Grassroots Railroad Sports?

02Pilot said:

On the subject of trainsets, any idea what this is? I spotted it on Google Maps looking for something else. It's in New Haven, CT, which may be a clue.

So I was puzzled and posted this photo over to the good folks at Reddit to see if they knew. Turns out, the reason I couldn't find a match was because I was looking at electric equipment. This is a gas-turbine set. More specifically, it's an RTL-III. After Amtrak had success with the French-built ANF T 2000 RTG Turboliners, Amtrak ordered another seven from Rohr Industries that were mechanically similar but slightly cosmetically different and called an RTL. In 1995, Amtrak and New York state collaborated on a rebuild program, called the RTL-II, where Morrison-Knudsen installed new more powerful Turbomeca Makila T1L turbines and Amtrak overhauled the interiors at their ex-New York Central Beech Grove facilities to the tune of $2 million. It was run on the Northeast Corridor and was a success, being capable of 125mph.

In 1998, Amtrak and NY again worked out a deal to rebuild all of the RTLs to RTL-IIIs to improve Northeast Corridor service. NY coughed up $185 million for track work to allow regular 125mph operations and for the rebuilds of the RTLs at Super Steel Schenectady and in return NY would take ownership of the trainsets once Amtrak accepted them into general service (Amtrak would continue to operate them though). The first two RTL-IIIs were supposed to be done in 1999, with the remaining five entering service in 2002, but the first one didn't actually enter service until April of 2003 and of the later 5, only one was ultimately rebuilt. Amtrak then withdrew the three completed RTL-IIIs from service in June of '03, citing issues with air-conditioning.

In 2004, New York sued Amtrak in federal court for $477 million, both for not operating the trainsets and for failing to complete track work in the Empire Corridor to permit regular 125-mile-per-hour operation. Amtrak mothballed the equipment at its maintenance facility in Bear, Delaware, which then caused NY to accuse Amtrak of stealing the equipment that NY had paid to rebuild and was supposed to have received ownership of and threatened to find a new vendor for intercity passenger service in the state. Amtrak replaced the Turboliner trains with conventional equipment to make amends.

In 2005 New York reached a settlement with Super Steel to end the failed program for $5.5 million, requiring them to stop work on the project, cover remaining costs, and move the four unfinished trains into storage at a nearby industrial park. This settlement, when added to the $64.8 million previously spent, brought total project expenses to $70.3 million, for three mothballed trainsets and 4 in various states of repair. In 2007, Amtrak and New York settled their own lawsuit, with Amtrak paying New York $20 million. Amtrak and New York further agreed to commit $10 million each to implement track improvements in the Empire Corridor. New York was paying $150,000 per year to store the unused incomplete trains and auctioned off its four surplus Turboliners in 2012 for $420,000, including spare parts, all of which were scrapped in 2013. The three remaining RTL trainsets owned by Amtrak are stored, with two at Bear, Delaware and the one you found at New Haven. Quite a controversial machine.

The one at Cedar Hill is #2135. Part of the RTL-III rebuild included painting it in the Acela livery, so that's why I first thought it was an Acela.

In reply to NickD :

Huh, that's quite the history. I too was looking for electric equipment, and also assumed because it was in CT that the seal was theirs, rather than the NY state seal as shown above.

When I was very young (maybe 7 or so) my father talked my way into the cab and I got to drive one of the original Turbotrains (at least I'm pretty sure that's what it was) Amtrak ran between NYC and Montreal for 15 minutes or so. I don't imagine it's quite as easy to do that now as it was in the 70s....

In reply to 02Pilot :

Turbotrain?

Or Turboliner?

Amtrak used Turboliners on the Adirondack, which was the old D&H Laurentian service from NYC to Montreal and back

One of the power cars and two coaches from the original French-built RTG Turboliners is rotting away in a Duggar, Indiana auto junkyard. It's pretty far gone but pretty fascinating.

In reply to NickD :

Turboliner, my error. My recollection is quite vague, but I do seem to recall a very simple control layout, which is borne out by the photos above.

In reply to 02Pilot :

Turboliners were good. Turbotrains were bad. 

