I saw these images floating around the web. Apparently, they are from the Caltrain’s Dec Board meeting.
At any rate, I think this paint scheme is going to look really slick and hope it will be modeled at some point.
Does anyone know whether MTH still has the AEM tooling? I checked the press release and Atlas did not purchase it which makes sense because Altas has AEM tooling.
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Nice looking!
I would hope that Atlas would use their tooling if these were offered. It is far superior to the MTH tooling.
More importantly, where is Caltrans electrifying? That is very interesting news. Great to see new life for old AEM7s.
@GG1 4877 posted:I would hope that Atlas would use their tooling if these were offered. It is far superior to the MTH tooling.
More importantly, where is Caltrans electrifying? That is very interesting news. Great to see new life for old AEM7s.
Being from back East, I’m not all that familiar. This article might answer the question.
Apparently, Caltrain is ... in the process of installing an overhead electrification system–and they need a way to test it.
I'm surprised Caltrans didn't scoop up the NJT ALP44's.
@GG1 4877 posted:More importantly, where is Caltrans electrifying? That is very interesting news. Great to see new life for old AEM7s.
Caltrain is electrifying the line between San Francisco and San Jose - a distance of about 60 miles. Construction has been in progress for a year or two. This is a heavily travelled commuter corridor through the heart of Silicon Valley.
This electrification will eventually be used for CA's high speed rail line that will connect SF to LA. CA's high speed rail is under construction in the central valley. The project is billions of dollars over budget.
The route between SF and LA has not been determined. There are several options. All of them require extensive tunnels through mountain ranges. This will be super expensive.
The new infrastructure bill is supposed to put billions into the high speed rail project. We'll see how it works out and how many more decades the high speed rail project takes to complete. The only thing that is certain is that it will be much more expensive than promised when CA tax payers voted for the bonds to fund the system. I think that the project will eventually be a plus for the state.
NH Joe
@GG1 4877 posted:I would hope that Atlas would use their tooling if these were offered. It is far superior to the MTH tooling.
More importantly, where is Caltrans electrifying? That is very interesting news. Great to see new life for old AEM7s.
I think it would be great for an AEM-7 model to go back into model production.
Just think of all the possible fantasy schemes!
Also, now you can put that CalTrains meatball looking logo on a GG-1 with white sides and red noses!
@prrhorseshoecurve posted:I'm surprised Caltrans didn't scoop up the NJT ALP44's.
As I recall the ALP44s didn't serve NJT very well in commuter service hence their early retirement. They also have been sitting idle since 2012 whereas the AEM7 fleet was maintained up until 2017.
The other untapped reserve of passenger locomotives is the now idle fleet of former NdeM E60C-2s that were purchased by the Black Mesa & Lake Powell railroad. They became idle in 2019 when the power plant they served was closed.
I'll have to follow this story more closely. It will be interesting to see these locomotives testing and a new lease on life for older equipment is always good to see.
I was commuting back and forth to college when I took this photo of a toaster:
CalTrain runs three blocks from my house. They have been setting up the pole foundations and the poles themselves for at least 1 1/2 years now. COVID slowed things down, like everyone/everywhere else, but you can see signs of progress.
Some affluent neighborhoods along the line have resisted the state long bullet train, but it seems to me that the bullet train will not be going full speed through the neighborhoods, like it will out in the country.
@GG1 4877 posted:As I recall the ALP44s didn't serve NJT very well in commuter service hence their early retirement. They also have been sitting idle since 2012 whereas the AEM7 fleet was maintained up until 2017.
The other untapped reserve of passenger locomotives is the now idle fleet of former NdeM E60C-2s that were purchased by the Black Mesa & Lake Powell railroad. They became idle in 2019 when the power plant they served was closed.
I'll have to follow this story more closely. It will be interesting to see these locomotives testing and a new lease on life for older equipment is always good to see.
I was commuting back and forth to college when I took this photo of a toaster:
The ALP44s were decent locomotives when they were new. The maintenance left something to be desired as Transit basically ran the guts out of them.
As they sit now, they are basically good for scrap and that’s about it. It would be interesting to see them resurrected in the future though, by an agency with deep pockets…
Tom
I hope its modeled either by MTH or Atlas with DCS. Finally something to pull my KLine Caltrains 21" bombardier cars
How about SP Heritage Daylight?
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