Hello everyone and welcome to another new video!
I’m briefly back in front of the camera because I have something that’s rather unique
and really special to share with you.
We are in Sacramento, California today...
Uhh.. haha!
Hold on one second.
(Snap)
Ahh, that’s better.
Anyway, we are in Sacramento, California today to visit the Siemens Mobility rail equipment
manufacturing plant that’s just a few miles down the road from here in Florin.
I was very graciously invited by Siemens Mobility and Amtrak to document the completion of the
very first ALC-42 locomotive, engine number 300, and outline the assembly process for
these machines.
The ALC-42 is part of the Siemens Charger diesel-electric locomotive series and pretty
soon, you will be able to see these new locomotives on the long distance Amtrak trains as well
as some of the shorter haul intercity runs.
I was able to talk with Armin Kick of Siemens Mobility as well as Roger Harris and Scot
Naparstek from Amtrak about these new locomotives and how they will be used on Amtrak’s system.
Now today’s video is actually the first in what will be a three part series.
This video will be a first look at the completed ALC-42 locomotive and then the next part,
which will hopefully be next week, will be a behind the scenes tour of the actual manufacturing
process.
And finally, part 3 will be a journey as we follow the locomotive on its maiden voyage
as it is moved on the Amtrak California Zephyr back east for delivery to Amtrak in Washington,
DC.
So, without further delay, let’s put on all the necessary safety equipment and head
over to Florin to take a look at locomotive 300, the very first ALC-42.
My name is Armin Kick.
I'm the Vice President for locomotives and high speed trainsets for Siemens Mobility
in North America.
Roger Harris, Executive Vice President, Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer.
I'm Scot Naparstek, the Executive Vice President, Chief Operations Officer.
The Charger locomotive is our diesel-electric locomotive built by Siemens Mobility for the
North American market.
At the time when the Charger was created, a call went out to the employees to come up
with ideas for names and the employees engaged in that and the most popular name was chosen
and this was how the Charger was born.
The ALC-42, that stands for Amtrak Long Distance Charger, and that is the locomotive that we're
building for Amtrak for the long distance services.
The long distance routes at Amtrak provide essential service across the country to many
rural and small communities and are a really important part of the economic backbone of
rural America
Amtrak is purchasing 75 Amtrak Long Distance Chargers from us and those locomotives will
run on the national network for the long distance services and they will be replacing the P42
locomotives.
The ALC-42 locomotive differs in a number of ways from other Charger locomotives.
Since this locomotive runs on the national network, it has all PTC units onboard or provisions
for those so that the locomotive can really go everywhere in the national network.
Also, what we changed here is the maintenance regime of this locomotive so we have a 184
day maintenance cycle on this locomotive, so we made specific changes for that.
Well the ALC-42s are important for Amtrak because as we look at refreshing and revitalizing
the fleet, they become an important part of our diesel locomotive alternative, which really
handles the long distance as well as some of our state services lines.
Well I think it will improve the passenger experience in two ways.
First of all, they will get a good appreciation of their environmental footprint in terms
of sustainability and secondly, they will provide reliable service across the system.
The ALC-42 is a very universal locomotive.
What is interesting about it is it can go anywhere on the national network, so it is
equipped with all of the safety systems need and it takes into consideration all of the
conditions in North America.
And with that, it can go anywhere on the national network.
The ALC-42s we're bringing in will have many improvements from a safety, reliability, and
a customer experience perspective.
Reliability - we're replacing some older diesel engines that certainly have given us good
life and are still running strong but have increased maintenance costs as well as increased
challenges from a reliability perspective.
We'll be able to immediately increase reliability with a state of the art new diesel locomotive.
The other improvements with onboard diagnostics and the latest technology from a positive
train control perspective, we increase safety as well as give ourselves the ability to really
advance our maintenance practices to insure even greater reliability and I think finally,
from a sustainability standpoint, we're looking at tier 4 locomotives, which has advanced
from where we are today with our P42 fleet.
