New Hampshire Commuter Rail

[Joel N. Weber II]

http://www.nashuarpc.org/rail/index.html has information on New Hampshire's plans to bring commuter rail to Nashua and Manchester.

The January 2007 proposal_draft.pdf linked to by the page above proposes on page 8 to use 8 locomotives and 16 coaches, just for service from Lowell, Massachusetts to Manchester. The proposed schedule on page 6 indicates that this is only going to provide 8 one way revenue trips per day. Why would they need that many locomotives? It seems like if they're planning to avoid running non-revenue repositioning trips each day, they would need four complete trainsets, plus spares; is it typical for half the locomotives owned by a railroad to be spares?

Is their $5.1 million for 8 locomotives and 16 coaches realistic? Isn't a new locomotive typically more than $1 million?

 

[battalion51]

Many upstart commuter operations will purchase second hand equipment which is significantly cheaper than new equipment. Nashville Commuter Rail, VRE, and Shore Line East all come to mind. Many agencies may purchase new cars, but used locomotives. Tri-Rail for example when it began purchased new coaches (IIRC) and five used locomotives.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Why would other commuter railroads choose to sell perfectly good older equipment that's cost effective to operate, though? I'm not aware of shrinking commuter railroads in the US, so does this mean that there are commuter railroads selling perfectly good equipment because they like new for the sake of new, rather than finding other ways to spend money that would actually improve the service their customers experience?

 

[battalion51]

I never said it was necessarily other commuter roads in the case of the motors. In the case of the cars, sometimes for fleet management purposes it makes sense to sell. For example when Metra orders newer Gallery cars it will sell the old ones to places that have a need, that are just getting off the ground. VRE for example sold some of its old Mafersa commuter cars to SLE when it got its new Gallery cars in (since the old cars had a low capacity and fewer ammenities). However these cars work for SLE because they can't use bi-levels due to catenary and tunnel clearance, and the ride isn't as long as it is on VRE.

As far as motors are concerned many times used engines come from freight roads. For a while when Amtrak was transitioning to the Genesis fleet F-40's were being sold to agencies like VRE and Tri-Rail to supplement their fleet, but since Amtrak has disposed of most of their F-40's that's no longer happening. Many commuter railroads will buy old 4 axle EMD motors for their use. VRE bought 10 old GP-39's from CSX and had them rebuilt and equipped with HEP. Tri-Rail bought old GP-40's from CSX and had them rebuilt and coweled making them into F-40's. Most recently Tri-Rail bought the 6 ex-EMD Demo NS GP-49's and had them completely redone, making them the new backbone of their road power. For the freight roads they will get rid of their power after about 20-25 years in favor of newer more fuel efficient motors. However for commuter roads with a rebuild and some new equipment these motors are perfect candidates for commuter services and can last for another 20 years or so in their useful life.