Acela150
Super Buff
This recent photo of #8 would suggest that they are either using parts from it or are scraping the unit.
http://www.railpictures.net/photo/574107
http://www.railpictures.net/photo/574107
Currently Stored P42DC's
- Thread starter CSXfoamer1997
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greatcats
Engineer
I believe 8 was the one that rear ended a freight bear Chicago several years ago. Not a happy sight.
Acela150
Super Buff
That is correct. I ironically rode behind #8 5 months before hand on a trip on the Cardinal.
CSXfoamer1997
OBS Chief
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In theory, one of the things they could do for the locos that are not fit to repair is strip the usable spare pieces and save them somewhere and then sell the unusable parts for scrap.
Did you not read several of the posts before yours? It is believed to be cheaper to keep the loco intact and take the parts when needed.
CSXfoamer1997
OBS Chief
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Why is it, that it's cheaper to keep it intact rather than stripping? Just asking.
CCC1007
Customer Service Agent
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It is much cheaper to leave a part on a stored locomotive, as you are not using labor to remove parts that will not be used.
There is a labor cost involved in stripping parts which you may not use for years (if ever). Keeping the unit intact costs nothing, and you can still remove whatever parts you need when you want them.
If you break a unit down to units or their parts you are expending labor that might not ever be required. Also, you need a warehouse and a data system to track not only what you have, but where it is stored. If I have a derelict loco stored outside I only need to keep track of what I have taken. If i want to rep[lace an assembly, I may have to reassemble parts if I've broken them down, If I want to replace an individual part, the opposite would be true if I kept assemblies together. Think of how airplane that may not fly again are stored in the desert. By the time they are cut up, many of them look like a post Thanksgiving turkey.
ScouseAndy
Lead Service Attendant
By leaving them in situ in a damaged engine surely you are risking the quality of the part deteroriating due to weather damage/corrosion etc. By stripping a loco and storing in an environmentally controlled warehouse you are reducing that risk to almost zero which will mean you have more useable spare parts for longer.
Leaving a loco to rust at the end of a siding to keep for spares is false economy.
Leaving a loco to rust at the end of a siding to keep for spares is false economy.
cirdan
Engineer
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That looks as if pretty much everything that has any value has already been stripped out.
cirdan
Engineer
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If an entire engine is going for scrap you can bring in the heavy machinery and reduce it to a pile of shredded metal in maybe as little as four hours.
If you're removing parts, you can be at it for weeks, and then you need to label, inventorize and store those parts.
The scrap value of steel can be as little as 3 cents per lb. Copper is more valuable at maybe 1 to 2$ depending on the grade.
So guessing a P42 has about 200,000 lb of steel, that's $6,000 of scrap value in steel. Guessing there are 5,000 lb of copper, that's about $7,000 for the scrap copper.
The entire engine is worth less that $15,000 in scrap. After you subtract shipping and machinery, it's even less. In the bigger picture for Amtrak, that sort of money is peanuts.
However, in terms of salary costs alone, you could easily spend a multiple of that in dismantling for parts that you may very well never want.
neroden
Engineer
Sounds to me like you'd want to put the copper parts into secure storage to avoid theft.
Copper on the railroads has always had a strange and sometimes fatal attraction. Every few years some gets fried trying to cut down catenary. Signal cable was easy, but more and more is fiber now.
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