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News Wire: NRE to overhaul Connecticut DOT commuter rail locomotives

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Posted by D.Carleton on Monday, May 23, 2022 8:43 PM

daveklepper
Starting this Tuesday, Shoreline East service (ConnDOT New Haven - New London) will be handled by M-8 electric MU equipment.

Excellent. That only took about a decade to happen.

Editor Emeritus, This Week at Amtrak

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Posted by daveklepper on Saturday, May 21, 2022 3:39 PM

Starting this Tuesday, Shoreline East service (ConnDOT New Haven - New London) will be handled by M-8 electric MU equipment.

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Friday, March 24, 2017 5:00 PM

Questions

How many locos can NRE overhaul at one time ? 

Can Ct DOT afford to release that many at one time for the overhaul ? 

Will the additional M-8s be ready in time to take over the SLE routes so the locos can operate to Hartford / Springfield ?

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Posted by kgbw49 on Thursday, March 23, 2017 5:46 PM

Dan'l Webster...

Image result for New Haven Daniel Webster train

Image result for new haven dan'l webster train

Train X...perhaps a harbinger of things to come with yellow and blue colors...

Image result for New York Central Train X

Image result for New York Central Train X

 

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Posted by M636C on Thursday, March 23, 2017 3:58 PM

RME wrote the following post yesterday:

The yellow scheme mentioned by Mr. Clark appears about 1:51.  If I remember correctly this was actually used on promotional material for the Dan'l Webster, and perhaps on the train itself.

The Daniel Webster locomotives were silver, with large orange patches lettered in orange on the nose and black on the side. The coaches were half silver, half grey.

The other Train X, the New York Central Xplorer, was yellow with dark blue lettering and some lining. You may be thinking of that train.

Peter

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Posted by D.Carleton on Wednesday, March 22, 2017 8:57 PM

CandOforprogress2

Did not some of the CT DOT Shoreline east equipment come from the PAT Commuter Train in Pittsburgh and is some of that still in use or in the yard?

Equipment[edit]

 
January 1983 PATrain timetable

Trains operated in push-pull mode. A typical consist in the 1980s was three-four coaches, the last of which was fitted for cab control. Motive power was provided by a pair of refurbished EMD F7A diesel-electric locomotives. The trains were painted in a brown-and-orange scheme. PAT owned ten ex-Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) coaches, all originally built by Pullman-Standard. When service ended in 1989 the equipment was sold to the Connecticut Department of Transportation to bootstrap the new Shore Line East service.[12][13] At times Budd Rail Diesel Cars were used instead.[14]

Most of the coaches are now part of the NS excursion fleet and the F-units are in Texas wearing ATSF warbonnet paint.

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Posted by CandOforprogress2 on Wednesday, March 22, 2017 2:30 PM

Did not some of the CT DOT Shoreline east equipment come from the PAT Commuter Train in Pittsburgh and is some of that still in use or in the yard?

Equipment[edit]

 
January 1983 PATrain timetable

Trains operated in push-pull mode. A typical consist in the 1980s was three-four coaches, the last of which was fitted for cab control. Motive power was provided by a pair of refurbished EMD F7A diesel-electric locomotives. The trains were painted in a brown-and-orange scheme. PAT owned ten ex-Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) coaches, all originally built by Pullman-Standard. When service ended in 1989 the equipment was sold to the Connecticut Department of Transportation to bootstrap the new Shore Line East service.[12][13] At times Budd Rail Diesel Cars were used instead.[14]

RME
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Posted by RME on Wednesday, March 22, 2017 12:19 PM

M636C
I'm told that Mrs McGinnis picked the scheme over a similar yellow and black option, for which we must all be grateful.

Proper name for this scheme is "Matter".  Why memorialize a crook just because his spouse had good taste and better connections?  (Although I do still use the "McGinnis" name, with the understanding that, as with "we'll name it 'Pull' for me and 'man' for you" it is MRS. McGinnis whose name we're honoring...)

The design process behind the NH logo was a lot longer than commonly recognized, and the development was fraught with more than the usual number of now-thoroughly-dreadful-looking early-Fifties approaches... keep your Dramamine and Zofran handy, you may want them:

The yellow scheme mentioned by Mr. Clark appears about 1:51.  If I remember correctly this was actually used on promotional material for the Dan'l Webster, and perhaps on the train itself.

 

 

 

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Wednesday, March 22, 2017 6:51 AM

If the legend is true, I'm also glad that Mrs. McGinnis picked the orange, white and black in various arrangements.  Yellow and black would have been too similar to Susquehanna after 1960 or the Virginian.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by M636C on Tuesday, March 21, 2017 6:30 PM

Has this reached the stage, like preserved steam locomotives in Britain, where the revival has lasted much longer than the original?

The McGinnis scheme originated on the EP-5s around 1955 (feel free to correct me here) and the New Haven lasted until 1968, so the scheme was used for 13 years (although presumably PC didn't repaint quickly or at all).

When did CDOT revive the scheme? Certainly on the rebuilds of the FL9s...

I'm sure CDOT have been using it for twice as long as the New Haven did...

I'm told that Mrs McGinnis picked the scheme over a similar yellow and black option, for which we must all be grateful.

Peter

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Tuesday, March 21, 2017 12:00 PM

Probably not.  CDOT uses a variation of the NH livery on its P32's and BL20GH's.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
RME
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Posted by RME on Tuesday, March 21, 2017 10:35 AM

Do we need to start the organized campaign to keep the NH livery intact?

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Posted by Brian Schmidt on Tuesday, March 21, 2017 10:30 AM

MT. VERNON, Ill. — National Railway Equipment will overhaul six Connecticut Department of Transportation GP40-2H locomotives, according to an NRE press release. The release states that NRE will produce over 90 percent of the locomotive content...

http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2017/03/20-nre-to-overhaul-connecticut-dot-commuter-rail-locomotives

Brian Schmidt, Editor, Classic Trains magazine

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