Funny because, the Turboliner was French built and the Turbotrain was American built, so that seems a little backwards.

Ahhh, trainsets. Sometimes wildly successful, sometimes a screaming miss. 
 

File the Aerotrain under Screaming Miss. GM developed the Aerotrain in the early '50s from an EMD 567 prime mover making 1200 hp and a ten-car train developed from GM bus bodies. Aluminum construction was used throughout; despite the light weight, the unit was chronically underpowered, rode roughly, and in several cases required helper locomotives to conquer various grades. 
The styling, however, was absolutely divine for the era. Too bad it didn't see widespread success. 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerotrain_(GM)

What was really weird was Rock Island's Jet Rocket. Rock Island compared both the GM Aerotrain and the American Car & Foundry Talgo and really liked the more outrageous styling of the EMD LWT-12 power car over the ACF's more conventionally-styled Fairbanks-Morse P12-42 power car. But Rock Island much preferred the Talgo's single-axle coaches that were suspended off each other over GM's more conventional dual-axle cars. So Rock Island ordered cars from ACF and an LWT-12 off of EMD and mixed and matched them to make the Jet Rocket. The ACF coaches differentiated by the straight up-and-down windows and blunt rear car. Because the ACF cars used a different coupler than the LWT-12, the Jet Rocket power car was incompatible with the two Aerotrain car sets that Rock Island would eventually purchase from GM at a fire sale price.

What's funny about the Aerotrain is that despite being a sales bomb (NYC and PRR both bought one set and returned them to GM, they were so disgusted) they were the longest-lived of the lightweight trainsets of the '50s. Rock Island ended up with both, alongside the Jet Rocket, and ran them in commuter service for a decade. The fact that they were a regular EMD powertrain under the Atomic Age aluminum skin probably helped. No weirdo Maybach V12s, or Fairbanks-Morse opposed-piston 2-strokes or Mekydro hydraulic drives to constantly need tinkering. Just an EMD 12-567C engine, a D15C generator and 2 D37B traction motors. The B-1 wheel layout was pretty freakish too. 

American passenger train aesthetics have declined precipitously since the 1950s. The Acela is about the only current thing with a hint of style, and it's only a hint.

In reply to 02Pilot :

Yup. The '40s and '50s gave us awesome stuff.

Like EMD E5s

And EMD E8s

Alco had DL109s

And PAs, arguably the most beautiful locomotive constructed.

I don't know if I'd call Baldwin "Babyfaces" attractive, but they sure were unique

The Sharknoses sure were cool though

And then FM had the Erie Builts

And the C-Liners

Then the '70s gave us stuff that looked like an 8-bit E-Unit. Still kinda cool, but a step backwards.

Like F40s

And P30CHs

And now we have stuff like the Genesis, although they are on the way out

And those new Siemens Chargers are dreadful.

It also doesn't help that Amtrak's liveries are all pretty drab. Silver and grey with some dark blue and a little red is pretty underwhelming. 

All I see around here are the Genesis (Amtrak and Metro-North) and the occasional BL20GH.

I miss the stripey Amtraks. This one reminds me of toothpaste.

In reply to slowbird :

Those were the Phase II and Phase III paint schemes. Also nicknamed "Pepsi Cans." 

I like the Phase 1 livery. It even makes a Genesis look decent

In reply to slowbird :

One of the striped Genesis heritage units runs around here. I'll try to get a shot the next time I see it.

In reply to NickD :

I wonder what an Alco PA would look like in Phase 1 paint. I don't think any survived that long outside of freight service...

Recon1342 said:

In reply to NickD :

I wonder what an Alco PA would look like in Phase 1 paint. I don't think any survived that long outside of freight service...

D&H ran theirs until 1977 hauling Amtrak's Adirondack from '74-'77, so they actually existed into the Phase III era. But D&H ran it as their own train, with D&H locomotives in D&H livery, D&H passenger cars, and D&H employees. Everything onboard was blue and yellow. It was kind of a point of contention, as D&H was supposed to just be operating the train for Amtrak until Amtrak got its feet under it, but Amtrak felt that they had basically hijacked the operation.

