MARC HHP-8

Anyone know what the deal is with the electrics? I had 4915 on train 517 this morning, I've seen 4912 in and out of the electric shops at DC in the past week or so, as well as on the set led by cab car 7847 (4915 seems to always to be mated by 7855 on the other end). But I've been through DC at all hours of the day in the past month, and have no sighting of any of the other 4. Per the last post in viewtopic.php?f=64&t=158693, all of the electrics were supposed to be back on the Penn line. Has there been any update?

The HHP-8's (hippos) are known to have horrible reliability. Being in the shop half the time is nothing new.

If the HHP-8's continue on this route, MARC will replace them with more Chargers. They already mothballed their AEM-7's.

STrRedWolf wrote:The HHP-8's (hippos) are known to have horrible reliability. Being in the shop half the time is nothing new.

If the HHP-8's continue on this route, MARC will replace them with more Chargers. They already mothballed their AEM-7's.

I'm pretty sure the Chargers are slated to replace all of the electrics anyway.

STrRedWolf wrote:The HHP-8's (hippos) are known to have horrible reliability. Being in the shop half the time is nothing new.

I did hear about that, which was the reason Amtrak retired them so quickly as well. But there are 4 more hippos somewhere that haven't been on the road in at least 2 months or so. I'm wondering what happened to them, because they seemed to have disappeared (hopefully not for good). I've seen a resurgence of the GP39s coming back to cover for MP36s that are covering for these other 4, so I was curious as to what's keeping all 6 of them from running the road, especially as their nominal replacements don't arrive until late next year.

As to the maintenance, it seems both of the ones in service go right to Ivy City immediately after they arrive in the morning and stay there until the evening rush every day.

MARC Holiday Extra #1054 northbound through Bridesburg on Sunday 11/27 with HHP-8 #4911 as power:

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Ben

I'm kinda surprised they got a hippo working reliably enough to do that job.

Why didn't they put the café in the middle of the consist?

jackintosh11 wrote:Why didn't they put the café in the middle of the consist?

If I had to guess, I'd say it was simply for ease of adding and removing the car from the consist. IF I had to guess....
Ben

liftedjeep wrote:

jackintosh11 wrote:Why didn't they put the café in the middle of the consist?

If I had to guess, I'd say it was simply for ease of adding and removing the car from the consist. IF I had to guess....
Ben

It's a good guess. In DC, all MARC trains have their engines (doesn't matter what type) as far away from the terminal as possible (mainly just to keep the diesel fumes out from the station, and since it's majority diesel push/pull, it's standard practice anyway). They probably had a diesel deliver an all MARC II series consist down from Riverside or the HHP-8 deliver them down from Martins State Airport, popped the engine, tacked on the diner, slapped the HHP-8 on, and ran with it on a Holiday run.

jackintosh11 wrote:Why didn't they put the café in the middle of the consist?

JT:

As a longtime watcher of Amtrak's Thanksgiving Holiday special trains I have seen Amcafe cars on
MARC train consists either on the rear or on the front of these trains - keep in mind they would
have to separate the consist to place a Cafe car in the center which is not necessary. Cafe cars
are used on MARC consists depending on their availability - I have seen MARC trainsets in Amtrak
service with and without a Cafe car assigned...

There is actually past precedence for placing an Amcafe car in the middle of a MARC consist -
Back when four 4 car push-pull trainsets were assigned to the Penn Line (second half of the
80s into the 90s thereabouts) what Amtrak would do is take two of these sets and place a
Cafe car in between to make a 9 car train which I thought was a clever use of equipment.

MACTRAXX

Makes sense operationally, but I have to imagine sales would've been hurt because passengers wouldn't want to walk 6 cars (with manual sliding doors) to the cafe.

jackintosh11 wrote:Makes sense operationally, but I have to imagine sales would've been hurt because passengers wouldn't want to walk 6 cars (with manual sliding doors) to the cafe.

I kinda like the manual sliding doors because they locked closed, clicked to hold open when the train was stopped, never closed on you on it's own, and never needed HEP to operate. But I digress from the topic.

STrRedWolf wrote:I kinda like the manual sliding doors because they locked closed, clicked to hold open when the train was stopped, never closed on you on it's own, and never needed HEP to operate. But I digress from the topic.

In my experience, the manual sliding doors were like a chopping block. They would randomly slam closed on people all the time due to worn out latching mechanisms. Some would randomly slide open depending on what direction the curve was. We had the same cars with the same doors on the Shore Line East when I lived in CT. And they did the same thing there too. The new MARC 8000s filling out the Brunswick Line was the best thing that ever happened to my shoulders and arms...

The vestibule doors on the new 8000 series Bombardier MLVs work even without HEP. While we were disabled for hours a few weeks ago with a fuel leak outside Kensington, we were without HEP for hours. The batteries in the cars died after about 45 minutes. Leaving only the life safety lights and intercom working. The vestibule doors still worked. We just flipped all the switches to manual to keep them open because it got annoying.

jackintosh11 wrote:Makes sense operationally, but I have to imagine sales would've been hurt because passengers wouldn't want to walk 6 cars (with manual sliding doors) to the cafe.

The cafe is not in service on holiday extra trips. It provides extra seating and extra lavatory capacity, since only control cars and about five trailers have restrooms.

As noted in the Amtrak HHP-8 thread:

STrRedWolf wrote:

gokeefe wrote:Apparently there will be a second act:

ApproachMedium wrote:The MARC unit is being redone. I dont think the MARCs are lease like the amtraks, somebody is footing the bill to replace the stuff inside with all new as I was told by a few sources they had one buried in the back of Martins airport shop for a while undergoing the transition. MARC is looking to expand service and add tracks in maryland so it would only make sense to maintain the electric fleet as the diesels will only be good as a replacement for the older diesels that are slow and the meatballs which were worthless for marc service.

Quite the surprise to say the least.

Not really. With BBD now running the equipment on the CSX lines for MTA Maryland, and maintaining the MARC fleet, getting their hands on the HHP-8s they built and getting a chance to improve them isn't out of the question. If BBD can make the hippos more reliable, then MARC will run them on the Penn line... or else they'll replace them with more Chargers (on top of the ones they ordered to replace the old AEM-7s).

Known stuff in the purchase order they had to go through Maryland Board of Public Works to get approval for.