(The following story by Judy Rife appeared on the Times Herald-Record website on July 10.)
MIDDLETOWN, N.Y. — NJ Transit has approved the purchase of the innovative dual-powered locomotives that will make possible a one-seat ride to New York City from Orange County.
The agency’s board of directors awarded a $310 million contract for 26 of the new engines Wednesday to Bombardier Transit Corp., a U.S. subsidiary of the Montreal-based company.
Officials said the new locomotives will be more cost-effective and more environmentally-friendly than the equipment — some of it 40 years old — they will replace. The first engines are scheduled to arrive in 2011 and the last in 2012.
But the overarching value of the new locomotives will be their ability to bring trains on NJ Transit’s non-electrified lines into electrified territory — specifically, through the new Hudson River tunnel to an expanded New York Penn Station that the agency and the Port Authority plan to build. Construction of the $7.3 billion project, known as Access to the Region’s Core, or ARC, is expected to begin next year.
About 60 percent of NJ Transit’s rail network, as well as all of its Penn Station service, is electric, drawing power from overhead catenaries. The remainder, including the Main/Bergen line, which joins Metro-North’s Port Jervis line at the New York border, is diesel.
However, ARC will make it possible for trains using the non-electrified lines in North Jersey to travel directly into Midtown, eliminating the transfer at Secaucus Junction — providing they are equipped with these dual-powered locomotives.
NJ Transit has already committed to making the new equipment available to Metro-North trains so commuters from Orange and Rockland counties can take advantage of ARC. NJ Transit operates Metro-North trains on this side of the Hudson.
What sets these new engines apart is the ground-breaking technology that allows them to move between diesel and catenary power. Most dual-mode locomotives, such as the ones Metro-North uses on the other side of the river, switch between diesel and third-rail power.
“Not only are these our first dual-powered locomotives, they’ll be the first dual-powered locomotives that use catenary and diesel anywhere,” said Dan Stessel, a NJ Transit spokesman.