Publius Plunkett wrote:The LIRR MofE Dept is faced with losing the major overhauls of its diesel locomotives. The LIRR is currently exploring having its sister to the north, Metro-North, do the overhauls for them. Currently, the unions have made it clear to its members, that the cost of overhauling 400 is a test to see whether it is cheaper to do the work in-house, or outsource it to MNCR. Sending locomotives to MN would require shipment via CSX and the actual cost of the overhaul. The work on Engine 400 is considered at this time, well within budget and on-time as the work has progressed compared to having the locomotives overhauled by MN. Let's see what happens and what decisions are made.
All true-but I prefered not to air 'dirty laundry' on a public forum. Of course, there are a couple of fallacies involved here. The first and most obvious-MN is sending their own locomotives to GE for what is no doubt, an expensive half-life overhaul. Why ? GE doesn't work cheap (their plant is union) and the units need to be shipped back and forth.
Second-MN would need to add another shift to perform the LIRR work. Another shift of machinist/electricians trained in the repair of these EMD locomotives.
Third-LIRR has shown they can do the complete teardown in the existing shop-although in a different fashion than was planned for the (now cancelled) heavy overhaul facility. The original plan was to have a freshly built up skid assembly ( consisting of engine, main alternator and equipment rack) ready to go-and place this into a locomotive requiring overhaul. The skid that was removed would be overhauled for placement into the next locomotive-and so on. The new facility would have been equipped with crane capacity having the capability to lift the entire skid assembly.
The long and the short of it is this-the existing RH facility removed the main alternator, engine, equipment rack and skid as individual units. Problem solved.
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