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‘20
TH
CENTURY LIMITED’ OBSERVATION CAR REBORN
www.TrainsMag.com • January 2015
p. 32
Merger
puzzle
update
p. 6
Steam:
What’s
ahead
p. 62
Inside Amtrak’s
new electrics
Worthy successor
to the GG1?
p. 24
CSX moves
mountains
p. 48
GEs in EMD
territory
p. 56
PLUS
MAP:
Amtrak’s
new ACS-64
tests on the
Northeast
Corridor.
Predominant
carrier by state
p. 38
Florida East Coast’s
rebound and passenger hopes
p. 40
BONUS
ONLINE
CONTENT
CODE PG. 3
1940
YEARS
2015
Online Content Code: TRN1501
Enter this code at:
www.TrainsMag.com/code
to gain access to web-exclusive content
vol. 75, no. 1 news and features
january 2015
www.TrainsMag.com
ON THE
WEB
FEATURES
1940
YEARS
2015
24
COVER STORY
>>
Amtrak’s new
electric workhorse
Engineers and mechanical
personnel provide insight
on ACS-64 locomotives
Bob Johnston
@
32
Restoring a
railroad icon
Rebirth of Pullman
observation car
Hickory Creek
Geoffrey H. Doughty
38
Map of the Month:
Which railroad rules
your state?
We added up the freight
carriers’ route-miles in each
state to see who has the most
Bill Metzger
40
Amtrak gallery
>>
See more photos from a cab
East Coast champ
Florida East Coast shows off
new profits and hot old colors.
Next: passenger trains
Fred W. Frailey
ride in an ACS-64 locomotive.
Photo by Bob Johnston
48
Moving mountains to
move freight
CSX clears a double-stack
route from the Atlantic Coast
Earl Bugaile
56
Scratch the surface
At first glance, the CSX train is
nothing special. But let’s look a
little closer at the locomotives,
because they’re extraordinary
David E. Baer
In My Own Words:
The making of a
railroad signalman
Nothing stops this young
signalman on the DL&W
Ken Frazer
58
Pullman car photos
>>
Check out additional photos
of
Hickory Creek’s
restoration.
Photo by Fred Heide
<<
ON THE COVER
A northbound Amtrak test train
runs with the new ACS-64 locomotive No. 602 for power at
Claymont, Del., on Sept. 18, 2013.
Photo by Gary Pancavage
NEWS
6
10
16
18
20
22
News & Photos
Don Phillips
Fred W. Frailey
Locomotive
Technology
Passenger
FEC schedule
>>
View the entire Florida East
Coast Railway freight schedule.
Photo by Drew Halverson
DEPARTMENTS
4
5
62
64
66
70
24
Amtrak’s new electrics
32
Observation car reborn
38
Map: Predominant
carrier by state
40
Florida East Coast’s
passenger hopes
48
CSX moves mountains
56
GEs in EMD territory
From the Editor
Railway Post Office
Preservation
Ask
T
RAINS
Hot Spots
Gallery
>>
Subscribers can access all
the latest news and updates to
stories daily on T
RAINS
News Wire
>>
Follow
us on
T
RAINS
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FROM THE EDITOR
Jim Wrinn
A R T D I R E C T O R
Thomas G. Danneman
P R O D U C T I O N E D I T O R
Angela Pusztai-Pasternak
A S S O C I AT E E D I T O R
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G R A P H I C D E S I G N E R
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L E A D I L L U S T R AT O R
Rick Johnson
L I B R A R I A N
Thomas Hoffmann
EDITOR
COLUMNISTS
JIM WRINN
Is double track even enough?
I’ve been observing the Union Pacific’s busy double-track
main line across Iowa this year, and it is a truly
impressive artery of commerce. Trains zip by effortlessly
on their way between Chicago and Omaha. But are two
parallel mains enough for this era of prosperity?
We’ve heard story after story about con-
gestion on BNSF Railway and Canadian
Pacific in the upper Midwest, where oil and
grain compete for track time. Norfolk
Southern and CSX main lines are packed
solid east of Chicago (see pages 10, 12, and
13), and everybody is looking for a way to
interchange anywhere but the Windy City.
