Could More Dual Modes Be A Suitable Substitute For Electrification?

In today's post, I'm going to build on yesterday's post about the Crippling State of the LIRR's Diesel Fleet, by talking more about the future of the LIRR's current diesel fleet.

In the LIRR's most recent 20-year needs assessment (which will soon be getting a post of it's own), the LIRR didn't mention anything about electrification out to Port Jefferson or Patchogue, hinting this is not coming in the next 10 or so years. They did say that they'd analyze it in the 2025-2029 capital program, suggesting it's coming.

While it wasn't mentioned in the 20-year needs assessment, the LIRR once again, for like the third capital program, did mention possible future electrification of the Main Line to Yaphank, along with capacity improvements on the Port Jefferson and Montauk branches. It seams, at least for now, that given the order of up to 66 new locomotives, they're going down the dual-mode route. Even if they weren't to electrify the Main Line to Yaphank, 66 new locomotives would be more than enough equipment to cover service on the Port Jefferson Branch, Montauk Branch, Oyster Bay Branch, and Main Line east of Ronkonkoma. They may also have enough equipment to use it as a supplement to MUs on busy trains on other electrified lines, such as an 8-car MLV set covering a busy westbound Babylon Branch train in the morning, for example.

I believe the LIRR made the right choice with replacement of it's diesel fleet. They bought enough of them to provide a comfortable level of service, where they don't have to worry about not having enough equipment, something they constantly have to deal with now, and they have a little "wiggle room" to expand. I mean, look, it's better to have extra diesels around, which could be used to supplement electric trains during events, or provide emergency service during after major catastrophes (think Long Beach after Hurricane Sandy), then to have too few when electrification projects fall through. 

I'd much rather have a couple of extras lying around, which I guarantee you they can somehow find a way to use, and even if they can't they can always lease them. Some have voice concerns about ordering too many, and then it would "come back to bite them" if they do manage to finish any electrification projects during that timeframe. To me, this is very shortsighted as given the MTA's current track record of getting things done, they typically set a release date and it typically goes over that, sometimes by even a third or half. If they are planning to electrify, then they'll have 25 years before these new locomotives are due for replacement, to finish the job. 

At this point, I think the LIRR should focus on improving service with the current fleet they've got and is getting. While electrification has and probably always will be the ideal option, as it allows for the lowest operating costs, direct service to all terminals, I believe if they truly make the best possible use out of the diesel equipment they have, then they could provide a level of service comparable to the average electric line.  Look at Metro-North, for example, which provides hourly dual-mode service to/from Poughkeepsie (besides the last train of the night from Croton-Harmon.) Those trains are constantly the most popular in the entire system, and are even more travelled than the electric trains are. If the LIRR were to adopt a similar system, they could possibly be even more successful.

I believe the main reason diesel service is so unattractive is because of the gaps. Frequencies are generally fine right now, and if they were to electrify to Patchogue and Port Jefferson, or provide dual-mode service, then they could probably provide hourly service to Port Jefferson and service every 30 minutes to Patchogue. While I believe hourly service is enough for my home section of the Montauk Branch west of Patchogue, if they were to electrify, they'd probably have to provide 30 minutes as a compensation for taking land. Plus they love to spoil this area anyway, so if there gonna electrify, you might as well let them do it. It would bring a lot to my area to have half-hourly service to points west.

Dual-Mode Fever

The massive order of 66 locomotives is more than enough to provide a baseline of hourly service from Patchogue, Oyster Bay, and Port Jefferson direct into Penn Station during pretty much all hours of the day, along with even better peak service than what is provided today. I'd say the biggest improvements would be on the East End, where they could close some of the largest gaps in service and provide more peak options. Look at Metro-North, which, like I mentioned above, provides a baseline of hourly-service to/from Poughkeepsie; that could represent service levels of Port Jefferson and Patchogue. Meanwhile, Danbury would do a great job representing Speonk and Oyster Bay (with roughly bi-hourly to/from HPA), Waterbury would represent the North Fork (with mainly shuttles to Ronkonkoma, possibly with the added bonus of a thru-train every once in a while), and Wassiac would represent service levels on the South Fork. Not only does Metro-North have considerable success with it's dual-mode operations, but, NJTransit's dual-modes are also doing a pretty good job.

If they are so popular, you may be wondering why the LIRR doesn't provide more dual-mode service now. I mean they have the equipment for it, and the demand, don't they? Well, the main reason they limit it is because they really don't have enough equipment to do so, and now that they'll have more equipment, this issue will finally be resolved.

