, as requirement for disk brakes as primary require each S car to be over inspection pit once a week.
a powered car would only require once in 92 days unless propulsion fails.

Why did they design these cars like that? I am assuming money but it seems pretty stupid and MORE money in the long run making them like this. How much would a propulsion system add to each car anyway?

DutchRailnut wrote:actually these cars will require more switching, as requirement for disk brakes as primary require each S car to be over inspection pit once a week.

Good grief why even bother with them then??

Stephen B. Carey wrote:Why did they design these cars like that? I am assuming money but it seems pretty stupid and MORE money in the long run making them like this. How much would a propulsion system add to each car anyway?

Not only that, but who on earth would want to keep rotating 25 individual cars on the inspection pit once every 7 days vs. 3 months for a motored pair?

The singles cost nearly same per car as each fully equipped M-8 car in a pair, it would have been a lot more sense if 14 more pair were bought.
But some genius in Mechanical thought it made sense ???

DutchRailnut wrote:The singles cost nearly same per car as each fully equipped M-8 car in a pair, it would have been a lot more sense if 14 more pair were bought.
But some genius in Mechanical thought it made sense ???

"We've always done it this way" syndrome.

How much more power would the motors require? Because that might cause the operating costs to go up.

jackintosh11 wrote:How much more power would the motors require? Because that might cause the operating costs to go up.

They don't need more power. Each pair does a little over 1000hp which is enough.

I mean how much more power would the motors use if they were put in the single cars?

1036 hp converted to Kw ??