On Track On Line - Turboliner Information

Turboliner Information

Last Update: November 1, 2018

TURBOLINER (RTL-II/RTL-III) TRAINSETS
The New York State Dept. of Transportation, Amtrak and the FRA provided funding to refurbish and upgrade the RTL trainsets built by Rohr Industries in the mid-1970s. The RTL-II was rebuilt in 1995, and featured higher horsepower turbines than the original equipment. The configuration of the RTL-II was: 2131-2279-2380-2281-2139. It was sent to SuperSteel Schenectady, Inc., in the summer of 2003, to await andother transformation, this time to an RTL-III. As events unfolded, the trainset was never converted, and it was scrapped in 2013. The original RTL-III program envisioned seven five-car trainsets. The first RTL-III trainset entered revenue service in April 2003, with the second one placed in revenue service a few weeks later. The third RTL-III was delivered to Albany/Rensselaer in September 2003, but was never used in active service. The three trainsets were effectively placed in dead storage due to problems with the air conditioning and other onboard systems that prevented them from being placed in regular revenue service. In September 2004 the three RTL-III trainsets were moved to Amtrak's Bear, DE facility, where they remain today. While the RTL-III refurbishments were in progress, Amtrak and Amtrak and New York State DOT attempted to renegotiate the configurations, with the possibility of adding an additional coach to existing trainsets. During the summer of 2004, negotiations stopped when the three RTL-IIIs were moved to Delaware, and the state of New York sued Amtrak over the alleged lack of support to bring 125-mph train service the the Empire State. SuperSteel Schenectady was ordered to stop work on the remaining trainsets. Eventually all remaining RTL-III car shells, as well as the RTL-II were stored outside the SuperSteel facility. Another company now occupies the building. In late 2012 the New York State Dept. of Transportation (NYSDOT) auctioned off the car shells, RTL-II and miscellaneous spare parts. The cars were all scrapped in January 2013. In January 2018, Amtrak moved RTL-III trainsets 2 and 3 (see below) to the Adams Maintenance of Way facility to use as emergency response training shells. Trainset 1 was moved to Connecticut in October 2018 for scrapping. Each five-car RTL-III trainset consisted of a Turbopower car - Coach - Cafe - Coach - Turbopower car. On the RTL-III, the odd-numbered Turbopower cars was configured for Business Class, while the other was configured for Coach. These trainsets were renumbered to make room for new P42s. The RTL-III trainset configurations: Trainset 1: 2135-2270-2383-2272-2158 Trainset 2: 2141-2288-2374-2284-2162 Trainset 3: 2143-2276-2389-2273-2150 Information on specific equipment follows:
TYPE		SERIES			CAPACITY		ACTIVE
Coach-RTL-II		2279, 2281			72		0
Cafe-RTL-II		2380			52		0
Coach-RTL-III		2270, 2272, 2284 2288, 2273, 2276			76		0
Cafe-RTL-III		2374, 2383, 2389			52		0
Turbopower (RTL-II)		2131, 2139			27 (Business Class)		0
Turbopower (RTL-III)		2135, 2141, 2143* 2150, 2158, 2162			24 (Business Class) 36 (Coach)		0 0
TURBOLINER POWER CARS
TYPE	SERIES	ACTIVE	SPEED	HP	WT	YEAR	BUILDER
RTL-II	2131, 2139	0	125	1600	151,000	1976/1995	Rohr/Amerail
RTL-III	see above	0	125	1600	151,000	1976/2000-2003	Rohr/SuperSteel
* RTL-III Turbopower car 2155 was renumbered to 2135.

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