Deadhead Locomotives on the Southwest Chief

[Yard Limit]

AMTK 455 is headed to Chicago on the Southwest Chief as I write this today. 

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Metra 97-99 are F59PH's originally owned by GO Transit.  The Amtrak F59PHI's (450-470) are turning up at 18th Street in dribs and drabs (457 and 465 are there most of this week) but I haven't seen any of them in service on Metra so far.

[longhorn1969]

Either Metra is in a power bind and needed the units yesterday or there is no money in the cash strapped budget for a full repaint.

[kgbw49]

I was thinking perhaps this, but I guess not:

http://www.railpictures.net/photo/667218/

 

[YoHo1975]

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 

[NorthWest]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BpXtLOln68t/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=1pshjjlnty7jc

[kgbw49]

The F59PHI units should look very sharp in the latest METRA paint job.

[erikem]

I'd go for a direct tap on the boiler for the HEP turbine...

Considering that the HEP turbine would be producing 10 to 15% of what the PRR S-2 was putting out, the HEP trubine would lkely be very compact. Might make sense to run the turbine at higher than 3600RPM and use reduction gears.

[Overmod]

The detail design for the CSR/SRI 'science project' rebuild of ATSF 3463 explicitly included the required large turbo alternator arrangements for modern HEP requirements; in fact, the organization came around at one point to saying this was the important early proof of concept for torrefied-wood firing.

Likewise, Russell Brown's asynchronous compound lent itself nicely to full effective HEP with appropriate bleed to the decoupled LP turbine.

[M636C]

erikem

Setting up a steam locomotive for HEP could be interesting... Theoretically do-able with a turbine alternator, presumably mounted above the pilot to route the turbine exhaust into the smokebox.

FWIW, there were steam driven HEP installations with a 10 to 20kW turbogenerator providing 10 to 20kW for train lighting.

 

The Southern Pacific GS-4 had three turbo generators, one of which powered the electro-pneumatic brakes on the Daylight trains. The others were for lighting, including the Mars light.

 

HEP would require more power. It might be simpler to put a diesel alternator set in the tender burning the same oil as the locomotive.

 

Peter

[erikem]

Setting up a steam locomotive for HEP could be interesting... Theoretically do-able with a turbine alternator, presumably mounted above the pilot to route the turbine exhaust into the smokebox.

FWIW, there were steam driven HEP installations with a 10 to 20kW turbogenerator providing 10 to 20kW for train lighting.

[MidlandMike]

Steam might sell some tourist pike fares or the occasional mainline steam trip, but bringing steam back to increase Amtrak ridership is a steam fans fantasy.

[Yard Limit]

Thank you.  Steam would sure be a game changer!

[Miningman]

Very enjoyable watching this. Not sure what to think of the Chargers, going to take me a while to get into it. If Amtrak ( or VIA) wants to get ridership through the roof then go Steam! Of course there are 50 insurmountable obstacles in the way of that, but that's the reality.  

[Yard Limit]

Locomotives can deadhead on trains for several reasons.  In this video we first see AMTK 457 deadheading to Chicago to become part of the METRA roster. 
AMTK 505 makes its way through the 505 area code on its way to the Beech Grove maintenance facility in Indiana.
Sometimes the deadhead didn’t start out that way.  Two video segments show BNSF coming to the aid of Amtrak after mechanical problems on their locomotives required some help.
And finally we feature three video segments of new Siemen’s Chargers.  Two of these segments show the Chargers making their way out of Albuquerque on their way to new homes in the east.  One of the segments shows the Chargers arriving in Albuquerque and then being set out for a later move to the locomotive testing facility in Pueblo, Colorado.