Track Warrants
"The Electronic Internet Newsletter of Western Railroading"
P.O. Box 720301
San Jose, CA 95172
USA
Issue No. 21
May 6, 1996
Steve Sloan
Send news, correspondence and images to: Stevesln@aimnet.com
(Alternative for photos for web posting: Stevesln@aol.com)
BNSF
A friend on the RPO BBS reports this announcement out of BNSF's Ft. Worth
HQ today. The BNSF merged railroad will be called the Burlington, Santa
Fe & Northern Railroad. As an interim measure, and a contender for the
final BSF&N paint scheme, a BN SD60M currently at VMV (reported as either
9269 or 9297) will receive a variation of the GN's final Omaha Orange and
Pullman Green paint scheme. Currently this scheme is being modeled by SW1
70 the Alliance, NE shop goat. The repainted locomotive will be unveiled
to the public at the Galesburg Railroad Days Celebration. Reportedly the
paint scheme to be worn by the forthcoming new C44-9Ws is again undecided.
JB
John Beaulieu, via CompuServe's TrainNet Forum
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Just a note to let you know that on 5/16/96 a BN SD60M was seen inside the
VMV paint shop (SD60M #9297). The rear of the unit was visible and it WAS
painted Omaha Orange and Dark Green. No official information could be gotten
from VMV management however.
Knowing VMV, it should be released to the BN on 5/18/96 and probably will
go out on the Paducah-Galesburg "local". I plan to chase the train
through Southern Illinois to at least get some photos.
Chad Cowan
AMTRAK & PASSENGER
Hi, Steve, and welcome back! Your TW #20 was very timely because I had to
ride the Capitol from Sacramento to Oakland today on business with two other
people. The ride down was uneventful, though through West Sacramento and
to Davis there were slow orders. We were running normally on the right-hand
track, and noticed vast amounts of SPMW equipment on the eastbound side.
At Rodeo to Richmond we were start-stop because of three red signals, but
arrived in Oakland just a few minutes late.
While heading back home on the 1:55 PM Capitol (push mode) from Jack London
Square we were first stopped by a long UP drag crossing out of the yard,
then by the lift span on the Carquinez Straits bridge. Once the span dropped
back into place and we crossed we stopped on the bridge. Out of Davis we
bobbed and weaved on the eastbound right-hand track for nearly a half hour
at (I estimate) 10 MPH, arriving in Sacramento (finally) about 15 minutes
behind schedule.
All in all, the whole trip was very comfortable, and westbound, our car
continually filled up until there were 40 or so riders. I didn't check out
the other cars but understand there were about 200 riders. We were on state
business, and had we driven it would have cost about $48 for mileage; for
the two of us from the state, our cost was just $38 AND WE DIDN'T HAVE TO
DRIVE IN I-80 TRAFFIC! I hope the state will negotiate special city-pair
fares for state employees on Caltrain/Amtrak as it does with airlines, because
there just isn't any reason to drive from Sacramento to the Bay Area with
a little pre-planning.
As we left Oakland one of the SD-9 Cadillacs was in Oakland behind a GP-
unit with a medium-length drag heading west. We were going too fast to get
important things like the number (beyond "43xx"), but there is
still at least one Caddy gutting it out.
In Roseville at the east end of the yard, there is still a 7500-series SD-45
(#7500) working as a yard goat, but SD-7s 1508 and 1521 are back working
(mu'd together), along with several other pairs of SD-7s that I haven't
gotten the numbers on recently.
Welcome back, and best of luck on your Master's work.
Tom Krummell Roseville
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MORE POWER , AMTRAK ORDERS 98 NEW LOCOMOTIVES FROM GENERAL ELECTRIC
In a strong vote of confidence for nationwide intercity passenger rail service,
the Amtrak Board of Directors this week approved the nearly $235 million
purchase of 98 new diesel locomotives from Pennsylvania-based General Electric
Transportation Systems (GETS).
