90 mph to Providence

Not your normal day at the office.  

The photo below was taken on December 2, 1981.  Somewhere west of Providence RI on the former New Haven Shoreline.  The 1980 rendition of the Northeast Corridor improvement plan is underway.  Note the new concrete ties on the track to the left.  Conrail is still running the local freight here.  Shortly, the Providence and Worcester will take over much of Conrail's operation in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

I'm on an FL-9 locomotive running at 90 mph with five Amfleet coaches between New Haven and Providence RI, passing a Conrail B23-7 on a local somewhere en-route.  My "not so calibrated" rear end firmly planted in the left hand cab seat.  It's raining.  I have my camera along and have some grainy Kodacolor print film in it.

The closing speed between the trains was rather fast, and I'm bouncing a bit in the seat.  It was dark and rainy and my poor print film was still pretty slow by today's digital standards.  So, I set as fast a shutter speed as possible, framed the shot and hoped for the best. 

Why am I here?

Remember this post?  Turboliners - more than just a train

The seven sets of Turboliners Amtrak purchased for the improved Empire Service weren't enough.  There were still trains that needed regular locomotives to cover all the trains now operating between Grand Central Terminal to Albany and beyond.  And those locomotives needed to be able to run on 3rd rail in order to get into and out of GCT.  

Amtrak had been using Metro North FL-9s to haul trains to and from GCT, changing power at Croton Harmon.  It took time and Metro North's FL-9s weren't always up to the task. Wanting to eliminate the engine change at Croton Harmon and have locomotives compatible with the new HEP equipped coaches and overhauled sleepers and diners, Amtrak purchase a half dozen FL-9s  from Metro North and sent them out for overhaul which included HEP engine generator sets replacing the steam heat boilers.  When the Turboliners arrived, Amtrak built a shop in Rensselaer to take care of them.  This shop could handle the FL-9s, too.  

With the railroad between Poughkeepsie and Albany (actually all the way to CP-169 west of Schenectady) upgraded for 90-110 mph operation, Amtrak was interested in operating the FL-9s at 90 mph.  So, Amtrak made the pitch to Conrail to increase the speed limit for these locomotives. Conrail said, "show us it's safe and practical. Apparently, it was common practice on the New Haven to let these beasts get up to that speed even thought the track speed limit was 80 mph. Amtrak had some signed letters from former New Haven engineers to that effect.

With the sour taste of the SDP40Fs still fresh, that was not good enough.  "Run them at 90 mph on your own railroad first and then do some testing on ours and we'll let you know", was Conrail's reply.  To be honest, they were a bit different, having HEP instead of a steam generator, so these locomotives needed a close look.

They sent me and a couple of guys from the Technical Services Laboratory in Altoona to get involved. We met the Amtrak folk in New Haven and they had a three car test train to operate to Providence and back.  The goal was to see if one FL-9 could haul five coaches to 90 mph.  In theory it should work - just barely.

We met the Amtrak representative on the platform at New Haven and boarded the test train there.  We rode to New Haven with out a glitch, dropped two coaches and ran back with three, easily making 90 mph.

Having successfully completed that part, it was off to the Hudson Line to do some instrumented ride quality testing.   A test train south from Albany-Rensselaer to Harmon, turn the power and return to Albany Rensselaer.

Test FL9 after turning in Harmon

The results?  Ride was good enough.  Rear end was a bit bouncy and underdamped.  Lateral accelerations were acceptable and well damped.  The only thing out of whack was the front truck appeared out of tram a bit as the flange wear was uneven.  This did not have a measurable impact on the ride, however, and we recommended raising the limit to 90 mph...

...only to have it struck down by the regional GM and, ultimately, the Sr. VP of Transportation, Dick Hasselmann.  Why?  They decided that the out of tram truck was a sign of poor maintenance.  (It was actually a sign of poor rebuilding.)  We just added this to the stack of his decisions we disagreed with and resubmitted them for approval in 1989, when he retired.

So, in 1989, the Amtrak FL9s finally go the go-ahead to operate at 90 mph.  In practice, train size often kept speeds under 90 mph, anyway.  Here are some pictures of the FL9s in action.

Hustling the Lake Shore Limited south through Casleton with an F40PH helping get things up to speed.  The F40PH would come off in Harmon and be added to the westbound later that day.

Headed through Cold Spring northbound.

At Albany-Rensselaer with HEP generator car.  Normally, the longer trains heading further upstate would have the FL9 dropped and an F40PH added.  HEP car is a mystery.

Arriving Hudson, northbound