Passenger Trains > 453 a Starlight regular?

#14 just past my house here in Dunsmuir and I noticed 453 as the second unit behind 116. Heres a photo I took last week of it on the point of #14 rounding Sawmill Curve above Dunsmuir. Are these units being assigned to this train for a reason?

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Probably the only reliable units they have in LA, Bob

In an effort to maintain reliabilty, EMD units are now assigned to the point.

(justkidding)

That's a nice photo, Bob.

Amtrak may be using F59s on the Starlight as a way to make them useful while they ferry them down to SoCal for maintenance. I noticed during my recent morning cruise-bys of the Amtrak yard in Seattle that several of the Cascades Service F59s are absent, while several of the Cal Service F59s are standing in for them. This is just a guess...maybe LociTroll or another Amtrak employee can shed some light.

All of the F59s are in the Amtrak West pool, just like the P42s 112-120, so they are theoretically as eligible for use on the Starlight as they are on the Surfliners or Cascades, so long as there are already enough engines for the latter two. The 5 new CDTX F59s also don't hurt in keeping engines plentiful. I actually heard a rumor a couple years ago that Amtrak West wanted ALL engines in their pool to be F59s (though that appears to be dead). My train 11 yesterday had 5 engines (3 of which were Oakland-LA), and all of which were either Dash-8s or F59s.

By the way, photobob, Dunsmuir was great. I saw a picture of yours above the toilet at the Gandy Dancer! Small town = small world, I guess (foreign concept for me). And it was for the better just to stay at the Travelodge.

is a pain in the neck. On the face of it seems a little silly to have a few P42s in the Amtrak West pool IF F59s can take those assignments over. However I believe the F59s are a bit short of fuel capacity, so perhaps that conditions the continuing allocation of a few P42s. Oddballs will always perform at less than par because the maintainence facility will often be short of spares for them, the crews are less used to working on them, and just because.

Don't often see an F59 running as a lead unit with the pilot
"open" like that. They usually only flip the top sections down
when an F59 is going to be a trailing unit, as the MU receptacles
are hidden back there.

While the blue and silver 450-series F59's are free to roam Amtrak
West, last year it seemed like they were trying to avoid using them
on the Starlight. The F59's had been frequent "pinch hitters" for
ailing 112-120-series P42's before that, but last year, other P42's
from Intercity started filling in instead. When the 8 or so
500-series GE's showed up out west last fall, they started filling
in on the Starlight too. Maybe with three 500's tied up on the
Reno Fun Train right now, there aren't enough GE's to go around
once again.

PeterRobinson wrote:

> Oddballs will always perform at less than par because the
> maintainence facility will often be short of spares for them, the
> crews are less used to working on them, and just because.

GE P42's shouldn't be "oddballs" at any of the Amtrak West engine
terminals. Nearly all of the shops that service F59's are also
charged with turning and servicing at least one Amtrak Intercity
long distance train powered by P42's.