These passenger locomotives will be assigned to the Chicago-based Amtrak
Intercity business unit and will replace 112 F40 diesel locomotives needing
extensive remanufacture. These 98 replacement locomotives are a 4,250 horsepower
version of the P40, a 4,000 horsepower GE locomotive first purchased by
Amtrak in 1990.
First delivery of the new locomotives, designated by Amtrak as the P42 to
denote the additional horsepower, is expected by September 1996. The P42
will share the P40's technology and design features, including aerodynamic
design, fuel economy, crew safety, ease of repair and environmental protection.
This locomotive order from GE is a continuation of the Genesis (TM) series
of diesel passenger locomotives, the first new locomotives inmore than 40
years designed and built in the United States specifically for higher speed
passenger service. The F40, the current backbone ofthe Amtrak diesel fleet,
is an adaptation of a freight locomotive design.
"This investment illustrates the Amtrak Board's investment in the intercity
rail passenger business," said Thomas M. Downs, Amtrak Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer. "It is another partnership between the public
and private sectors to ensure rail passenger service success well into the
next century." The order was placed with GE following a series of negotiations
with the manufacturer, financial institutions and Amtrak. The aging locomotives
being supplanted were state-of-the-art when purchased nearly 20 years ago.
Advances since then, made with the assistance of Amtrak employees, include
a new engineer's control area, advanced microcomputer controls, lower noise
and exhaust emissions, an integrated fuel tank, much greater fuel economy,
longer range and higher top speeds.
The fuel tank design on the Genesis(TM) series of locomotives is consistent
with a pending recommendation from the NationalTransportation Safety Board.
The P42 locomotive has 40 percent more horsepower than the F40 locomotive,
which means longer Amtrak trains will need fewer locomotives and can operate
at lower costs. The P42 is also 15 percent more fuel efficient than the
locomotive it will replace.
"This is a capital investment to increase safety, improve customer
service and reduce our cost of doing business," said Mark S. Cane,President,
Amtrak Intercity. "We will have standardized our fleet whenthe receipt
of the GE locomotives is complete in July 1997, which will also allow us
to reduce inventory expenses and be more effective withour training."
"Our customers, including rail passengers and the U.S.Postal Service,
will benefit from improved locomotive reliability, as will the freight railroads
over which we operate," Cane said.
As the F40s are taken out of service, some will be sold, retired or redeployed
and others can be converted to non-powered control units with baggage capacity.
GETS has headquarters and manufacturing facilities in Erie, Penn.,with additional
manufacturing in Grove City, Penn. GETS is the largest U.S. manufacturer
of locomotives.
The ability of Amtrak to reduce costs will require support fromCongress,
especially in providing needed funding to invest in itsinfrastructure. Rep.
Bud Shuster (R-Penn.) of Altoona, Chairman of theHouse Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee, has been a strongAmtrak supporter and was author
of the Amtrak Reauthorization Bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives
by a 406-4 vote last year.
In addition, Penn. Gov. Tom Ridge and Rep. Phil English (R-Penn.) of Erie
support a plan that would create a dedicated capital funding source for
Amtrak. "Unfortunately, the lack of infrastructure funding during the
'80s is coming home to roost in the '90s in the form of aging locomotives
and rolling stock," said Downs. "This procurement underscores
the immediate positive returns of investing in Amtrak. It means more jobs,
better rail service and less operating costs."
Amtrak Intercity operates passenger rail service throughout much of the
United States, including Midwest corridor trains for the Chicago,Detroit,
Milwaukee, Kansas City and St. Louis markets as well as most other Amtrak
long-distance services. Headquartered in Chicago, Amtrak Intercity employs
nearly 6,200 people in 39 states and is one of three Amtrak strategic business
units.
PR newswire, via RAILROAD%CUNYVM.TAMUNJE@tamvm1.tamu.edu, via E. C. Schroeder
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MAY19---The Suntan Special had two F40's, one on each end. It left San Jose
right on time, 9:30am. It made excellent time to Gilroy, beating my son
and I there. We managed to get ahead of it at Aromas, barely, at 10:30.
