Passenger Trains > Northeast Corridor Voltage

As I understand it, the old Pennsy/New Haven electric zone (Washington-New Haven and Philadelphia-Harrisburg) carried 11,000 volt, 25-cycle current. I also recall reading that Amtrak was upgrading to 25,000-volt, 60-cycle.

When did this changeover occur? Were some locomotives compatible with only one of these current arrangements?

Bob T.

You recall that the ex-NH from New Rochelle to New Haven is owned by Metro-North, not Amtrak. I gather from other discussions (on this or railroad.net) that Metro-North converted to 60 Hz in the 1980's. And of course the New Haven-to-Boston new electrification is 60 Hz.

But it seems that New Rochelle to Washington is still 25 Hz and is going to remain so. I forget whether it's 12 kV or 12.5 kV instead of the original 11 kV.

You should search back on this Discussion - this subject has been covered quite recently. As timz says, the new New Haven - Boston electrification is at 25kv, 60hz; but while MetroNorth converted to "commercial frequency" (60hz) when the New Haven's old Cos Cob power station had to be shut down, they could not go to the full 25kv (I *think* the catenary and insulation cannot take the higher voltage, and there was not enough money to replace these), so they settled for half of 25kv, that is, 12.5kv. South of New Rochelle, and from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, the original Westinghouse-specified 11kv, 25hz is still used.