LIRR cars for sale

The tram man wrote:What do you meen by no AC? I copied this from one of the pages: Some of the mechanical details include: E couplers, ABDW brake valves, tread comp shoes, 480v HEP, MU line, main reservoir line, air conditioning... It says so on all except the las one.

Where do they get 480v HEP from? The ex-MUs needed 650v.d.c. in lieu of third-rail current for HEP. And the original P-72s, when they had their steam heat swapped for electric heat in the early '70s, got 200-volt alternators installed to replace the old 38 volt undercar 3-cylinder diesel power pack. So if they now have 480-volt HEP (making them Amtrak-compatible), some considerable conversion work must have been done on them.

These cars could never be made Amtrak compatible, trucks not rated for high enough speed(110 mph) , brakes not rated for 110 mph, no full HEP trainlines and Com/MU systems.
No Amtrak compatible toilet and waste system etc.
other than a curiosity for museum train these cars are useless as private cars.

keyboardkat wrote:

The tram man wrote:What do you meen by no AC? I copied this from one of the pages: Some of the mechanical details include: E couplers, ABDW brake valves, tread comp shoes, 480v HEP, MU line, main reservoir line, air conditioning... It says so on all except the las one.

Where do they get 480v HEP from? The ex-MUs needed 650v.d.c. in lieu of third-rail current for HEP. And the original P-72s, when they had their steam heat swapped for electric heat in the early '70s, got 200-volt alternators installed to replace the old 38 volt undercar 3-cylinder diesel power pack. So if they now have 480-volt HEP (making them Amtrak-compatible), some considerable conversion work must have been done on them.

If you look at one of my other posts you will see. They have 480v generators.

DutchRailnut wrote:These cars could never be made Amtrak compatible, trucks not rated for high enough speed(110 mph) , brakes not rated for 110 mph, no full HEP trainlines and Com/MU systems.
No Amtrak compatible toilet and waste system etc.
other than a curiosity for museum train these cars are useless as private cars.

Although I agree with DutchRailnut's comments that we will probably never see one of these x-LIRR cars rebuilt for use as an Amtrak certified private car, I have to disagree with some other aspects of these comments.

Things such as trainlines (480 VAC HEP, 27 pin locomotive MU and 27 pin communications) and toilets (with either retention tanks or Microphor processing tanks) can be retrofitted by capable shops. The same goes for air brake systems; they can be converted from UC or D22 to 26C or something more modern.

As for the car's original trucks, I am not certain that they can not be rebuilt to Amtrak standards for 110 MPH operations. However, they can be replaced with other trucks that were salvaged from lightweight passenger cars that have been scrapped. There are more than a few Amtrak certified PVs that are not riding on their original trucks.

With sufficient time, $ and a capable shop, many things are possible when working with passenger cars.

Jack
(Amtrak certified PV owner since 1987)

Museums need cars that are as simple as possible to maintain and operation... HEP, air conditioning, etc... all things that require constant attention... more things to break, more things to fix... it all starts to add up to a lot of money... Give me an old fashioned car that has "automatic air conditioning" when you open the windows...

Wasn't there any former LIRR T72s in a yard in New Jersey recently? Are they still there?

I can tell you they will do 100, been there done that.

"can do" and "is rated to do" are two very different things. How would you feel if you stepped into an overweight elevator that was 200lbs over it's limit, but the person next to you told you, "don't worry, it's done 180lbs over before". Ok, maybe that's a bad example (anyone who knows lift systems will tell you that the rating comes from a single cable's strength, it's rated lower than actual, and there's usually about 6 of such cables...) but you get my point.

Interesting ... we have the 2705 on the Blue Ridge Scenic, and it looks almost identical inside to that 2709, including the Christmas lights threaded through the luggage rack. You can't see it in the photos, but the ceilings of the cars (at least ours do) have the New York state seal printed on them in a repeating pattern, a pretty cool touch I think ...

We also have 2795 and 2929, but they have both been converted to open-air cars, so the interiors no longer exist.

- litz