Double track is supposed to be the chief
cure to chronic congestion. We’ve seen
miles of beautiful strands of ribbon rail go
down on both of the BNSF and UP Trans-
continental routes between Chicago and
Los Angeles. BNSF even laid a third track
on California’s busy Cajon Pass.
But are two tracks enough anymore?
I’m sure most of the time, they are, but
when a train fails on the road or when it’s
time to maintain those glorious silver rails,
the bottlenecks return in rapid fashion.
Case in point: In late October, I noticed
track gangs working on a Saturday morn-
ing near Dixon, Ill., on UP’s former Chica-
go & North Western main line. I figured
this might snarl the procession of east-
bounds, and was I ever right.
After I began driving west on parallel
U.S. 30, at Grand Mound, Iowa, I happened
upon the first stopped train. The unit coal
train was sitting on the left hand main, per
C&NW practice, and in a few moments an
eastbound double-stack train roared by.
In the next few miles, as I drove west, I
came upon another stopped unit coal train,
a train of auto racks, a train of frac sand
hoppers, and yet another coal train. Two
tracks had become one ahead in Illinois,
and Iowa had become a parking lot.
I know that railroads are tight when it
comes to laying new main line at the cost
of $1 million per mile. That kind of invest-
ment takes guts, but 15 years into the in-
dustry’s new era, perhaps it is time to build
track on a more ambitious scale. After all, a
train at speed is a beautiful sight, not only
for fans but for accountants, too.
Fred W. Frailey, Don Phillips
CORRESPONDENTS
Roy Blanchard, Michael W. Blaszak, Justin Franz,
Steve Glischinski, Chris Guss, Scott A. Hartley,
Bob Johnston, David Lester, David Lustig
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An eastbound Union Pacific double-stack train overtakes a sitting unit coal train at Grand
Mound, Iowa, on Oct. 25 after track work reduced two main tracks to one.
T
R A I NS
: Jim Wrinn
4
T
rains
JANUARY 2015
TRN 01/01/2015 4C 1/6 H
RPO
BURLINGTON NORTHERN
AND TECHNOLOGY
With regard to the sidebar, “When
a Railroad Almost Built a PTC Sys-
tem” [page 33, November], I feel that
details of Burlington Northern’s early
advances on technology we now know
as positive train control were lost in
retelling the story.
To begin, Burlington Northern’s
then chairman, Richard Bressler, asked
the railroad research department in
1981 to examine the use of avionics
technology, not just the global posi-
tioning system, to increase safety and
efficiency on the railroad. GPS became
the technology of choice after a year of
analysis by BN and Rockwell Interna-
tional. After testing GPS and digital
radios near Minneapolis, BN manage-
ment decided to demonstrate an inte-
grated system for railroads known as
the Advanced Railroad Electronics
System on the Minnesota Iron Range.
A 10-person multidisciplinary
team established in 1986 managed the
program and oversaw the contract
with Rockwell, which served as de-
signer and system integrator. Rockwell
designed the entire system and not
just radios, as the Trains article de-
scribed. As with avionics, Rockwell
designed the system to accept compo-
nent “boxes” from numerous suppli-
ers, including digital radios in the 160-
MHz range that Harmon Industries
developed for the program.
Perhaps the most important point
to emphasize is that the system operat-
ed independently of existing control
systems and was “vitalized,” in modern
terms, for about a month with permis-
sion of the Federal Railroad Adminis-
tration, in December 1989. It is correct
that wayside signals were not removed
in those demonstrations, even though
they could have been. Railroad man-
agers decided to return the Iron Range
to being a test bed where new versions
of the system’s hardware and software
could be tested.
A 1991 Harvard Business School
case study on the Advanced Railroad
Electronics System shows that the BN
team estimated that the system, inte-
grated with additional locomotive and
operating systems, would have yielded
a 3-to-1 benefit-cost ratio. The study
also reflected BN’s new management’s
concerns regarding implementation.
Steven Ditmeyer,
Burlington Northern’s former director
of research and development,
Alexandria, Va.
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