I think the LIRR's main goal with buying these locomotives is mainly not only to expand their diesel fleet, but also to buy time to stall on electrification. Like I mentioned earlier, electrification should be the ultimate reward for these communities, as it provides a level of service that can't be seen using dual-modes, period, if the LIRR does a "free trial" using the dual-modes for 10-15 years, people of the communities in diesel territory will begin to realize the benefits, and possibly be more open to electrification.

In conclusion, yes, if the LIRR actually steps up and decides to make use of the new dual-mode locomotives to provide much-wanted dual-mode service, then, I strongly believe dual-mode service could supplement electrification, at least for a little while. 

Included below is a poll. Considering it's going to be another 20-25 years or so before these new coming locomotives are replaced, I'd love to know your opinion on how far you think the LIRR will have electrified it's system by the time 2045 rolls around:

online polls

The Crippling State of the LIRR’s Diesel Fleet

When the beloved, but poorly-designed DE and DM30AC’s first rolled onto Long Island, providing seamless one-seat rides into Manhattan, along with numerous other capacity improvements, long went the tired GP38s, MP15s, and the P72 coaches from the 1950s. The new equipment was one of the LIRR’s first uniform diesel fleets, and with the advantages come the disadvantages as the LIRR then had to convert all low-level stations to high level, resulting in certain beloved, but lesser used stations (especially out on the East End) being closed for good. 

I strongly believe LIRR employees and commuters alike are much better off with the modern equipment, however, while they have their advantages, the locomotives, in particular, have long suffered from chronic reliability issues.

Reliability 

The DE/DMs are not known to be very reliable, and they had terrible teething trouble in their first couple of years of service. While things haven’t gotten to the point where replacement literally can’t be avoided, as they’ve gotten older, they’ve gotten even less reliable.

Recent MBDF (mean distance between failure) numbers have been abysmal for these trains, as they’ve gotten older they’ve gotten even less reliable. While in the last decade or so, MBDF numbers have remained pretty much at a steady rate, they’re still at a very low level. 

As you can see, MBDF numbers lie around the 20-40,000 mile mark. Obviously, things have stabilized slightly, but once again, they seam to be going slightly downhill, and as they’ve gotten older, they will continue to go down. Unfortunately, this graph I found (I can’t find the actual graph for MBDF data, I’ll have to look harder at a later time), doesn’t include the MBDF numbers for the M9s, but I can tell you that they’re numbers lie slightly above the M7s, which are very, very, very slowly starting to show age, at a very slow pace, as they are truly well-made MUs.

As you can see, while the C3’s numbers stabilized for a couple years back in 2016/17/18x they then went up, probably due to the pandemic, then they went sharply downhill following 2022, coming back to the previous state. You’d think it’s a bit odd that the C3’s would be misbehaving, as they have much few moving parts then the locomotives do, and they also don’t have an engine. 

Photo: The LIRR Today

Traditionally, diesels have had much lower MBDF’s then that is seen on MU fleets, as they actually have an engine and typically have the most moving parts. This is a trend that is seen elsewhere across the region as well. 

Capacity 

The second major disadvantage of the current diesel equipment is the fact that there is simply not enough of it. The LIRR ordered just 23 DEs, 23 DMs, and 134 C3’s, to replace a diesel fleet much bigger in size. This would go back to haunt them on summer weekends. At the time, the LIRR only ordered the bare minimum of what equipment was needed to cover the bare bone service they provided at the time, but as we’ve seen, as the communities out in diesel territory have grown significantly since then, and so as the Summer Hamptons ridership, so now we’re stuck in the situation where there’s lots of added ridership, but no way to improve service.

Photo: the_rail_commuter

These days, the LIRR needs about 88% of its fleet in regular weekday service. Yes, you heard that right, 88%! And that’s just in regular weekday service. Imagine what it would be like during the summer months, especially on summer Fridays! During regular weekday service, that leaves a very small shop margin, and that leaves very little room for error.

Obviously, the fleet is stretched very thin in regular weekday service, and when special events add demand for the diesel equipment, the LIRR starts to completely run-out of equipment. On summer Fridays, to provide summer service to the Hamptons, the LIRR is literally stretched to its absolute limits, and they must use every last resource they have and in many cases, they simply have to “Rob Peter to pay Paul”. They simply just cut cars from other trains on the Port Jefferson and Oyster Bay branches to put those cars on the evening trains to/from the Hamptons and Montauk. I’ve even seen them take even more cars from other Montauk branch trains, most notably being train 76 (the 3:10p from Jamaica to Patchogue), which I’ve noticed commonly runs one-car short at 3 cars on summer Fridays, its most popular day of the week.

