Railroad Forums 

Discussion relating to the operations of MTA MetroNorth Railroad including west of Hudson operations and discussion of CtDOT sponsored rail operations such as Shore Line East and the Springfield to New Haven Hartford Line

Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, nomis, FL9AC, Jeff Smith

 #1354849  by Jeff Smith
 
In any case, LIRR gets the first 92; after that, I'm not sure how the distribution will go. So you'll still be looking at M-3a's on the Hudson and Harlem for the near future.

Since this is a shared fleet order, it will be interesting to see if and how they are deployed and "shared". Foamer questions that come to mind are branding; will they be blue? Yellow? Will they be generically labeled MTA or will they actually be assigned to a railroad and only shared as necessary? I imagine because of logistics there won't be much if any back and forth.

Operationally, how are they going to handle the different signal systems? And finally, I guess they will be equipped with the same DC shoes that M8's have.
 #1354850  by DutchRailnut
 
shared order does not mean the feel will be shared
 #1354857  by DutchRailnut
 
not unless LIRR gets a same ACSES system, Radio's etc etc , the M-7 was shared order so were M-3 and M-1 but non were ever moved other than a few test trains.
 #1354859  by Jeff Smith
 
Dutch, M8's are the only fleet I know that can operate on all lines, as they have the over/under capable DC shoes. The way I've been reading the M9 is that they will also have that setup (sans pantographs, of course). The M9a is a tack-on order at the end, rather than specific to MNRR as it has been in the past. So to me, that means the "innards" are the same. The M-1 through M-7 fleet had "A" variants specific to MNRR; yes, same car type, but different internal systems for signals and power.
 #1354865  by DutchRailnut
 
believe me the M-9's MN get, are specific build for MN.

and M-8's are build with Amtrak trackage in mind, not LIRR, from Harold to NYP the LIRR runs on Amtrak and so eventually will M-8 (maybe)
.
 #1355117  by Jeff Smith
 
DutchRailnut wrote:believe me the M-9's MN get, are specific build for MN.

and M-8's are build with Amtrak trackage in mind, not LIRR, from Harold to NYP the LIRR runs on Amtrak and so eventually will M-8 (maybe)
.
I'm not asking this right. I must be following the Facebook group too much.

Will the M9's have dual capable DC shoes? Whether or not MNRR or LIRR specific?
 #1355123  by DutchRailnut
 
As far as I can see in specifications, they will NOT get dual purpose third rail shoes.
 #1355134  by runningwithscalpels
 
DutchRailnut wrote:As far as I can see in specifications, they will NOT get dual purpose third rail shoes.
Seems silly that going forward they wouldn't strive for uniformity with flippable shoes. Yeah the M7's would keep the MNR shoes, but you'd think they'd get a volume discount with M8s and M9's (and whatever replaces the P32's) using the same third rail shoes.
 #1355138  by DutchRailnut
 
There is no such thing as flippable shoe, the M-8 shoe is steady shoe sprung to flex up or down with a wear surface on top and bottom.
The M-9's will never be interchanged between LIRR and MN so why go through expenses of putting something on that you never will use ??
 #1355219  by nomis
 
Because the cost of buying two boatloads of over-under shoes (and hardware) vs. a boatload of under running shoes (and hardware) and another boatload of over running shoes (and hardware) can be cheaper when you do t have to pay a second tooling charge that will get amortized across the units.
 #1355220  by DutchRailnut
 
If you put two sided shoes on these cars, yet it never gets used, you would throw away half a shoe every 6 weeks. multiply by 8 shoes per pair and you see its ludicrous to use two sided shoes.
 #1355229  by Jeff Smith
 
Thinking VERY long-term, if MNRR ever gets to it, if you ran Hudson branch trains into Penn (part of the PSAS plan, not currently funded) you might want through running trains. That would require over/under. Or, say you have fleet issues on either side of the sound due to an incident such as Sandy, flat-spotting (remember when the 7a's first came out?), etc., it would be nice to be able to rotate in and out as needed.
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