Amtrak Cascades F59PHI's

Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
Advertise with us
Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Metras FB page on Thursday shared a photo of the first F59PHI patched with Metra logos and was renumbered 84. It is an ex-Surfliner unit but not exactly sure what its former number was.
 
None of the six Cascades F59PHI remain in the Pacific Northwest. Only six of the fifteen Surfliner units remain in California. The rest have all assembled in the Chicago area. Multiple have been retired and stricken from the roster. One or more are already in the hands of Metra and/or Progress Rail. Their retirement is moving right along.
 
KnightRail said:
None of the six Cascades F59PHI remain in the Pacific Northwest. Only six of the fifteen Surfliner units remain in California. The rest have all assembled in the Chicago area. Multiple have been retired and stricken from the roster. One or more are already in the hands of Metra and/or Progress Rail. Their retirement is moving right along.
Click to expand...
Do you happen to know if the former-Cascades Metra units will have their own kind of weird hybrid Cascades/Metra livery like the Surfliner units? So some kind of green and white pseudo-Metra livery?
 
The Metra F59s are being repainted into Metra blue following the design lines of the Amtrak livery  for the time being.  Eventually, they will get the full Metra paint job. 
 


*Unconfirmed* new METRA numbers:

73(450) — Retired, METRA Patched Surfliner

74(451)

75(452)

76(453)

77(454) — Retired, METRA Patched Surfliner

78(455)

79(456)

80(457) — Retired

81(458)

82(459)

83(460)

84(461)— Retired, METRA Patched Surfliner

85(462)

86(463)

87(464)

88(465) — Retired

89(466)

90(467) — Retired

91(468) — Retired

92(469)

93(470) — Retired
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hi,

I took this photo from my passing train today.  It's a "before and after" type photo of two former Surfliner painted locomotives with the "Amtrak" and "Metra" logos.   I also saw #463 in the yard.

20181119_174137.jpg
 
Hi,

I saw F59s at the Metra Western Avenue yard this morning in three different paint jobs. I took the photo as we were "flying" past the yard.

20181129_071812.jpg
 
On 11/9/2018 at 10:17 AM, KnightRail said:

No Cascades patched at this point. Three out of the six being patched are ex-Surfliner so far and newly numbered 73, 77, 84.

Click to expand...

Noticed 81-ex458 on your list. AMTK 458 was leading Pacific Surfliner #759 (LA to Goleta) this morning. Videoed at Chatsworth while I was waiting for my Metrolink train.
 
FrensicPic said:
Noticed 81-ex458 on your list. AMTK 458 was leading Pacific Surfliner #759 (LA to Goleta) this morning. Videoed at Chatsworth while I was waiting for my Metrolink train.
Click to expand...
That sounds right. 458 is one of five still on the West coast.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
cpotisch said:
Do you happen to know if the former-Cascades Metra units will have their own kind of weird hybrid Cascades/Metra livery like the Surfliner units? So some kind of green and white pseudo-Metra livery?
Click to expand...
The answer is yes, confirmed by a post/photo on Metra’s official FB page. One of the ex-Cascades units was photographed as the trailing unit on a test train. It retained its Cascade’s brown and off white colors but the green was covered over with Surfliner blue and then patch logo-ed like the other units done so far.
 
KnightRail said:
The answer is yes, confirmed by a post/photo on Metra’s official FB page. One of the ex-Cascades units was photographed as the trailing unit on a test train. It retained its Cascade’s brown and off white colors but the green was covered over with Surfliner blue and then patch logo-ed like the other units done so far.
Click to expand...
Thank you muchly. Could you post a link to that photo? I’m on the Metra FB page but don’t see it. :)
 
CHvision said:
Q: Does the Cascades still use the P42s alongside the SC-44s and Cabbage car?
Click to expand...
Actually there is at least one P42 in service on the Cascades right now, possibly two. Since Charger 1402 was wrecked, it's likely we'll have P42s on Cascades until when/if a replacement is built.
 
Triley said:
Yes! Just no P42s and Chargers on the same set. They just attempted that the other week again and there's some serious communication issues between the two.

But we've still got a few of P42s out and about. Cabbage cars are a plenty!
Click to expand...
Serious communication issues? I thought that there were standards for control signals between locomotives?
 
cpotisch said:
Serious communication issues? I thought that there were standards for control signals between locomotives?
Click to expand...
You need to remember that throwing the Talgos in to the mix muddles things further.

A train the other week took a hefty delay because of communication issues, but that's because...they were trying to control a Charger, that was directly attached to a P42, via a cabbage car.

For what it's worth, for a while ACS64s didn't play well with P42s either. There's a huge difference in the computers and software various engines run, so it only seems probable there'd be compatibility issues at some point.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top