Conrail blue ns shops

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What had actually lead to the downfall of CONRAIL? I thought they was a government owned like AMTRAK? Well I know they shop @ one time did repair F40's.
 


LATX said:
What had actually lead to the downfall of CONRAIL? I thought they was a government owned like AMTRAK? Well I know they shop @ one time did repair F40's.
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Conrail was formed by the government by a bunch of bankrupt railroads in the NE. These included the Erie, NH, Penn Central, and a few others. The railroad was formed in the late 70's early 80's (?), and was sold jointly between Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation in the late 90's/ early 2k's (?)

**not 100% sure here, but its a rough idea
 
LATX said:
What had actually lead to the downfall of CONRAIL? I thought they was a government owned like AMTRAK? Well I know they shop @ one time did repair F40's.
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The big wigs up top decided to finally let go of Conrail, it started as a government fix for NE railroads, but then it became a very profitable company, went private, they refused a bid in the 80's from NS, later in the 90's they wanted to sell everything to CSX regardless of NS's higher bid but PA law doesn't allow monopolization in it's state so they had to split the railroad. Now Conrail is still around as a Conrail Shared Assets both owned by CSX and NS, but in some 'short line' districts.


It wasn't really a downfall, UP and BNSF's final mergers in the 90's was showing that there was fewer major railroads at the top of the food chain and CR decided to sell first while ahead in the game.
 
diburning said:
Well, right now, MBTA is sending their GP40MCs to Altoona for top deck overhaul.

http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?2009120320012324565.jpg
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1717037
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1610156

Altoona Shops does really good work. Too bad they were unable to fix the GP40MCs (they have reliability issues), which means that they are probably beyond saving.
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Hello Diburning, you seem to know alot about the MBTA and ive always wondered, why the grates/bars over the windows?
 
Seems like i read somewhere the bars over the windows were for when people would throw rocks or bricks off bridges and things.
 
The bars are currently being removed when the engines and cab cars are rotated into the shops.

The bars over the windows were relics from the days of the F-units. Even though the windows have the FRA mandated glazing, the union wanted to keep the bars on for safety purposes. The visibility through those bars takes some getting used to though. Recently, the union voted to have the bars removed to increase visibility.

Back in the old days, kids had nothing better to do than to hang large objects off of bridges to break the windshields on locomotives going by underneath knowing that the train cannot stop in time. These days, kids don't want to learn physics so they do other things.

A few weeks ago, during a storm, a tree branch went right through the cab window of a locomotive. They seriously considered putting the bars back on. The bars are anchored to the locomotive body which would provide some protection.
 


diburning said:
The bars are currently being removed when the engines and cab cars are rotated into the shops.

I can see. I found this picture off google images it is off railpictures.net. Whoever took this picture is very fortunate. I would like this to be my office desk instead of my place lol.

The bars over the windows were relics from the days of the F-units. Even though the windows have the FRA mandated glazing, the union wanted to keep the bars on for safety purposes. The visibility through those bars takes some getting used to though. Recently, the union voted to have the bars removed to increase visibility.

Back in the old days, kids had nothing better to do than to hang large objects off of bridges to break the windshields on locomotives going by underneath knowing that the train cannot stop in time. These days, kids don't want to learn physics so they do other things.

A few weeks ago, during a storm, tree branch went right through the cab window of a locomotive. Theseriously considered putting th which would provide some protection.
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I found this image on railphotos.net i must say that the visiblility is hard to see.
 
Here's one that I took in the engineer's seat.

The engines were rebuilt by Alstom to have desktop controls. Desktop controls really suck when you're trying to run long hood forward
 
that is very interesting. The former conrail shop repair all of MBTA fleet. Is that a GP40MC as well DIBURNING?
 
The photos I posted are from the cab of a GP40MC. The GP40MCs were rebuilt by Alstom from former Canadian National GP40-2Ws and GP40-2LWs. The nose was lowered, square windshields put in, numberboards moved to the nose, marker lights installed where the numberboards once were, the nose door was removed and a plate was welded in, bathroom removed, frame extended to fit a HEP generator, SD45 style flared radiators installed....

Then last year, MBTA contracted Transportation Technologies Inc (TTI) to do a top deck overhaul of the locomotives. TTI realized that they couldn't do it so they subcontracted with American Motive Power (AMP) to do it. AMP was behind with their projects so they subcontracted NS's Altoona Shops to do it.

Only the GP40MCs are being worked on by NS. The other engines in the fleet were rebuilt earlier by Bombarider and MPI.
 
No. The Amtrak geeps were bought from GP Transit as GP40TCs. They were later rebuilt to GP38H-3s by NS and subsequently some were retired. The rest are now in MoW service or used as switchers. They do retain their HEP engines and can be used to pull passenger trains in a pinch or be used as rescue power
 
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diburning said:
No. The Amtrak geeps were bought from GP Transit as GP40TCs. They were later rebuilt to GP38H-3s by NS and subsequently some were retired. The rest are now in MoW service or used as switchers. They do retain their HEP engines and can be used to pull passenger trains in a pinch or be used as rescue power
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Do you know how that particular model can be represented correctly in HO
 
Not without a lot of kitbashing. They may have made them in brass, but the GP40TCs were pretty unique as for the radiator arrangement, the HEP generator area, and the frame length
 
diburning said:
Not without a lot of kitbashing. They may have made them in brass, but the GP40TCs were pretty unique as for the radiator arrangement, the HEP generator area, and the frame length
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Ok thanks. That is goin be on my list to do after all my F40's are upgraded and running.
 


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