Passenger Trains > VIA HEP or Steam?

Excuse the ignorance, really haven't been keeping up on these things. Just read a Yahoo-Groups discussions about the American Orient Express and some of the Logistics.
If they have some form of HEP, is it the same as Amtrak or any improvements? Any general dates? Any general comments?
I keep thinking of the CN ex-Milwaukee cars. Thanks.

TCnR Wrote:
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> If they have some form of HEP, is it the same as
> Amtrak or any improvements?

CN started purchasing HEP equipment in the late 1960s with the delivery of the Tempo equipment, which is now used on the Denver Ski trains. The LRC equipment, which originally entered service in the mid 1970s, was also HEP. The older CN passenger equipment remained steam heated.

When VIA Rail took over passenger operations from CN and CP in 1978, they mostly retired the older CN equipment, and continued to operate the ex-CP stainless steel equipment with steam heat. Later, they converted the CP equipment to HEP. That program has been completed, so steam heat has passed into history.

As far as improvements, one difference is that VIA can feed power down each side of the train separately, so you can put a locomotive on either end of the train, each feeding one side or the other. If one of them fails, then the cars will draw partial power from the other side. That means you never have a complete failure of the lighting or heating, though it might go to half load. With a single locomotive, power is looped back from one side to the other at the rear of the train.

The newest Nightstar equipment is of course all HEP.

> Any general dates?

The HEP conversion of the CP fleet was around 1990.

> I keep thinking of the CN ex-Milwaukee cars.

The dome cars had on-board diesel generator sets for air conditioning and lighting, but I believe were steam heated. The rest of the cars were all steam. The cars have either been scrapped, or sold back to various US owners.

Awesome. Thanks.

I distinctly remember sitting in the dark at Saguenay Power listening for well over twenty minutes as a single VIA FP-9 approached Herbertville, PQ before it finally arrived at the station.
Watching the curl of steam from the last car as it disappeared into the darkness. I was able to catch a tiny bit of video with Zippy's "yellow submarine" video camera but a long evenings ear candy is just memories now.
Thanks for reminding me.


TCS - 8 of us in Alma.

Awesome. Thanks.