Passenger Trains > Waste of Power

Lately Amtrak #347, the Illinois Zephyr has been running with 2 Genesis units back to back. This is on a 4 Horizon car train. Seems like overkill to me. They used to run this train with a Genesis on one end and a F40 Cab car on the other end so they wouldn\'t have to turn the consist. Have they sidelined the cab cars.

Today the #347 was annulled because of a freight derailment and it sat at West Quincy Mo. till the next morning. It had the AMT 157/AMT 19 and Superliners 34062,34082, and 35008. Once again seems like an excess of power.

Any ideas about the second motor--- Are the Genesis units breaking down and showing their U-boat heritage?

Regards
Q-GP30

Sometimes the engine house in Chicago will have an engine that has repeated failures on the road. They have attempted to fix it, but it failed again somewhere.

In these situations, Amtrak and freight railroads will put these clunkers on a short run or a local, where they can keep an eye on the unit. That might be the reason for two units occassionally on #347/348.

According to a good source from Chicago...

Amtrak is putting the second unit on for the Winter Operations plan for severe cold weather. As you are aware it had been very cold there lately. Hence why they switched over to Superliners. The Horizon cars don not handle the cold as well.

72 chevy

Snow yes, cold no. Hasn\'t been below 20 degrees here for a long time. Two motors have been the norm for a few months now.

Thanks for the info

Q-GP30

The Heartland Flyer between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth has been consistently using two Genesis units for three cars for months now, also used to use a "cab" unit on one end. Cold weather is definitely not an issue here!