Sorry for the late notice, just came through my Google feed.

http://www.septa.org/events/aem7-farewell.html

A classy thing to do. Kudos to SEPTA for acknowledging history.

The AEM-7 seems to be under appreciated, perhaps since it was not of US design. Despite that, let’s hope at least 3 make it through to preservation. Why 3? That provides a buffer for worst case scenarios down the road.

Good on ya’, SEPTA!

New Jersey Transit is going to lease a bunch of them.

Not to start a big kerfuffle, but I still don't understand why they are getting rid of them. I noted that somewhere they listed as being in "excellent" condition. Does that make sense?
I haven't checked but I'll bet they are still going strong in Sweden (I think that's where the original design is from).

SEPTA didn't celebrate the departure of the six former NJT Comet push pull coaches they scrapped in Roberts yard a year ago. Aside from not having trucks, which were robbed during the equalizer fiasco, those cars looked like they were in great condition. I'm sure they could have gotten many more years out of those cars, and put the seats to good use during peak periods.

You bet correctly. The Swedish Rc4 was the basis for the AEM-7 and newer versions, as well as Norwegian and Iranian variants, are still in use.

SEPTA's AEM-7's are very low mileage motors; running one round trip a day, five days a week. That said, they are also 30 years old and represent 1970's technology.

The ACS-64's were in production, are more powerful and are the same motors Amtrak has. SEPTA is getting bilevel cars in a few years and their weight might tax the ability of the AEM-7's to make the schedule so it seems to me getting new, more powerful motors now, while Siemens is set up to produce them, was a good idea.

Two AEM-7's are preserved, 915 at Strasburg and 945 at IRM.

Phil Mulligan

I'm betting it's support costs. It's a lot cheaper and easier to grab parts for something that Amtrak has a bunch of and that Siemens is still supporting than what are, essentially, orphans with no family.

SEPTA's AEM-7s are basically shot. They were never given any true overhauls during their 31 years of service, let alone major rebuilds like Amtrak and MARC's examples (I'm fairly certain they still wear their original paint). SEPTA only gave these motors just enough maintenance to keep them going. These units were apparently constantly in danger of overheating in recent years, and suffered frequent mechanical failures (I once had the one pulling the train I was riding die resulting in a train-to-train transfer).

I'm surprised that nj transit would lease these,njt has 32 alp44s in long term storage,if
all they need is control cabs while ptc installs continue then,there has been no procurement
to get rid of njt alp44s,but Septa did get their moneys worth out of them,and yes there are 28 of them stored on the Lackawanna cut off/Morris county,unsecured

There's nothing outside of railfan circles that NJT plans to lease the SEPTA motors. Arguing in favor is that the SEPTA AEM-7's already have PTC installed: CSS + ACSES.

However, I don't believe they can work as cab cars. AEM-7's don't have native 8-notch US throttles; they have Swedish RC throttles. For push-pull service they have an interface that reads 8-notch from the 27 pin push-pull MU cable and translates it into Swedish RC input. However, they can't send US 8-notch signals to another locomotive.

They are also limited in what they can pull. While they could MU with each other as delivered, SEPTA didn't use that capability. Whether they can they can MU now, 30+ years later is a good question.

Phil Mulligan

They have been running them through the shop inspecting them and fixing any problems with them. Septa's also been using them on the gel trains. NJT inspected some of them already, don't know in what kind of service they will be using them.

A couple of AEM7s, 938 and 929, have found a new home, though one wonders how long their new lease on life may last.

https://sf.streetsblog.org/2019/06/28/e ... _83tI8LP4c

A postscript to the lease of SEPTA AEM-7's (and the ALP-44) to NJT.

SEPTA did lease 6 AEM-7's and the ALP-44 to NJT, but they did not run. It was a statistical thing that warms the hearts of bureaucrats everywhere. NJT had to have a certain percentage of its motors PTC-equipped but weren't going to make it. Lease the SEPTA motors and they have enough. But they only had to have them, not actually use them.

It's my understanding the motors were parked at NJT's yard in Morrisville PA, so they didn't actually go to NJ.

SEPTA has their motors back now.

Phil Mulligan

Ahhh ok - explains why when I drove by the yard a couple of days ago, I couldn't see them in their normal parked location.