Posted on January 16th, 2012 in Passenger Trains
In 2010 with the add and need of increased service, and a derailment involving 1792 needing to be scrapped, the North Carolina Department of Transportation bought four used EMD F59PH’s from Greater Ontario Transit. Three were rebuilt by American Motive Power in 2010-2011, and the last was rebuilt by Amtrak along with the NCDOT’s F59PHI’s due to American Motive Powers bankruptcy in 2011. All four units were built between 1988 and 1990 by GMD, each has a GMD 12 Cylinder Model 710G3 engine producing 3000HP. Total weight is 268000 lbs fully loaded, including the fuel tank that holds 1500 imperial gallons. Also each unit has a top speed of 105 MPH perfect for passenger train speeds. With the tradition of naming engines after the cites that Amtrak’s Piedmont runs through each are numbered with that units city date of founding. They are 1810 The City of Greensboro, 1859 The City of High Point, 1869 The City of Durham, and 1893 The City of Burlington. Engine 1 scenes 1 & 2 in the video. NCDOT…
