Join the discussion on the following article:
New York plans to sell turbo trains for scrap
Unlimited Hydroplane racing people might be interested in the turbines. We use them for boat racing… Just a thought!
Though they’re barely a paragraph in the volumes of rail psgr history, one should be preserved for if only to show why the concept didn’t…
Or, save half a train; display it by backing it against a mirrored wall because if I remember the one that was serviced at West Oak’ diesel shop on a demo’ trip, they looked the same from each end.
Though they’re barely a paragraph in the volumes of rail psgr history, one should be preserved for if only to show why the concept didn’t…
Or, save half a train; display it by backing it against a mirrored wall because if I remember the one that was serviced at West Oak’ diesel shop on a demo’ trip, they looked the same from each end.
This is just a fine reflection of the state of passenger rail in the United States.
What waste of time and effort!
This situation is all too common when dealing with “orphan” equipment.
How have French Turbos performed in France?
It is a shame that none of the turbos will be saved as a warning that high speed trains are very, very expensive political toys given to “good” people, by other “good” people at everyone’s expense. For now, the NYP-ALB corridor is a ride once operation*. When will NYS give Amtrak a chance to run the trains and give up on having Metro North run to Albany-Rensselaer, like they have for so long now?
*A “Ride Once” operation is just that. It is used once, and the rider just does not return.
This is what happens when a bunch of incompetent, overpaid, and underworked government types get their grubby little hands on technology they don’t understand, and care not to learn. Just a small sign pointing to the much larger problem, big government.
If the A/C isn’t working, determine the cause and fix it properly. Don’t keep addressing the symptoms.
If the turbo engines catch fire, determine why and fix the source. Worst case, replace them with class 8 diesel truck engines. At least then if those break down, you can get a mechanic from the local Freightliner / Paccar / Volvo / Navistar dealerships.
Somehow the last paragraph covers it ALL! Parts including aircraft engines may be valuable!! As an aviation maintenance engineer i find this all a sad commentary on American passenger railroading. Aircraft engines “catching fire” and air conditioning that does “not work” requiring mechanics with “special training”. Suppose no one notices that there some 30,000 commercial flights each day in the USA and the number of “engine fires” will be ZERO! If the original air conditioning system was troublesome why couldn’t someone engineer a fix? I suspect the real problem is the fact that USA passenger railroading has been stuck at about 1919 and new technology (especially foreign design) is just too much trouble to learn and maintain. Better to let the few citizens that still want to ride trains suffer in turn of the 20th century museum style equipment because it is easy to maintain. (Actually there is NO MUCH to maintain except provide a box of coal for the little pot belly stove at the end of the car!) This equipment might not be perfect but what a shame!
I was never a fan of the Rohr Turboliners, but methinks someone could use them. How 'bout Vermont: Albany (NY)-Bennington to Burlington-St. Albans-Montreal (QC)? Enough Francophones, up there, to understand the maintenance manuals. They might even work in northern Maine and New Hampshire. Maybe even Montreal-Saint John, NB. Worth a try…
If you have so many spare parts why don’t you fix the dam things an find someone that knows something about turbos!
Wouldn’t it be more effective to send some of these to a museum as an example of how NOT to conduct high-speed rail?
I don’t see any harm in them just giving these trainsets to various museums, then taking the tax write-off. These things, whatever their flaws, should be preserved, if for no other reason than as a legacy on what NOT to do for high-speed rail.
Although the always were expensive to run (turbines like to operate wide open all the time) they ran for decades up and down the Hudson until the rebuild program.
They were good trains, and it’s a shame that they are being scrapped after so much money was spent on them. I rode one from Grand Central to Montreal in 1989 and found it very pleasant. My wife and I struck up a conversation with the Engineer’s wife, who was going up to Montreal with him to spend a couple of days. He was able to come back to the coach where we were to visit her, because the locomotive was not a separate unit, and there were other Engineers in the cab.
When you have a standardized fleet of rolling stock, as exists today on the Empire Corridor and elsewhere, certain efficiencies are realized. This is the “Southwest Airlines” model oft cited as an example. Oddball equipment tends to be more costly to maintain. Clearly, if one Amfleet car develops a problem it does not take the entire train out of service. Not the case with the turbos. The fact that an attempt was made to refurbish the Turbo trains is a “sunk cost” and irrelevant. It would be a good outcome at this point if New York State can find a foreign or domestic buyer for the trains and the spare parts and be done with this. Ideally they would run again someplace else but this is not New York’s concern. It has a fiduciary obligation to its taxpayers.
How come one could be donated to the new ALCO Museum there in Schenectady?Thats very close to Rotterdam