MORE ON AMTRAK LOCOMOTIVE 52 Here is road number 52 in the 1996/97 Amtrak Genesis order from the GE Transportation Division at Erie, Pennsylvania. As of late 2024, all in the 50's group were active except for this one. It was the second unit on train 6 in a garbage-truck strike near Albia, Iowa October 27, 2021. We surmise that it was not been repaired due to a combination of COVID and since February 22, the replacement of P42's on some routes by new Siemens ALC-42 locomotives. All of Amtrak's fleet of 207 P42's have suffered injuries, many of them over and over again. The 50's group have survived better than most. Positive Train Control, implemented on class I railroads by 2020, may have prevented some catastrophic incidents, but most damage to locomotives is caused either by road-crossing incursions, on-board fire, track defects, or the occasional weather-related event such as wash-out. The most significant thing that could be done to prevent damage and injury would be the closure of unsafe road crossings. Amtrak has diesel maintenance shops around the country at major terminals. Some basic damage repair can take place at remote locations, but most heavy work is done at Beech Grove, Indiana. A four-day-a-week hospital shuttle formerly hauled damaged and repaired equipment between Chicago and Indianapolis, but now some of that work has been moved to Chicago, and what can't be done there, is added to the 3x weekly Cardinal. Typically this now happens on train 50 of Saturday night, and train 51 of Sunday-Monday morning. If a damaged locomotive is declared unfit for passenger train delivery, sometimes they can be handled in freight. CSX generally handles the end moves, through Hawthorne and Avon Yards in Indiana. There also have been times that damaged equipment could not roll on its own, in which case the body is de-trucked and moved onto a flatcar for freight transport to Indiana or the nearest major shop. There also have been a few times that Amtrak hired contractors to rebuild (and even repaint) damaged units off-site. Serial numbers for 50-59 are between 49588 and 49597 and there were no anomalies. Build dates were January and February of 1997. After delivery in the 1993 style paint, all were refurbished, with #52 going first through the northeastern livery, circa-1998. All others went directly into millennium paint. Engine 51 was the first 3G millennium, getting the wide skirt band in 2000. The rest were done in 2001 in 3G narrow skirt varient. Some of the 50's and 60's were outfitted with cab control signals for planned higher speeds on the Union Pacific line in Illinois. Amtrak spent a great deal of money attempting to upgrade Chicago-St. Louis services over a 30 year period, but timetable speed improvement has never happened. As a result, none of the "high speed" P42's ever had a chance to run above 79 mph in Illinois, except for a few demonstrations. Before arrival of Chargers for "state supported services", there were times that they did hit 100 mph on Michigan Wolverines. UP has now discontinued its cab control system in favor of positive train control, but some 50's and 60's units contine to run on the Texas Eagle in Illinois. The last new Amtrak P42 (#207) came on the property in 2001. As originally set up, most were technically based in New Orleans. Locomotives 26-36 were tied to Michigan, 101-111 to New York, and 112-119 to Los Angeles. Once the 2000-2001 order was completed, things changed around a bit, but 126-127-128 were dedicated to Michigan. Attempts after 2000 were made to create a "high-speed" group of engines for Lincoln Service in Illinois, but that never panned out. Some 50's units were linked to that service for a while, before Siemens Chargers took over the line in 2019. Except for tests, speeds higher than 90 mph were never achieved while P42's were on the route, and even that was limited to very short stretches. In past years, Amtrak ran the same equipment through Chicago, either starting out as train 58 in New Orleans and becoming train 7 in Chicago, or flip-flopping to train 21 in Chicago. These long cross-country cycles were designed to save labor costs in Chicago, but after 5000 miles per cycle resulted in dangerous, dirty and smelly trains, often with holding tanks overflowing. Today trains 58/59, 21/22, and 7/8 have dedicated trainsets that are cleaned (and sometimes washed) in Chicago. So train 58 turns to 59 in Chicago, 22 turns to 21 in the Windy City, and 8 turns to the next day's 7. Active Genesis units were all eventually redone into 3G common 2001 styling by 2006, leaving only retired P40's in storage with 1998 "northeastern" 2G stripes. In our present group, #50-59 road numbers, we note that there has been little permanent attrition so far in this group (52). Many have temporarily been out of service for long periods of time over the decades, however, due to damage that was ultimately repaired at Beech Grove. Here is the last movement we had for #52: #52 - Serial 49590 (January 1997). Second unit on train 6 that was hit by a garbage truck near Albia, Iowa on October 27, 2021. January 2022 activity: Moved Chicago to Beech Grove 50-22. Stored inactive. Verified stored damaged at Beech Grove March 2023. Please attribute our photos if you use them for anything but personal use. Comments, corrections, updates may be sent to the address below. November 26, 2024 Update from 4rr.com