“Talking Transportation”
By Jim Cameron
President
CAMERON COMMUNICATIONS INC
Author: “Off The Record: Confessions of a Media Consultant“
Finally, there’s some good news for Metro-North riders, especially those who take the Danbury, Waterbury and Hartford lines: new locomotives are coming… eventually.
Meet the Siemens Charger model SC-42DM, the first of its kind in the US.
Being built in Sacramento CA, these new engines are the latest innovation in the long history of this German manufacturer. It was Siemens that built the first electric tram in the late 1800’s. They even partnered to build one of the first commercial maglev trains, in Shanghai.
The Charger is a great machine and there are hundreds already in use in the US and abroad, running on railroads ranging from Amtrak and Brightline to commuter lines in Maryland, California and many other states. They’ve already accumulated 10 million miles of operation.
But our Charger locomotives will be different.
The DM in their name means they are “dual mode”, operating under diesel power and third rail. Unlike the older GE-built P32 Genesis locomotives, these new Chargers can “go electric” all the way from Pelham (in Westchester County) to Grand Central.
But they can’t run “under the wire” in Connecticut like our Kawasaki M8 cars (which are also dual-powered, equipped with pantographs and third rail shoes). That means that when running in Connecticut, the Chargers will be using diesel power.
The good news is that, even running diesel, these are some of the cleanest, least polluting fossil-fuel engines available. They are Tier 4 certified, meaning they reduce pollutants by 85%. They also accelerate faster.
Connecticut’s branch lines, especially the meandering Danbury line, will never match the speeds of the mainline. But with so many stations, on a steep upward grade, if every departure can be quicker, there will be time savings.
The new Chargers are equipped with electronic monitoring and diagnostics to alert the crew to any problems. They’re even quieter, thanks to active noise cancellation technology.
But all of this innovation comes with a hefty price tag: $15 million per locomotive.
Metro-North has 27 of the new Chargers on order and just received their first two. If testing on the new Chargers goes well, the railroad has an option to buy dozens more. CDOT is also buying six of the same model.
Siemens has also built dual-mode Chargers for Amtrak. But in that case they operate “under the wire” on the Northeast Corridor. Realistically, the third-rail version makes much more sense for Metro-North which has over 100 miles of electrified track (on its Hudson and Harlem lines) where third-rail is the only power source.
The Metro-North locos were ordered in 2020, paid for in part by a grant from the Federal Transit Administration which is pumping $1.5 billion into new rolling stock for mass transit nationwide through 2026.
These first two new Chargers for Metro-North now have to undergo testing, first at the FRA test track in Pueblo CO, then running on Metro-North tracks. This first duo of the new model should be in service, they say, by 2025.
Jim Cameron is founder of the Commuter Action Group and advocates for Connecticut rail riders. His weekly column “Talking Transportation” is archived here. You can contact Jim at [email protected].
