I just read here that Metra has awarded Progress Rail a contract to rebuild 40 plus of the older F40 units...wouldn't it be nice as a public perception move on Metra's part to paint a few of them in "heritage" schemes such as CB&Q, C&NW, MILW, CRI&P, etc. I think about six or so of the 40 rebuilt units should do it. What a wonderful way for Metra to build positive public perception and awareness of its operations. Thoughts?
Well, to quote a line from Mel Brook's "The Producers"....
"It ain't no mystery, if it's politics or history,
The thing you gotta know is, everything is show biz!"
That being said, heritage schemes on some of Metra's F40's would definately be a good attention getter, and it probably wouldn't cost that much more to do than the regular paint scheme.
Look, San Francisco operates PCCs in heritage schemes from transit systems around the country. They're quite popular and good attention getters. Imagine seeing a Public Service Co-Ordinated Transport (of New Jersey) PCC 3,000 miles from where it's supposed to be. I image the New Jersey exiles living in SF get quite a kick out of it.
I hope somebody from Metra is reading this thread!
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As long as copyrights and trademarks aren't an issue....
There are two possible approaches - heritage and homage. Heritage would be what NS did. Homage would be the UP approach.
I could see Metra insisting on keeping their end stripes as a recognition feature. Maybe they could use white and a contrasting color from the scheme at hand.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Keep in mind that it's quite possible for many Metra commuters to never see the locomotive that powers their ride to and from work.
Also understand the current political climate in Illinois. Heritage locomotives would be viewed by the present regime to be a waste of the taxpayers' money.
CSSHEGEWISCH Keep in mind that it's quite possible for many Metra commuters to never see the locomotive that powers their ride to and from work.
If it's pushing, you see the engine as the train leaves.
And BN is now a heritage name. (Would RI be a broken unit?? Or would it be pre-60's paint?)
Metra operates its push-pulls with the locomotive on the outer end, push inbound to Chicago, and pull outbound. The locomotive is on the rear when you board at your station in the morning and it is on the front when you board at downtown Chicago (North Western Station, Union Station or La Salle Street).
Paul is correct--my daughter, who was once a regular Metra rider (kind of hard to keep that up, from California!), tried to collect the "cities" on her commutes. Fortunately, she rode UP West, which would bring her past 40th Street...it was very hard for her to find the names or numbers of the units on her own trains.I finally had to help her, with a checklist. She was especially looking for METX 138, the Village of Lombard, since that's where she lived. We finally wound up having me look it up on UP's computer, then telephoning her the location. It still took her a while to see it.Such heritage or homage paint schemes woul be neat, but they would be for nearly everyone else but Chicago riders. I, fortunately, ride short of Chicago as often as not, so I stand a better chance of seeing the power than most commuters.Comment: if they do go this route on select units, they should--regardless of which route they actually travel on--have station names that reflect the route(s) honored by the paint scheme...possibly the name of the busiest non-Chicago station on the route.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
They have other Progress Rail rebuilt units in the fleet. I hope they do a better job this time around. Need a trainman here to know how the older units run. 2 units were rescued from the Amtrak dead line in Beech Grove.
What's happening with the two F40C's? They were supposedly going to be rebuilt as prototypes for a rebuild program for the 4 motor fleet of F40PH's, which I assume is this one that was just announced.
With their motive power policies and plans for those two locomotives long after their fleetmates were retired, I'm surprised they were replaced when they were. For all intents and purposes, they're 6 axle versions of power they intend to keep running for decades to come.
CSSHEGEWISCHAlso understand the current political climate in Illinois. Heritage locomotives would be viewed by the present regime to be a waste of the taxpayers' money.
Things are looking more and more bleak for Metra, CTA and Amtrak if Rauner gets his way:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-rauner-budget-transit-met-0219-20150218-story.html
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
I think you have to be a subscriber to be able to read that article.
As for cost, this should be where railfans and the like enter the equation. First by developing designs to get everyone excited while hopefully securing the interest of someone in a position of power at Metra to help make this happen.
Then, by potentially raising the funds to make up the difference since special heritage paintschemes definitily will cost more than Metra's standard scheme.
With $120 million in cuts to operate transit and Metra, spending money to satisfy some railfans is of dubious value.
"Metra officials also said they were still analyzing the governor's proposed cuts."
"The transit system's operating budgets are based approximately 40 percent on fares, 40 percent on sales tax revenue and 20 percent on state funding."
It will be interesting what Metra specifies for the engines as they have an attachement to the 645 engine, enough so on the MP-36 they had a company reverse engineer the 645 to build their own crankcase. Metra is upgrading the emissions, I would've figured 710ECO would be the way to go.
The 645 was reverse engineered long ago and is sold by GE. I'm sure that GE engines are what went into the MP36's.
Metra recently bought their first 710 engines in the form of 2nd hand F59PH's that were cast off from GO Transit. So while I'm sure that these will be rebuilt in-kind, you never know.
I suspect this will be more of a heavy overhaul with appriopriate upgrades, rather than such an extensive rebuilding that little of the internals remain from the original locomotive.
Probably will be a lot like their last big rebuilding project, although hopefully better received since that one seemed to garner a lot of complaints.
The aftermarket F block was developed by Engine Systems of Latham, NY. Ownership of the company passed through a number of parties before GE bough the outfit.
The units will be receiving EM2000 based controls, which will put Metra on the hook to EMD for software upgrades. At the same time, the amount of training on new sub-systems will be reduced.
All and all, a huge savings over the $7 mil/copy cost of a new commuter loco.
Question is-will the Patterson shop turn out a better product than Mayfield ?
CPM500 The aftermarket F block was developed by Engine Systems of Latham, NY. Ownership of the company passed through a number of parties before GE bough the outfit.
The 645FZ was developed by MK Rail (Later, MotivePower and eventually part of Wabtec), as I recall, for an order of converted EMD SD types of assorted vareties to SD40-2 specifications in the early 1990's for Southern Pacific.
EMD didn't want to play ball and supply the engine to what amounted to a competitor, so a reverse engineered clone with improvements and compatibility with stock EMD parts was designed. This is what's installed in most SD45/SD45-2's that were converted to 16-645's with Dash 2 or 3 electrical systems, for a notable example of their use.
These clones were built over in Poland by Zgoda, with Engine Systems handling the marketing. When GE bought Engine Systems, they ended up with the rights and continued to produce them.
Some of the later MP36 orders used remanufactured EMD blocks though, due to EPA rules (MARC's order, for instance, is officially a rebuild of an older locomotive on paper rather than new).
But Metra got their order in while it was still able to pass EPA standards as a brand new product and uses this derivitive of the 645.
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