https://www.trains.com/trn/railroads/to ... nesis-p40/



More at the link.

I'd suggest they get a couple of Superliners to go with it.

Along those lines are there any Amfleet cars in preservation?

Acquiring a retired P40 also seems like a way to get a PTC-equipped engine to pair with your LeaPTC-equipped steam locomotive, if you have aspirations of mainline running.

I definitely hope someone moves on saving a P40. Those were the face of Amtrak for decades, and it'd be a shame to have another EMD E7 situation.

Railexco saved I believe 3.

Do we count the saved Constitution Liners that were SPV2000s?

Perhaps we should discuss the differences in saving a P40 vs. a P42. One big point of difference for 'historic operation' is the brake system -- the P40s being to my knowledge much simpler, but the P42s inherently having blended braking 'standard' but involving much more early-Nineties computerized operation. I know we've had a number of discussions about how complicated and perhaps unsustainable the units from the '80s were -- this is a higher level still.

If we are going down that rabbit hole, we should discuss paint schemes. I'd vote for a delivery scheme, either with or without the "fade."

The current "lava lamp" scheme, despite being long-lived, never did much for me.

BH

Larry's has several Genesis units, some at 3:45 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYHRhH_KLVg I wonder what he paid for them.

If a P40 can be had for preservation, I would imagine that the main candidate for getting it would be the Lakeshore museum in Northeast, PA, since they have a focus on GE products. Better hurry, Amtrak is converting 20 of them to unpowered cab cars to replace the former Metroliner ones. The first ones are already rolling out of Beech Grove.

They used to have Amtrak 801 - Not sure if they still do. That would have been a good candidate for being featured in the 1990's kids video - There goes a train. Countless guys my age (mid 30's) can thank that video for getting them into trains. I know several.

Even F40's could be 'converted' to a usable freight locomotive, which is essentially how WMSR ended up with one, via Larry's. And SLRG, although there are few odder looking things than an F40 with a chop nose job.

But a P40 or 42 has no afterlife, no better than an AEM7 or an E60. That's not to say they won't be saved anywhere.....

Lake Shore's museum collection is logical, also because they have no need to make it runnable. As a member up there, we've got some runnable critters usable as shop switchers, that's all they need, and even a restored P40/42 cabbage some time in the future would be at least representative. But right now, the place is stuffed to overflowing. That's one of the reasons they are de-accessioning some of the vintage steel passenger car fleet. Just for space.

I wonder if I'll live long enough to see a P42 pull a non-Amtrak excursion train. I can go to GCR for F40's and have.
I literally remember the first day I saw a P40 running on the GE test track and almost drove off of Rt. 20 staring at it. What tha...is THAT THING?

Yep, time marches on. Everything we collect was at least at one time, leading edge stuff.

I checked a year old video which has a close-up, @2:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyAUhkkUPKU looks like eight Genesis units there, plus around a half-dozen or so F40s scattered around, and one New York Central painted F unit (I think that might be ex-B&LE or ex-CN from when the TP&W was owned by Deleware Otsego). The lowest Genesis number I could see was 804, but I can't make out the road numbers on about half of them.

The NYC F-unit is actually the old Alaska Railroad F7 that Thomas Carver shipped down and had at the Mass Central and then the Adirondack Railroad (#1508). The TP&W F7 was also at the Adirondack but that went to the Grafton & Upton and was repainted into their paint and is OoS with a blown up prime mover.

Adirondack sent all three of the F-Units they still had (an ex-Metro North FL9 that never ran there, an ex-GM&O F3 that ICG rebuilt into an FP10, and the aforementioned Alaska RR F7) out to Larry's last year. They hadn't been run at the Adirondack in a couple years. The rust was pretty advanced, they were underpowered, and you always had to send out at least two engines if you were running them due to lack of turning facilities. They were replaced with an ex-CN/Maine & Eastern M420W and an ex-GB&W/Minnesota Commercial C424.

What about the ex-Amtrak P40s now with CDOT?

And a pair of AEM7s had at least a short afterlife with Caltrain.

Those were essentially the same jobs they had with Amtrak, 70mph running. I think he means on short lines or excursion trains where they will be bobbing along on class 1 or 2 track, as with most older units that survive in service. I think the evidence is he is right. The exception might be GCRR, which could use the HP and speed they offer.