Ok, it was my understanding the AMD103 was built for VIA, then Amtrash said "Hey! we want some of those."It looks like VIA never bought any. Amtrak now only runs the P42's and P32AC-DM (dual mode with a 3rd rail pick up) Genesis having taken the P40's out of service when the P42's arrived a few years later.iworks wrote:While not 100% certain, I don't believe VIA ever owned any AMD103 units, although it's possible they may have leased a few from Amtrak a couple of years ago, as far as I know, the P42's are the only units they have purchased in numbers since the F40PH-2's.
iworks wrote:
See http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 833&nseq=4 for a pic of a few standard blue coaches.
As far as years that VIA began running certain equipment
All carbody locos (F-units) were inherited I believe between 1976-78 when VIA was formed (first as a passenger subsidiary of government owned CN, CP passenger operations were absorbed shortly after), also the entire blue fleet and I believe most of the stainless steel fleet (including Budd RDCs) was also inherited at this time (I don't know about the ex-Amtrak equipment).
Everything else was put into operation shortly after being built, so all equipment built after 1978 would have gone into operation around the same time of building. All the F40PH-2's were bought new, as was the LRC and TURBO fleet (VIA actually didn't own the TURBO's, I believe United Aircraft owned them and provided VIA with 3 demo trainsets to test), as well as the newer late 1990, early 2000 Ren. fleets.
Ok that was what i assumed.
Those blue Coaches are a bit ugly. I can repaint the stainless coaches to match, did they have baggage or any other cars besides coach in the set?
The turbos were owned by CN and were hand-me-downs. I recall seeing early pictures of the VIA Turbos in VIA paint with a CN logo on the nose.
Wiki wrote:In May 1966 Canadian National Railways ordered five TurboTrains of seven cars each for the Montreal-Toronto service. They originally planned to operate these trains in tandem, connecting two trains together into a larger fourteen-car arrangement with a total capacity of 644 passengers. While the trains were being built they changed their plans, and in 1971 a rebuild program was put into effect, converting the five seven-car sets to three nine-car sets. The leftover power and passenger cars were sold to Amtrak as two 4-car sets. One of those sets sideswiped a freight train on a test run in 1973 and burned up before delivery. The Canadian trains were built by Montreal Locomotive Works, with their ST-6 engines supplied by UAC's Canadian division (now Pratt & Whitney Canada) "
There is some CN and BC passenger equipment in the PreAmtrak/Metro pack and it is still slowly growing to include more Canadian stuff.iworks wrote: By the way, if you want to bolster this pack, you may consider doing CPR and CNR paint schemes as well to include in the pack.
I rather keep the packs sepperate for now. maybe one day it will just be one big pack. The main reason the packs were sepperate was the date styles. most of my stuff runs by build dates(metra and metrolink being the exceptions), and i let you pick any livery that owned it even if it is the wrong year, the amtrak and Via sets go by years the livery owned it.
1971 was the death of passenger trains in the US that were not local metro service and the birth of amtrak I assume that is true in canada in 1978 with VIA.
) it is ashame it is so new that i cant find any more photos of her.