Wrong.

I'm not a podcast guy (I like written words), but this podcast discusses the impact of EPA rules on preservation: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t ... 0654093978

Four EMD F59's up for sale in California, they had holes plasma cut in their blocks. According to a story I saw, CARB would require the unit to be rebuilt as Tier IV, but I don't know how that could be enforced in another state, would the seller make you promise, to which you would say OH, SURE and then put a relay 710 back in it from Larry's? https://www.govdeals.com/asset/65/3424 Seriously though, it might be a project base for someone looking to tinker around with battery power etc. Edit: I don't know if SCAX 882 & 883 are part of this sale, they were originally bought by Philip Morris for the cancelled Marlboro cruise train.

Note this: https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... -projects/

"— $3.4 million to the Grand Canyon Railway for conversion of a diesel locomotive to battery-electric power; the locomotive will be capable of taking tourists from Williams, Ariz., to the canyon’s South Rim and back."

Could this be an opportunity to use one of the Napa Valley FPA-4s that are unable to be operated with diesels (see above), instead of gutting their own units, even though they currently are other people's property?

That would likely be admissible under the grant regulations, but we are going to stick with the F-40 platform to be consistent with the existing operating fleet.

Eric Hadder
CMO
Grand Canyon Railway

Are you required to disable one of your own units as part of the grant, or could you utilize an F-40 core (or even one of the F-59s I mentioned above) that someone else was required to disable the diesel engine in as part of their grant? I'm sort of looking for loopholes that would require fewer preserved classic diesels to be made non-operational.

I believe the grant requirements are that you have to remove an existing unit from service, or demonstrate that you are replacing one of the units that would go into service as part of future expansion.

We are planning on disabling one of the existing units that is due for the next overhaul. However, we will discuss this in more detail as we work out the contract with the FRA. We have several 'parts units' that could be used for the battery locomotive if the FRA will allow.

Eric

RPS in Fullerton, California has all the answers you'll need. I'd be surprised if they're not involved with the Napa Wine Train conversions.

One of the business models is to source cells for 'locomotive' applications from the growing stream of rebuildable BEV batteries. This would apply to relatively-short-term wayside storage as well.

The Grand Canyon is, in fact, a good potential testbed for the first phase of 'punctate' electrification -- modify a couple of locomotives for dual-mode lite (or cable them to work with one of Iden's tenders) and put wire on the 3% grade with wayside storage. And put the electric turbochargers on the F40s to supplement or even replace the gear drive...

It might not be just a matter of "pulling up" an obsolete laptop.

As it so happens, my interest in archaic IT stuff (in this case Lotus Improv) led me down an obsolete laptop rabbit hole. Improv was great stuff but Lotus mis marketed it and in the process not only didn't have it take off-it cannibalized 1-2-3 and allowed Microsoft Excel to be the dominant ascendant in the spreadsheet market.

1.) Found an older laptop. Equipped with Windows 7, this particular model was also sold with XP-that was a lucky choice. Bought a Dell E6420 for $40 off Ebay.

2.) Machine was perfectly operable, but a had a few quirks; fortunately, the dead giveaway was the continual date reversion to September 2011. Required a "CMOS" battery.

3.) Cool enough, the interwebs shows the battery to be a common 2032 cell. Unfortunately, they didn't design the cell to just pop in. The CMOS batttery is encased in electrical tape like plastic and has two leads with a special terminal. Lucky me-Chinese suppliers sell them on Ebay.

4.) Now, Lotus Improv was-like most software of its time-early 90's, distributed on 3.5" 1.44MB "floppy disks". Fortunately, although this machine doesn't have an internal floppy, I bought an external one for $20 and even on a Win 11 machine, it shows up as the "A drive".

5.) Unfortunately, Improv is 16 bit software and Microsoft dropped the support for 16 bit software with Win 7. Lucky me again, a vendor had copies of Win XP meant for refurbed computers. I couldn't install the ISOs from archive.org.

6.) Also fortunately, this machine has a SATA interface; so I replace the spinning HD with an SSD. After installing, need to call MS's activation number because among many components that require drivers installed-one is the WIFI card. The call results in MS asking for a mobile phone no and they send an activation code.

7.) Right now, everything works except the WIFI and sound card. Fortunately, Dell maintains a sight where you can DL the 93 drivers and firmware updates that were made for this machine. I got them today, but I sure as hell am not connecting an XP machine to the internet; even one used only as an antique software host only.

5.) Like most electronic media, floppies can degrade; one of the five installation disks took the eternal dirt nap. Fortunately, I got a second set of these when they were cheap, so yeah.

9.) What didn't work -and I only have one set of disks was the update disks that took Improv 2.0 to 2.1. Fortunately, it seems that although the base package isn't available on Archive.org; the updates are-however I had to wait to get them because of the recent DDOS cyberattack on archive.org.

And before somebody say why not just run a virtual machine on your main Win 10/11 machine-what fun would that be?

It is interesting, there are innumerable articles about the federal government paying MS for restricted support on Win XP, and there are other examples of it and other operating systems/application software being long after support was ended in industries like healthcare and finance, because of vendor or version lock-or the enormous difficulty of migrating mission critical code to a new platform-knowing you are always going to make a leap.

Windows 10 support ends next year; unless you ante up for a brief reprieve.

This




was found in a Commonwealth of Pennsylvania government office supply cabinet that was being re-evaluated after the emergence of telework in March of 2022. It's been decades since there were any punch card systems and so employees who increasingly had never seen punch cards-just thought the best thing was to leave 'em be. In that context, I suppose obsolete code isn't surprising at all.

So, it looks like Caltrain was able to get a waiver on equipment headed to South America, so that the locomotives won't be required to be disabled: https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... -for-peru/

“Our former Caltrain passenger cars and locomotives will enable the start of new commuter rail service in greater Lima, cleaner air for commuters and community members and the access to opportunity that great public transportation provides. ¡Todos a bordo! [All aboard!]”

Interesting. Apparently international relocation makes them cleaner.

It's a new operation, so even tier 0/1 train is cleaner than a large number of cars and buses.

That's true everywhere. The difference is California is willing to enormous sums for boutique builds for immaterial marginal improvements in air quality.

It also doesn't explain the destruction clause if a unit was to be donate for static display.