Almost 90% cleaner than the locomotives they replaced, the Charger locomotives allow the Pacific Surfliner service to meet growing demand for ridership while providing quieter, more efficient passenger rail service.
Amtrak
1 min to read
Almost 90% cleaner than the locomotives they replaced, the Charger locomotives allow the Pacific Surfliner service to meet growing demand for ridership while providing quieter, more efficient passenger rail service.
Amtrak
A total of 14 new Siemens Charger locomotives are now operational on Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner route, which carries nearly three million passengers a year to top destinations from San Diego to San Luis Obispo. The locomotives were originally unveiled by the Los Angeles — San Diego — San Luis Obispo Rail Corridor Agency and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) in October 2018.
The new Charger locomotive is the first passenger locomotive to receive the stringent Tier IV emissions certification from the Environmental Protection Agency, making it one of the cleanest diesel-electric passenger locomotives in operation today. The state-of-the-art locomotive, manufactured at Siemens’ solar-powered plant in Sacramento, California, now powers the majority of 24 daily Pacific Surfliner trains traveling through Southern California.
Almost 90% cleaner than the locomotives they replaced, the Charger locomotives allow the Pacific Surfliner service to meet growing demand for ridership while providing quieter, more efficient passenger rail service that helps relieve congestion on adjacent freeways like Interstate 5 and U.S. 101.
Siemens built the Charger locomotives for transportation agencies across the U.S. as part of a multi-state procurement project. The 14 Charger locomotives used on Pacific Surfliner service were funded by Caltrans with approximately $100 million in state, federal, and local funds, and replaced Amtrak-owned locomotives which were nearly 20 years old.
Amtrak will open grant applications March 23 for community projects near the Frederick Douglass Tunnel alignment in Baltimore as part of a $50 million investment tied to the B&P Tunnel Replacement Program.
The Denmark Station $2.3 million construction investment project includes a new 280-foot concrete boarding platform, built eight inches above the top of rail, for improved accessibility for passengers with disabilities and families with small children and much more.
Caltrain and its partners have implemented safety improvements at specific locations in response to known risk conditions, operational needs, and available funding since the agency’s founding.
On a recent episode of METROspectives, METRO Magazine’s Executive Editor Alex Roman sat down with Ana-Maria Tomlinson, Director of Strategic & Cross-Sector Programs at the CSA Group, to explore a bold initiative aimed at addressing those challenges: the development of a National Code for Transit and Passenger Rail Systems in Canada.
Competitive FTA grants will support accessibility upgrades, family-friendly improvements, and cost-efficient capital projects at some of the nation’s oldest and busiest transit hubs.
The 3.92-mile addition will soon take riders west beyond its current Wilshire and Western station in Koreatown, continuing under Wilshire Boulevard through neighborhoods and communities including Hancock Park, Windsor Square, the Fairfax District, and Carthay Circle into Beverly Hills.
Under the plan, all long-distance routes will transition to a universal single-level fleet, replacing today’s mix of bi-level and single-level equipment.
