AFAIK there are negligible differences between the two in this regard. The biggest difference between the two is in the braking system. A P-42 works with electronic braking whereas a P-40 has an old school brake system like an F-40. The old brakes work better for long trains like AT, which is part of the reason they had a captive fleet for so many years. Don't be surprised if you see them fight for their fleet of motors back.
Precisely - from a post by Rafi in the thread where I reported the P40's @ Ivy:
They haven't lost that many of them, of the original 207 motors brought, 199 are still active. And of the 9 currently off the active roster, I believe that only about 4 or 5 of them are either considered beyond repair or already scrapped. Sadly one of the best sources for this type of data Goby's trains seems to have bitten the dust.
An omen for the other 199 then?They haven't lost that many of them, of the original 207 motors brought, 199 are still active. And of the 9 currently off the active roster, I believe that only about 4 or 5 of them are either considered beyond repair or already scrapped. Sadly one of the best sources for this type of data Goby's trains seems to have bitten the dust.
I honestly don't know just how many they need to have on the road on any given day. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say between 120 to 150.
There were originally 43 purchased by Amtrak, by 2003 only 38 were still active so I have to assume that there were a few wrecks along the way. Prior to all the P40's being retired, there were still 10 on the active list, with most of the rest having already been mothballed. As Battalion noted, those units were largely used on the Auto Train because the P40's handling better suited that particular train.
Something is wrong here, as 839 is not listed as stored dead, which to me would indicate that it's been wrecked and even possibly scrapped. It wasn't one of the 10 that were sold either.One thing not quite right about the list of engines to be returned to service: 839 will be coming back, not 807. 807 was wrecked in the City of New Orleans derailment in 1999. If you look at my user name, you'll see why I had to point that out.
The gobytrain.us site has been having problems with the supplier of the server space failing to process the renewal payment. A longer term solution is being worked on, with the URL remaining the same but with the data on a new server.They haven't lost that many of them, of the original 207 motors brought, 199 are still active. And of the 9 currently off the active roster, I believe that only about 4 or 5 of them are either considered beyond repair or already scrapped. Sadly one of the best sources for this type of data Goby's trains seems to have bitten the dust.
800 to 806: Stored Bear/Wilmington DE
The other problem that has been occuring, at least within the last year or two if it isn't still occuring now, is that sometimes the parts of a P42 that are critical to producing HEP will fail while an LD train is out on the road.
So the idea is trains may get a second (or third unit) or a P42 replaced with a P40 in order to ensure HEP. Why would the P40's be any better at getting HEP anyway, just designed better?
I think so because when NJT bought a few P40s they had to change the HEP to work with NJT cars maybe there all like that I have no idea.
The last figures I saw for P42s (a few months back) was that 161 are required for service each day (including protect power) and 29 should be on maintenance at any one time.
Which means that they only have 10 spares. These 15 P40's would come in great handy then, you could keep the 10 P42 spares and integrate the P40's onto the road to solve HEP problems and add cars to the consists as they come out of BG.
To my knowledge the only LD Amtrak routes that routinely run with only one loco are the City of New Orleans, and the Cardinal. Everything else has at least two, if not three locos on it, so therefore I don't see this as a huge problem and it's very unlikely that the P40's are being reactivated simply to help protect against HEP failures.
I think the Texas Eagle usually only runs with one as well.
I would hesitate to call it an LD train, but that's my opinion. I'd love to see the Silver Palm brought back-- then I'll call it an LD train.
That's interesting since last I knew, Amtrak had an agreement with CSX not to send trains south of Richmond with only one engine. CSX and Amtrak came to that agreement after several P42 failures left trains stranded on CSX mains.
You're right, I forgot about the Eagle.
Interesting. I've railfanned regularly at ALX for more than a year, and have only seen the Palmetto with 2 engines once.
doubt it there just now figuring it out sense there getting money,I am fairly sure they have worked that out by now......
