Just wondering how these locomotives are performing in service, how many have been delivered, and if they are living up to expectations. I don’t see much of anything about them on the RR fan sites I frequent. AFAIK, these have the highest HP of any diesel on 4 axles.
Dave
They liked them enough to repeat order them, but I get the impression they use both engines for rapid acceleration rather than high speed and don’t make a ‘thing’ out of idling one of the engines a la genset to save fuel at other times.
They’re certainly a delight to watch and hear in service, right up there with NJT’s locomotives with the Polish-block 710s that even though dressed in a clumsy-looking Vergara clown suit have sound among the best anywhere – and I say this as a dedicated U34CH fan.
Apparently Wabtec has no success selling a ‘more hp than needed for PRIIA 125mph in a single carbody’ vs. the single-engine larger QSK95 in the Siemens Chargers. Presumably American commuter districts make do with adjusting consists to the lower horsepower; doubleheading MP54s is glorious even on longer trains but it’s overkill if you aren’t wanting to pay for the acceleration and can’t use the full top speed, and tinkering to use only one engine in one of a doubleheaded pair is a waste of much of the added capital costs.
[BTW – can you point me at a copy of the EMD suit that showed the original Siemens Charger design for IDOT wasn’t physically capable of meeting the PRIIA spec (by about 2mph as I recall the calculations?)
I have this dim, probably incorrect memory that the IDOT QSK95 was supposed to be kept at 1200rpm (with only short-time ‘boost’) and this was being promoted as making the engines far more reliable than the Cat alternative – then the production locomotives went to 1800rpm to match the C175s and handily met specs when so ‘modified’.]
Here’s the only link I could find to the lawsuit but you need to join to see it all:
Does anyone have any intel on the trucks/traction motors used on the MP54AC? Are the trucks standard Blombergs? They reportedly use motors from ABB. One Amtrak F40 had been rebuilt with AC traction with hardware from ABB. Is there an extant 3-phase TM that will drop into the space of a D77 or D87?
MPI had two truck designs they owned the patterns for. The MP54AC truck was the same as first used on the MP36’s for Metra where they made a stretched wheelbase version of the EMD swing hanger truck that could accommodate either EMD or GE traction motors. Their other truck was one I designed for the HSP46 for Boston that used a coil spring secondary direct from truck frame to underframe and a small bolster buried between the transoms that only carries tractive and braking forces. No idea what AC motor they used in the MP54AC but the space is big enough for a GE 752.
Thank you for that. I do seem to remember the Blomberg truck on the MP36 was different. What I am waiting to see is a DC-to-AC rebuild package for Dash-2 and earlier locomotives. The IGBT hardware seems to get smaller/lighter/cheaper by the day. In the fading days of my railroad mechanical career I never changed out a failed AC T/M. Eventually there has to be a traction motor line that can drop into the space of a D77, D87 or 752.