Google searching Amtrak Alco PA turned up this:

Apparently Con-Cor made a phantom Amtrak Phase I Alco PA in N-scale at one point.

In reply to NickD :

I knew D&H had operated them. Looks good in Phase 1 livery, although to be honest, I don't think there were any bad color schemes on the PA. Maybe good and better, but none bad. 

In reply to Recon1342 :

Missouri Pacific's PAs were particulalrly nice in cream and slate blue with brushed stainless steel trim and yellow pinstriping.

MoPac's E-units also looked great. Really underrated livery.

Its too bad that not a single Alco DL-109 escaped the torch. The DL-109 was Alco's first production road locomotive, which they built from '39-45. They used A-1-A trucks, which would make them appear to be passenger locomotives, but Alco billed them as a dual-purpose locomotive so that they could get around the War Production Board's ruling that no strictly passenger locomotives could be built. New Haven ran theirs in freight use, so they could and were actually used as such. They made 2000hp from 2 Macintosh & Seymour 539T turbocharged I-6 diesels making 1000hp a piece. Styling was done by famed industrial designer Otto Kuhler, and while it bore a close resemblance to an EMD E3-E6, it had a raised body line around the headlight and a three-piece windshield with square porthole windows. The only styling screw-up was the huge blocky radiators that were positioned on the sides and almost looked like baggage car doors. Sales were not strong, with Santa Fe only buying 1 A-unit and B-unit, Chicago & Northwestern bought a single A-unit, Milwaukee Road bought 2 A-units, Rock Island bought 4 A-units, GM&O bought 4 A-units, Southern bought 3 A-units and 3 B-units and New Haven bought a whopping 60 A-units.

The DL-109s ran up a lot of miles during WWII, particularly New Haven's batch of 60 which hauled passenger trains all day and freight at night and so by the mid-'50s they were pretty worn out. Most of them began to hit the scrapyards around '54, around the same time as a lot of steam engines. The preservationist mindset was not widespread at the time and those people and museums who were so minded were busy trying to snap up as many steam engines as they could. The mindset of diesels would be that they would always be around (people thought the same of the steam engines) and weren't aware that many first generation diesels like DL-109s and Baldwin "Babyfaces" were rapidly going extinct as well. It wasn't until 1969 that anyone really even seemed to think of saving early diesels when David Page Morgan wrote an editorial saying "...we think it's high time thought is given to the preservation of significant units. JCL's 1000 and B&O's 51 are in Baltimore, St. Louis has an FT, Louisville recently acquired an E-6...and there's precious little else." And even then, museums and historical society didn't really get serious until well into the '70s.

New Haven is reported to have used a dozen unique paint schemes on there DL-109s (the New Haven called them DER-1s). I've seen photos of at least 6 or 7 of them.

Orange with white stripes and a black roof

A unique red-orange with white striping for hauling The Cranberry

Black with large yellow striping. This photo was from 1956, and the white flags its flying are for a special train not on the schedule. If I had to guess, this was likely a railfan farewell special before the DL-109s were retired.

Black with white pinstripes (there is a photo of one in black with gray in a Don Ball Jr. book)

Dark green with yellow striping

A dark green or black with yellow pinstriping.

#0759 was the only one to wear the McGinnis paint scheme.

#0716, in a solid orange and lettered PP-716, was a particularly noteworthy one. It was the last DL-109 in existence. After being retired from regular service, New Haven painted it in MoW orange, removed one of the 539T engines and generators, as well as all of the traction motors and the air compressor. The sole remaining engine and generator was used to energize segments of third rail to test repairs for years. NH stopped using it sometime in the '60s and parted out the remaining  539T engine, presumably to keep some of their old Alco switchers running. It hung around the Dover yard into the Penn Central era before being scrapped sometime between 1969 and 1971 (reports vary). At least one person looked at trying to preserve the gutted hulk, but found it too expensive to move. New Haven management probably wasn't in the donating mood either, after having been forced to scrap the last three NH steam locomotives when no one would accept them as a donation.