I am trying to preserve a ex-Amtrak F40PH. For now I am trying to raise money through my online store www.cafepress.com/f40ph but that hasn’t been going to well. Just in 2007 alone we have lost these units.
277 Scrapped at Larry’s Truck and Electric, McDonald OH (Oct 2007)
278 Converted to NPCU 90278, September 2007
284 Scrapped at Larry’s Truck and Electric, McDonald OH (Aug 2007)
297 Scrapped at Larry’s Truck and Electric, McDonald OH (Oct 2007)
300 Scrapped for parts at MPI Boise ID, August 2007
309 Scrapped at Larry’s Truck and Electric, McDonald OH (Oct 2007)
320 Rail World Locomotive Leasing (stripped, Montreal, Maine & Atlantic RR, Dec 2007)
322 Scrapped at Larry’s Truck and Electric, McDonald OH (Oct 2007)
330 Scrapped at Larry’s Truck and Electric, McDonald OH (Aug 2007)
338 Scrapped for parts at MPI Boise ID, August 2007
345 Rail World Locomotive Leasing (stripped, Montreal, Maine & Atlantic RR, Dec 2007)
347 Scrapped at Larry’s Truck and Electric, McDonald OH (Oct 2007)
349 Scrapped at Larry’s Truck and Electric, McDonald OH (Oct 2007)
I am despretely trying to figure out what to do before it is too late. For the recorded I do know a few have been preserved already but mostly in the western united states. I also do have a place to put it (a museum I am part of) but since this is my project and not the museums I don’t want to state who they are at the moment.
Start raising money and don’t buy anything for another ten years . VIA has just let a contract to thoroughly rebuild and modernize most of its FP-40’s, and they will be around for a long time. One of them should be available for preservation eventually.
Not true. VIA’s were built much later than Amtrak’s, and are in fact F40PH-2s. There are several external differences, and the cabs are completely different inside from Amtrak units.
Well, you’re the one that claimed that between VIA and Amtrak F40PHs:
Besides, the F40PH/F40PH-2 is a distinction that’s often missed, even among railfans and modelers, despite the fact that there are external differences. Differences that you obviously didn’t know about… [:o)]
Contact Ed Bowers at Vintage Locomotives Inc. and maybe your museum can get an F40PH. He has worked out deals with quite a few museums for display locomotives.
True, the early F40PH did not have HEP. They used the Prime Mover to supply electrical power to the train with a fast idle.
BUT, lots of F40PH remain with HEP on Commuter Railroads.
The Boston Commuter Rail has 55 of them. 18 F40PH-2 built 1978-1980 (rebuilt 1989-1990), 25 F40PH-2C built 1987-1988, and 12 F40PH-2M built 1991-1993. The also have 25 GP40-MC built 1997-1998.
I guess you mean they didn’t have a separate diesel engine to power the HEP generator. The original Amtrak F40PHs had the HEP generator gear driven off the prime mover. The prime mover had to turning at Notch 8 speed (896 RPM) in order to generate 60Hz from the HEP generator. The gear boxes for the HEP generators were trouble spots, apparently, part of the reason NJT and MBTA went to Cummins HEP engine gen sets.
The F40PHs also had a HEP only mode - where they’d get 60Hz out of the AR10 traction alternator and feed it all to the HEP train line.
If they put an Inverter in the nose of the locomotive the engin wouldent have to be at a set RPM and you could get HEP off the genreator without needing a sepret AC altonator.
Ah that is one of the knock off units. The best way to tell is looking at the side window closest to the front of the unit if the window is retanglear then it is a knock off if the window curves with the slope of the fron of the unit then it is EMD.