We'll decrease our carbon footprint, and I think that is an advantage for the entire
country.
Some of the innovations that we implemented on the Amtrak Long Distance Charger locomotive
is a new front nose design.
That is very visible to everybody.
It also has advantages for accident repair.
It can be removed much easier than the previous design.
The Long Distance Charger also comes with 2,200 gallon fuel tank capacity, as it runs
on the national network.
We do a good deal of business already with Siemens.
We operate the Siemens built SC-44 Charger locomotives in state supported service.
The ALC-42 is a 4,200 horsepower locomotive and it has a reduced fuel consumption based
on the innovative design that we came up with on the Charger.
So, the Charger has a safety cage, which protects the occupants of the vehicle.
It also has push back couplers for crash energy management and it complies with all of the
requirements in the PRIIA specifications, such as S-580 requirements.
These locomotives are going to be very important for our sustainability.
They're our first Tier 4 low emissions locomotives for the long distance services and it will
greatly transform our greenhouse gas footprint.
The Charger is a very environmentally friendly locomotive.
It has a modern Cummins engine, a QSK95 engine, onboard coupled with a sophisticated aftertreatment
system that uses DEF to reduce the emissions.
DEF is diesel exhaust fluid.
It's also called urea.
And that is used to break down the emissions from the locomotive.
The emissions from this locomotive are approximately 90% less compared to Tier 0 locomotives that
are still running today on the railroad.
When designing the Charger locomotive, we took into consideration the needs of the engineers
that use the product and sit in the cab for very long times.
And so, we came up with a very spacious design and we vetted that with engineers to ensure
that it would be a very pleasant working environment for them.
Moving Beyond is a motivation for Siemens to be entrepreneurial and come up with better
and cleaner solutions for the future.
In regards to our locomotive business, obviously, that is exactly what it stands for.
We want to be the the entrepreneurs and the partners for our customers to build an excellent
product that helps them deliver their task and do that in a very environmentally friendly
way.
Well, passenger rail is really the solution for the future in terms of addressing congestion
issues in areas where there is no more room for highways and also in terms of reducing
our green house gas emissions footprint.
Passenger rail is important for the United States.
We're seeing more and more urbanization, population growth is taking place and it is predominantly
taking place in urbanized areas and it's very important to connect those urban areas with
environmentally friendly transportation.
The train really fulfills the need for the segment too short to fly, too long to drive
and we see dramatic increases in demand coming.
And so, train services in the United States will increase in the coming years and, definitely,
the population, also, is looking for that.
Younger folks are not so eager to buy cars or drive long distances.
They have different needs.
They want to be connected.
They can be that on the train from sitting down to getting up, and we see a real shift
in the market, where train services are in much higher demand than in previous decades.
Amtrak provides mobility in many rural and urban population centers.
We provide employment throughout the country to almost 20,000 employees.
The ALC-42 contract runs for about five to six years for us, so we will be building locomotives
here for the foreseeable future in order to fulfill the contract for all 75 units.
Locomotives have come a long way in the last 200 years.
These Siemens Chargers are impressive highly advanced machines that will continue the more
than two century long tradition of moving people by rail.
The coming years look bright as Amtrak and Siemens usher in the next era in US Passenger
railroading with the new ALC-42.
Hey everyone, I really hope you enjoyed this look at the ALC-42 and a tremendous thank
you to everyone at both Siemens-Mobility and Amtrak who worked to make this happen.
A big thank you to all of you.
I’d also like to thank Armin Kick, Roger Harris, and Scot Naparstek for providing interviews
for this video.
If you have any additional questions or comments for me, as always, please leave those down
below in the comments section and remember to come back next Friday at 9 AM Pacific Time
for the full tour of the factory and the assembly process of these locomotives.
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I’ll see you next week for
the full
factory tour.
That’s it for now.
Until next time, I’m Mike Armstrong.
I’ll see you down the line!
Thanks for watching.