Origin of Amtrak’s first Diesels?

[Soo Line fan]

I am wondering about how Amtrak acquired its first power.

For example, I know many of the Fs were ex SP, while others were ex BN. The Es came from other roads. Why was that?

Did various RRs sell engines to Amtrak?

Or were they required to donate a certain number based on route miles that Amtrak was going to takeover?

Why did SDP 40s or FP 45s not come to Amtrak?

Thanks in advance

Jim

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

The various railroads were not compelled to contribute motive power to Amtrak or otherwise make it available for purchase.  At the time of the first power purchases, Amtrak was only offered various E's and F's for purchase.  Almost all of the second-generation passenger power such as the SDP's and FP's, were transferred into freight service by the owner roads and were not available.  I believe that SP offered its SDP45's, but they wanted to sell all ten of them but Amtrak only wanted five, so the deal fell through.

Amtrak also leased a pool of 75 F-units from ATSF to cover the "Super Chief" and "San Diegans".  The impending conversion of these F-units into CF7's was one of the reasons behind Amtrak's order of the first 40 SDP40F's.

[al-in-chgo]

It helps to remember how Amtrak dealt with the railroads right at the inception in 1971.  The participating RR's owed Amtrak a huge sum of money to buy their way out of being forced to run money-losing trains in the future.  I'm not sure how they handled the accounting, but basically it was like bartering against Amtrak's "admission" fee.  You may also remember that several railroads opted out of the deal:  Southern Rwy (which was nice enough to spruce up the then Southern Crescent and advertise it), D&RGW, and I believe Rock Island.  Later in the 1970s the non-Amtrak railroads still running passenger had to forfeit their equipment, or so I have been told.  

If you ran a railroad and you had all these "E" and"F" units built postwar that were nearing or over twenty years old, wouldn't those be the first diesels the road had had?  For the passenger trains?  In other words exactly what Amtrak needed is what the "member" RR's had to give.  I remember at the time that there was some criticism of Amtrak for not buying the latest in motive power, but the problem of poverty, then as now, was acute.  Some of Amtak's present-day rolling stock is still running and around fifty years old -- streamlined single-level baggage cars come to mind.   -  a. s. 

Don't think the varnish didn't have breakdowns, either.

 

[wjstix]

I believe there was something in the Amtrak creation deal that said the engines "offered" to Amtrak had to be the engines the railroads were using on their passenger trains as of a certain date, so many railroads transfered their newish engines like SDP-45's to freight service and dragged old E units out of the scrap line and got them running well enough to be on passenger trains on the cutoff date. So Amtrak ended up with a least a certain percentage of old, poorly maintained engines to start with.

"Remember the Rock" magazine just had an article about Rock Island passenger trains around Chicago in the seventies, as al-in-chgo says the Rock apparently opted out of Amtrak because they couldn't afford to pay what they would have had to pay to Amtrak to take over their passenger service, based on their previous years' losses.

[Soo Line fan]

Thanks for the replies. Were the GP 7-9s and SWs acquired the same way?

Jim

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

The first GP7/9's (750-773) were purchased from Precision National.  The 500 series SW's and CF7's came in a swap with ATSF for SDP40F's.  SW8's 747-750 came from Conrail in a swap for two E8A's.  SW's 790-799 were purchased from NRE.

[Mr_Ash]

here's a nifty video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRTIWwoaJb4

[gregrudd]

I was always of the opinon that the FP45's and the SDP's were more fuel efficent than what the old E's and F's were considering that in HP terms you were geting about 2.5F's/2Es per unit with the fuel savings of 1 prime mover instead of 2 on an A+B F/4 with an A+B E. Not to mention that the less mechanical parts.  So would it be fair to say that those roads who upgraded to the 45's reduced their costs in the last years of private operation.