Not clear who is selling thoes. I know 9 are avaible from rail world starting at $400,000 and going as high as $600,000. We are trying to just scrape enouf money together to pay the IRS fileing fees. Any one have $100 dollers laying around they could throw our way?

They are former VRE locos they're brokering off since they acquired MP36's. Price probably in the same general range.

The front OMR page says $380k for these.

I've got a F40 seller for an F40 buyer...

Larry’s Truck & Electric
http://www.ltexrail.com/

They may have a few still, but they're either in pieces or somewhat intact. I've had a friend purchased AirChime K5LA horn from LETX recently and it came off a AMTK F40PH. LETX doesn't list F40PH's for sale on their website. Here's a picture taken from 2011....

Pictures of LTEX 275
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=2655616

Now a lot can happen in 2 years. LETX always rotates it's inventory.

F40PH Links:

Wikipedia/EMD-F40PH
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_F40PH

F40PH.org/Status
http://www.f40ph.org/Sta.html

F40PH Sellers/Rebuilders:

Ozark Mountain Railcar - EMD Listings
http://www.ozarkmountainrailcar.com/cat ... =363&n=EMD

Rail World Locomotive Leasing
http://railworld-inc.com/LocoLeasing.htm

Cad Railway Industries
http://www.cadrail.ca/

Other Railroad Sellers:

National Railway Equipment Co.
http://www.nationalrailway.com/

Sterling Rail, Inc.
http://www.sterlingrail.com/

Enjoy! ^_^

Slightly OT, but why is this three times the price of the ex UP SD90MACs? Were they just THAT much of a lemon, or did Uncle Pete really wring these, or what?

Sometime earlier this year, there was a thread concerning the preservation of examples of post-1971 diesel locomotive and electric locomotive designs, particularly those that saw service with Amtrak. This included E60s, AEM7s (rebuilds or not), P30CHs, and, of course, Amtrak's venerable F40PHs (SDP40F "rebuilds" or not). Well, this thread reminded me of what I just saw during my 10 hour layover (okay, it was more like 9 and a quarter hours) in Sacramento this last weekend during my return trip from Denver to Seattle. The California State Railroad Museum has on display in their roundhouse Amtrak F40PHR (yes, with parts from an SDP40F) #281. So at least one of these long-serving veterans of the Amtrak fleet has made it to preservation in one of the most heavily-visited railroad-centered museums in North America. Congratulations are in order to the CSRM in making this timely and well-thought acquisition.

In my own opinion, with such a large fleet to choose from*, having only one of the F40PHs in a suitable preservation environment (an indoors, climate-controlled facility) in comparison to some outdoor store-a-palooza (like LTEX) would be a tragedy. With the fleet now mostly retired (excluding the NPCU "cabbage car" rebuilds), now is the time to act. An attitude of "oh, we'll get around to it someday after we acquire another dozen cabeese for our ceaseless collection" won't do any good for these Amtrak veterans, from a preservation perspective. They've played a significant role in the recent history of passenger rail in the United States, and are therefore worth preserving. To skip this part of the historic fabric of rail transportation in North America would be a major blunder.

I don't mean to step on any toes, just to invoke discussion regarding the preservation of our recent rail heritage, Amtrak or otherwise. It doesn't have to be a "major" museum, any museum with an eye for preserving recent artifacts and the right facilities to do so would be in a position to make such an acquisition.

Any thoughts or insights?

*Any one of the Amtrak veteran models is worth preserving, not just the F40PHs, although these are by far the most numerous.



To answer your question, it was discussed recently (sometime last month) over on TrainOrders that the reason the SD90/43MACs were retired so quickly and are available for such low prices is because there is a major (and yet basic) engineering issue that has made these young EMD products completely useless to their purchasers (UP and CP). The design of the frame was not suitable (load-bearing wise) for the 16-cylinder prime mover which was selected for the series, which has led to frame cracks in a number of the units and the high potential for frame cracks to develop in the remainder. This is why the majority of the UP units are in storage in Dunsmuir awaiting final disposition. Unfortunately for this reason, EMD did not have the same sweeping success with the SD90 series as it did with the SD60, SD70, and SD80 production runs. Somebody in the engineering department didn't do their math!!!. Oops.

Quick update for now:

North Carolina Transportation Museum nabbed another Amtrak F40PH years ago, in response to an essay I wrote in trains Magazine. So there are at least two about in museums.

RR Museum of Pa. looked at getting one, but grabbed an E60CH instead.

And of course F40PHR 231 which is saved for preservation but I will leave it to others to declare whether it's preserved under current circumstances.

Steve

You're right. It's tough to 'preserve' a locomotive stripped clean of its HEP with shotgun blasts to the windshield.

And how did the shotgun blast to the windshield come about? If you can't keep it in good order in its current location move it. I don't see the unit listed on the friends roster http://www.4449.com/roster.html After all that fanfair is it being left out to rust... Also you don't need the HEP to run the unit.

Oh no, Chris. What happened?

Steve

What I heard was that metal thieves stripped the 231 of all its HEP cables for the copper wiring while it was being stored somewhere in Portland. I don't know for certain, but I'm wondering if this was the same storage location where the ex-SP 10-5 sleeper #9201 "Clackamas River" (former "Rincon Hill") was heavily vandalized.

Pretty much what Rainier_Rails said. Further details of the situation (and video of the culprits in the act) will come to light in a few weeks.

And unfortunately for the 231 owners, Amtrak-spec 3-phase 480 volt HEP cables are not cheap (nor relatively easy to come by). I had heard that the 231 was due to get a new coat of paint as the Daylight application was several years old, but I had yet to see a photo. Interesting new paint scheme; certainly sticks out in a crowd. I hadn't realized that the paint job was finished before the move out of the old Brooklyn roundhouse location.

The best of luck in making the necessary repairs to the 231 and "Clackamas River."