At Watsonville the racehorse changed to a snail. The train had problems
with it's HEP and sat on the balloon track while the crew walked the train.
When they put the train back on line (running the power from the rear unit,
CTTX 916) the air conditioners came on and the passengers in one of the
very crowded cars applauded. It left Watsonville at 11:05, headed up the
branch.
We headed up the branch too and caught the Amtrak train at Aptos. What a
sight, a modern Amtrak 800 class GE on that rickety track. (On the other
end of the Amtrak train was F40 class unit 200) It is an amazing experience
chasing a 10 mile an hour excursion train in 5 mile an hour tourist traffic.
We got a nice shot at Aptos. The shot was almost ruined by a family of pedestrians
who walked in front of our cameras. A teenager, a daughter (apparently,)
of this family was walking behind the group. She almost walked in front
of us at the critical moment. I asked her if she could wait a second while
we got our picture. The apparent father of the group yelled to her, "hurry
up!" She replied, "I'm waiting while they take their pictures."
He said, "to hell with them, come on." Fortunately she paused..."click."
I said, "thank you those pictures were very important to us."
The next stop was Capitola. The sun came out and we had decent light and
got good shots there. We photographed both trains on the big trestle. That
was the last time we were able to catch a northbound train. In Santa Cruz
we photographed the trains on the boardwalk. We had lunch and went back
to Watsonville and sat and waited for any trains at Elkhorn Slough. Saw
no trains and I snoozed while Kenneth (age 9) interrogated some local fishermen.
The return Caltrain left Santa Cruz on time. We shot him at a grade crossing
protected by an old wig-wag. Then got one last shot of him from Capitola,
this time from the other side. This is the first time in a long time I've
really railfanned. It was a lot of fun, and suprisingly, there wasn't that
many railfans out shooting.
Steve and Kenneth Sloan
SOUTHERN PACIFIC
I copied this off SP's 05/08 Daily Situation Report:
At 1235-07 CDT, Amtrak 1 1A 06 (Sunset Limited) with units AMTK 824 and
AMTK 513 handling 9 cars struck an animal of the bovine genus between Alpine
siding and Paisano, Texas on the Valentine line, Valentine subdivision of
the San Antonio division. The train came uncoupled between AMTK car #30460
and #34002. The following train was delayed:
1 1A 06 20"
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Got word from Ken Ardinger that a batch of SP box cars on order from Gunderson
in Portland, OR will have the round SP sunrise herald on them. I do not
know how many but will pass it on if I find out.
John Kinzel
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MAY 17--Chased the Santa Cruz Local on this TRI-X 400 day as a prelude to
tomorrow's passenger train madness. It had the engine series I love to hate,
dirty old GP40-2 7667 on the point, followed by not so dirty GP40-2M 7121
and SSW GP40-2M 7277 and about 15 cars. For a train on duty in Salinas at
07:00, I could have slept in as it did not get to the downtown Watsonville
depot on the branch until 11:05!! It was preceded by the "Monterey
Local" SSW 7294 running long hood forward with reefers for town. They
blocked the main for a while ahead of the Cruz train during switching.
Got a nice tele shot of the Cruz inbound between the cold storage warehouses
on the street trackage on Walker Street. The patch crew met the train by
the old school house on San Andreas Road. Train superslow. Got to Manresa
Beach trestle (houses all over the place now) at 12:05. I paid Pete Wilson's
parking lot attendant at the state beach 6 bucks to go in and get the shot
(as the right of way is all fenced due to houses clustering around it) but
I figured it was worth it for all of the time I have sped on his highways
without getting caught.
I highballed the Capitola trestle (as I had shot the train their on a sunny
winter day with 5 GP9E's in Feb. 1988) and went to the Santa Cruz wharf.