Luckily, but sadly, new equipment is on the way. The LIRR ordered 44 new dual-mode locomotives from Siemens, with an option for up to 66 locomotives. I’m currently not sure if the option has been exercised- I’ve been trying to comb through the information and figure it out but I’m going to assume they did, considering if they didn’t, they’d be ordering less locomotives then they have now, therefore screwing themselves even more. But at this point, it’s anyone’s guess if they will option the 66 or not.

66 locomotives be a greatly-welcomed improvement, and while I wouldn’t say the Chargers are my number one first choice for locomotives for the LIRR, I truly like their livery, which I plan to do a separate post on soon, and they seam to be pretty promising.

Now onto the C3’s. I personally don’t want to see them replaced, and I’m dreading that day when they finally toot their final goodbyes, as these are my home cars and have consequentially became my favorite ones, too. Unlike their locomotive counterparts, they aren’t aging quite as much, and typically, coaches outlive their locomotive counterparts by about 10 years or so. Therefore, they should have another 10-15 years on them. Now, you may be wondering, if they plan to order more locomotives, but no coaches, how do they fix the capacity issues? That’s a question I’m asking myself and while there’s no official answer it seams the MTA may be trying to order more multilevels, I believe based off  NJT’s new ones, but I’m not sure. I saw a clip from the MTA that had this information, but I can’t find it anywhere and I need to see the full thing to know more.

Look, in conclusion, while I’m really going to miss the DE and DM30ACs, as I’ve grown up with them, and they are truly great locomotives despite being plagued with reliability problems. I sure em going to miss those their horns! But at the end of the day, they are getting older, and it’s getting to the point where every summer is a living hell due to their equipment failures. These locomotives are the major limiting factor as to why the LIRR can’t offer better service out in diesel territory, and that’s hurting ridership and limiting growth.

Whatever happened to DM30AC #507? The Strange Case of DE30AC #423

If you’ve been railfanning the rails for years now (unlike yours truly who can only say “est.
2022”), you may remember DM30AC #507. DM30AC #507 started out as a normal engine in passenger service, with no problems, however, in the late 2000s, #507 suffered an electrical cabinet failure and was deemed unfit for service and was removed from service with all dual-mode parts being stripped.

The engine than sat in Morris Park for a while and unlike unlucky #503, was later renamed to #423 and returned to service as a DE30AC. From what I’ve found, #507 rentered service as #423 on October 10, 2013, however the exact dating could not be verified. One of my favorite railfans, Avasic1995 had gotten video of it while railfanning at his favorite spot, New Hyde Park on 10/25.

This story is a textbook example of the saying “Half the loaf is better than none” as it’s better to have a DE30AC in service then it is to have a DM30AC sitting in Morris Park. I mean hey, #423 is very useful, I see it all the time on those crowded Friday party trains in the summer (#656 and #76, I’m directly talking about you)

To end off this post, let’s take a look at some nice photos of #423 (and of #507 before it died):

If you guessed this was taken in the cab then pat yourself on the back as your correct.

Take a look at the fuel tank. Notice how it’s different than a normal DE30AC?

Late Friday Links 12/20

Happy Friday everyone! Now that I’m on break, my schedule has greatly improved and quite a few articles are scheduled the next couple of days so make sure to check every morning.Here  are a good couple of articles for your commute home:

• Drunk Driver On Tracks At Elmont

I didn’t have time to make a post on this; but I have failed to mention this. A brooklyn man somehow managed to drive an SUV onto the railroad tracks at Elmont- UBS Arena.

• NJ Transit Rail Strike in January Possible Dates

I haven’t talked about New Jersey Transit recently, so I thought I’d mention it. There are rumors of a possible rail strike in January.

• MTA Board Approves Chargers

The MTA board has approved a deal to replace the aging DE and DM30ACs. I’m personally saddened by this, as these are my home locomotives, but it’s a very worthwhile investment as these cars are aging and becoming extremely unreliable.

• 2025 SMEE Replacement - MTA

The New York City Subway also announced they’ll begin “replacing” the R62, R62A, and R68 cars in 2025, however, I doubt that.

I hope everything will run smoothly this weekend, as it’s an important one, and I’m hoping the loads won’t be too bad. If you got on vacation today, like me, I hope you enjoy your week (s) off.