Even the oldest of Amtrak’s P40s are perhaps 12 years old…so why has Amtrak mothballed or least most of its P40 fleet? Not needed? Unreliable?
Amtrak runs the hell out of there locos and they are 12 years old. They don’t quite have the longevity of good old EMDs.
Guess they prefer the higher horsepower P42’s
And they have a LOT more of them.
The last I hear EMD was having more reliability problems than GE.
The P-40s are due overhaul and update to P-42 standards including EFI. All a moot point when the engines are not needed.
Randy
The P 40s are worn out and dead. The P42s are approaching 10 years old and will be gone soon. The F40s lasted almost 30 years.
Also consider the fact that right now Amtrak has more locomtives than cars that it needs to make up trains. Maintaining locomotives to be ready for service costs more than selling or storing them.
Based on what SP? Randy’s comments seem to make more sense. Of course when they’re “gone soon” what will Amtrak be pulling the trains with? New locos that they’ll buy with the big appropriation that they get from Congress?
Amtrak had plans in place to upgrade and overhaul these engines last year. Things change, for now they are in storage, some have been leased , all are awaiting a reason to put the cash into them.
Randy
MNCR/CDOT has 8 P40’s for service on Branch lines they are to displace the F units
833/834/836/840/841/843 plus two other ones.
In my humble opinion these units are junk and far worse than the 1996 rebuilt FL9m’s
yeah…they are from General Electric…they are like the disposable razors of the railroad world…use them till you can’t anymore and then through away.
Shoulda stuck with the 645, eh?
Matthew
I guess I have not paid attention to this. The horsepower difference alone does not seem great enough to warrant this all or nothing approach. Might there be some other factor?
What are / were the number series of the P40s so i can go through my Amtrak slides and see how many I caught before this mothballing?
Dave Nelson
Most P40’s were upgraded to 4200 hp, as that only involved a software change to EFI system. The P40 however does not have all the EPA stuff on them and smoke more than the )42’s.
The P40’s are also less fuel efficient than the P42’s and that alone was a reason to mothball them.
The P40’s were in 800 series. 8 of the P40’s are leased to CDOT for MNCR and SLE pool service, 833-834-636- 838- 840-641- 842 pluss one other one.
YUP, That’s what I meant to say.[;)]
Gimme an f-40 any day.
Unless, of course, and E of F unit is option B. Then they become choice A.
The oldest power is always placed in storage when it isn’t needed. When David Gunn began the phase-out of mail/express and took a closer look at motive power assignments, it was found that less power was needed for operations so the P40’s (800 series) went into storage.
If a sizable part of the motive power fleet is now in storage, it definitely adds ammunition to the belief that the express business was not really paying its way.