M3 compatibility

I was just wondering if the Metro North and LIRR M3's are compatible to run on either rail line. And can they be intermixed as one train?

Doubtful because LIRR's M3's have over-running 3rd rail shoes for LIRR style 3rd rail. And MN's M3's have under-running shoes for the under-running 3rd rail that was built years ago by New York Central RR. Not sure if there are any other reasons why they couldn't run on each other's railroads.

If I understand correctly. If you swapped the type of 3rd rail shoe to the system
You’re running on, as long as the home roads M3s are leading I don’t think there would be much difference or issues.
There may be smaller differences that I may be unaware of. Provided there is no difference other than the 3rd rail shoe-pick up method, as long as you “burry” the say MNR M3 behind it he LIRR M3 leading it should work.
There was talk or a suggestion that MNR take LIRRs M3s but I don’t know how far along that has gotten if even just a feather in the wind idea.

Sure is a feather in the wind idea. LI M3s are too far beaten, and if that was a plan, 74 of them wouldnt have already been retired.

As for compatibility, there are no major issues, but some.

Third rail shoes notwithstanding, it may be as simple as replacing the shoes and hangars, BUT, how the contact shoe beams are attached to the trucks are entirely different on each railroad, you may be able to put a MNR shoe and hangar on an LI car, but if you went the other way, you'd have issues on curves.

The electric couplers may or may not be the same. I don't remember if the LI changed the M3 couplers to match the M1 or vice versa, but the control trainlines on MN & LI are the same.

Other things are different, but they wouldn't affect interoperability, for example, LI replaced all their Motor-Alternators with inverters.

Brakes are different between LIRR M3 and MN M3.

bulk88 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 6:45 am Brakes are different between LIRR M3 and MN M3.

How so?

BuddR32 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 7:02 am

bulk88 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 6:45 am Brakes are different between LIRR M3 and MN M3.

How so?

https://www.railroad.net/post1461473.html#p1461473

bulk88 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 8:29 am

BuddR32 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 7:02 am

bulk88 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 6:45 am Brakes are different between LIRR M3 and MN M3.

How so?

https://www.railroad.net/post1461473.html#p1461473

That is rescue operation only, when being hauled by a diesel locomotive controlling brakes through a brake pipe.

During normal service operation, under their own power, it utilizes P-wire, same electric signal, control and operation on both LIRR & MNR M3s

It's been a long time since I've seen it, but we used to get MU's from MN off of the Hellgate. They would pull into Harold at a certain spot, and the car inspectors standing by with a road foreman would spring into modifying the shoes, and then they would make a move to Shea yard. At the time some contractor was doing work for both railroads at Shea yard and they would do work on the MN equipment. Same thing for the trip back. They had to work quickly on doing the shoes as it tied up a big chunk of the interlocking after they would put in the DC plate and LI third rail plan to allow the work to be done. I believe more work was done later when the Arch Street shops were built and were leased out for a while for another contractor to do similar work but I'm not sure.

I recall that move well Krispy. The only problem running the Metro North cars here (beside the contact shoes) was the speed control. They would run non-equipped. Road Foreman was often The Shadow or Buffy. Maybe about 35 years ago?

25ish. Great guy, and the protect engineer in the morning who was normally very polite would heap abuse on him, often ragging on his tie. Both very funny, very experienced and I was lucky to have worked with them.

I remember seeing the MN M1/M3s in the Hillside shops. If I remember right, they (MN) had a very high OOS and sent cars to us for help, be it wheels or dead cars from snow I don't remember. Those did come under their own power, the later moves to Arch St were all by locomotive I believe