Train took another nearly another hour to get there!! While I was setting
up there (near the closed highway bridge near the east leg of the wye),
I met retired SP Engineer Hindman (44 years service) who fired SP commutes
during most of his career. He and his wife live in the house right along
the tracks on a bluff here at the wharf. Cool dude. Is a scanner listener
as well. He rode his first suntan special in 1937! We rolled the train by
and he remarked that they would not be going to any local business as all
of the cars were coal or cement hoppers for Davenport. Anyway, I banged
the train several places north of town as unlike 1988, track speed has actually
INCREASED to 20 mph+.
Two UCSC students hitched a ride on the train into Davenport. I finished
the roll at the Cement Plant trackage (train arrival was 13:55 at the end
of branch) and returned over the hill to Silicon Valley. Greeted by the
SP "Permanente Local" rolling eastbound led by SSW 7289 and 2
other GP40-2's along highway 85, caboose and all.
Megabangers with Mamiyas
UNION PACIFIC
The City Council of Salt Lake City has agreed to pay a lifetime $1,600 license
agreement that will allow the city to run utilities under Union Pacific
rails to service businesses near the south I-15 interchange.
toconnor
MAIL CAR
Steve,
Please change the towers url on your TW main menu page to http://pacx.com/rattenne/tower0.htm
Thanks
Ken Rattenne
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2 new URL's
Amtrak West: www.amtrakwest.com
San Deigan Club: http:// trains.zq.com/sandiegorail/
Richard Hamilton
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Track Warrants. Congratulations on getting your Masters. Now go out to the
tracks and have some fun. You've earned it.
Brian Lynch, Mead, Nebraska
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Have a link on my 'trains' section on my home page. Great work, do appreciate
the track warrants and you doing all that work.
Gerry Mitchell, http://www.frii.com/~mitch/
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Congrats! Your web page http://web.aimnet.com/~stevesln/twar/twmenu.htm
has been linked into aqui!
Thanks from the folks at http://www.aqui.ibm.com
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I've been intending to work a bit more on newsline on my web page and think
now is the time to really begin promoting it. This in the non-profit part
of the pages, much like the Flimsies Hot-Line. I've talked with Bill Shippen
about promoting it in the magazines and will either do so as an advertisement
or other promotion that could benefit both Shasta Rail Group publications
or Altamont Press.
Many of you have emailed miscellaenous news or train schedules that I have
published on newsline. I placed everything under a common copyright to protect
both each individuals interests in the material, and those of Shasta Rail
Group and my own. I did squelch one user who would download all the material
then email it around. That defeats the purpose, I expect some downloading
of schedules for personal use.
First I want to open up the information published to all of you who are
either publishing or writing columns to use the information within your
work with credit to the source. Examples: John Smith, courtesy Altamont
Press or if Bill sends me something I will place a copyright notice for
Shasta Rail Group or Flimsies. Then is can read as Bill Shippen, Flimsies
or whatever.
In trade I would welcome any tidbits that fit the type of material you would
pass along to Bill Farmer for the HotLine. My purpose with the section of
the web page is to enhance the information available. Bill can easily record
a train schedule, I can publish it in table form. Hard copy can be downloaded
and printed. The two can work to promote or enhance each other.
Thanks for any assistance that you can provide. Again, I welcome you to
take a look at what I'm doing with it and will accept any critiques... In
the upcomming weeks, hopefully Bill and I can arrive at something that we
can promote this well through the SRG magazines.
Rob, Altamont
Press News Line, via Web
(QUESTIONS---How do you copyright a schedule? Doesn't something, to be
copyrighted, have to be an original work? A schedule is news data, irrespective
of it's source. News, itself, cannot be copyrighted. Isn't that a First
Amendment issue?)
Steve
TAKING STOCK
Railroad Stock Report for Friday, 17 May 1996
>> -----------------------------------------------
Market Data from Thursday, 16 May 1996
Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 5635.05, up 9.61 on Thursday.
