Retirements and Disposition of CR Equipment

Backshophoss wrote:Believe the Geeps have Gen-set HEP units

I'm not saying all the GP40's are getting rebuilt yet, just those 4 getting rebuilt because they have been out of service for at least 4 years and are in good enough shape to invest. Same thing with the F40PHM and 2C's which are also worth investing. The original F40's are not worth investing, the controls inside are all useless, the shell is rusted, and it's just not worthy to today's technology. They should have started rebuilding them before the winter of 2015 hit. The mbb's in seaview are rotten to the point where the floor is badly crumbling, wood rotting, seats worn, they don't operate smoothly anymore. The first generation mbb's such as 1500, 1502, 1503, 1504 and such will most likely be retired. Only time will tell when they will be retired aside from 1516 which was retired after 1532 was scrapped. 1525 was a really long time ago along with 1710 so I wont go into that.

Is 904 still active?

I don’t believe so as it has been sitting at Rochester for a while now. The only ones for work service I’ve seen recently is the leased units and 1136. I haven’t seen the gender switchers neither as I last heard one of them was getting fixed in Rochester which was 3249. Not sure where that and 3248 is.

904 & 3247 both stored for over a year now in Rochester. The Gensets - 3248 & 3249 - were last known stored again at BET.

I have always wondered about the Gensets. They are only 12 years old. But have been out of service much of the time I have lived in Salem and used the Commuter Rail since 2016.

Are they lemons?

They are sharp looking engines from the pictures I have seen of them. And I remember seeing them parked outside of BET back in like 2016 when taking the Newburyport / Rockport line into work everyday.

They are probably lemons. BNSF and UP have scrapped a bunch a few years ago.

Here's a thread with a first hand account from an engineer who had operated them, outlining the shortcomings of the gensets.

They were a recipe for disaster to begin with! The T units weren’t worked anywhere near as much as the freight units yet they were both always shop queens. I enjoyed them for the the great visibility and quieter cabs they had but that was about it. T maintenance and Gensets def weren’t a good match.

So what was wrong with 904 and the 3 genset switchers?

The problem with the Gensets is they were purchased with federal funds so they cannot be done away with. So they'll be kicked around for a couple more decades.

8th Notch wrote: ↑Mon Apr 12, 2021 3:26 am They were a recipe for disaster to begin with! The T units weren’t worked anywhere near as much as the freight units yet they were both always shop queens. I enjoyed them for the the great visibility and quieter cabs they had but that was about it. T maintenance and Gensets def weren’t a good match.

I think I read somewhere that the standard maintenance procedure on them involve removing the individual engine needing work done, swapping it with a spare (of which zero were purchased for the MBTA) to keep it in service with little downtime, while the now-removed engine becomes the spare once the work has been done. The problem with this is that this method of maintenance is that I don't think the MBTA is well equipped to do things this way. As mentioned in the thread I linked above, freigh railroads like BNSF had to fabricate cradles to hold the engines after they removed them in order to move them and work on them easily.

If I remember correctly, one of the gensets (3249?) had one engine go bad and was running around on only two engines for a while.

As the MBTA has found out the hard way, (as mentioned years ago here on this forum) the lower high-speed tractive effort on the gensets also make them terrible for rescue power where the passengers stay on the train, making all the schedueld stops while being pulled by the genset, relegating them to work train and yard switcher use.

The two or three coaches stored off their trucks next to the Valley Track at BET were scrapped this past week. 254 & 647 should be two confirmed.

I thought they were being held to be converted in to bike cars. I guess not.

The 15 F40PH-2s stored down in Rochester since 2015-16 are finally being disposed of. Going up for auction soon. Ozark Mountain Railcar is handling the auction.

Opportunity for BSRR!

Ha!