----------------
Big Board (NYSE)
----------------
Line Symbol High Low Close Previous P/E
>>>> ===============================================================
BNSF BNI 88.000 86.500 87.125 88.125 47.10
CSX CSX 51.875 50.875 51.000 52.625 15.20
Conrail CRR 71.625 70.250 70.625 71.625 21.50
Norfolk Southern NSC 87.750 86.750 86.875 87.750 14.90
Southern Pacific RSP 25.125 24.875 25.000 25.125 (25.70)
Union Pacific UNP 70.000 69.625 69.750 70.125 14.40
Canadian Pacific Ltd CP N 20.750 20.375 20.625 20.625 (23.20)
*** CN - 04-29-96 ***
Canadian National Ry CNI.PP 18.875 18.500 18.875 18.625 NA
Illinois Central IC 30.500 30.250 30.375 30.625 13.40
Kansas City Southern KSU 46.750 46.250 46.500 46.625 8.70
Florida East Coast FLA 88.375 88.125 88.250 88.625 29.40
Sea Container SCRA 19.500 19.000 19.250 18.875 2.10
XTRA XTR 46.500 46.250 46.250 46.750 14.70
Greenbrier GBX 14.875 14.750 14.875 14.875 9.80
Wabash Natl. Corp. WNC 22.125 21.750 22.000 22.000 13.40
Trinity Ind. TRN 35.125 34.750 35.000 35.250 12.60
Ameri. President APS 25.750 25.375 25.625 25.750 24.20
------
NASDAQ
------
Line Symbol High Low Close Previous P/E
>>>> ===============================================================
J.B. Hunt JBHT 20.875 20.125 20.375 20.625 (39.10)
Wisconsin Central WCLX 93.000 92.500 92.500 92.500 26.90
RailTex RTEX 24.250 23.750 24.000 24.250 30.80
RailAmerica RAIL 4.000 3.687 3.750 3.875 10.00
Providence & Worc PWRR 7.500 7.500 7.500 7.625 17.00
Delaware Otsego DOCP 10.500 10.500 10.500 10.500 8.20
MK Rail Corp. MKRL 5.625 5.250 5.437 5.437 NA
---
Pioneer Railcorp PRR-M 3.500 3.500 3.500 3.500 46.40
Compiled by Jim Czarnecki
Back issues of the Rail Stock Report are now available at:
http://www.primenet.com/~jimc/
BAD NEWS
The following addresses have had problems with transmission and are being
deleted:
Hitchcock,Hitchcock,70254.233@compuserve.com, Stoddard,Roger D.,102016.3207@compuserve.com,
mmdf@osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu, dstuard@netrix.com, ElGato420@eworld.com, mbrady@trmx3,
mcarson@esri, DBJENKS@UKCC.UKY.EDU, coady@prodigy.com, awklin@minerva.athenet.net,
mkohutek@flash.net, lyman@directnet.com, MAILHOST DKENDAL, jmonier@logicon.com,
CorbuMike@eworld.com, m0uGwqx-000V00C@mailhub.cts.com, VUREK.MATTHEW_G@palo-alto.va.gov,
jracle@megaweb.com, dcthomp@aol.com, hodavel@aol.com, dstuard@netrix.com,
larryv@crl.com, usvcnmeb@ibmmail.com, trainzilla@aol.com, henrymvjv@aol.com,
usatran@oz.net, 75304.1422@CompuServe.COM, edwj53a@inboundmx.prodigy.com,
pbanados@iusanet.cl, m0uGx5t-000LCxC@campbell-emh4.army.mil, lockwoot@campbell-emh4.army.mil,
Zubak,Walt,wzubak@voicenet.com, unknown,,netnerd@mtcnet.net, Saunders,R.
L.,rsmw@ix.netcom.com, Unknown,Doug,busnut1@ix.netcom.com
This document was last updated May 20, 1996.
Steve Sloan, Sloan Family Webmaster stevesln@aimnet.com
TRACK WARRANTS
P.O. Box 720301
San Jose, CA 95172
USA