Passenger Locomotive is American Made, but German Designed

Siemens has built a plant in Sacramento, CA to manufacture "Made in America" locomotives.

Siemens Mobility

They started by building ACS-64 electric locomotives for Amtrak's electrified route between Boston and Washington DC based on the Vectron locomotive for the European market. In 2013, Illinois State worked with Siemens on behalf of several other states to develop a diesel electric locomotive that could be used on state subsidized Amtrak routes. [RailColorNews, Amtrak]

The Chargers are now in revenue service.

Mike Matalis

Mike Matalis

Mike Matalis commented on a posting

The good news is that the diesel engine is designed and built in Indiana.

From RailColorNews

I studied Cummins' description of the QSK95 for Rail to determine how they meet the Tier 4 requirements. Their engines do run at a higher RPM than the traditional locomotives engines. Their answer is "Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) technology." I believe that SCR implies Diesel Emissions Fluid (DEF) is needed. [Confimred: Cummins] The Class I railroads refuse to use DEF. But when you see all of the bells and whistles on a Tier IV GE locomotive and the reduced fuel effeciency, you have wonder why they can't add a tank for DEF.

(For My Reference: "It also depends very much on how the solution is defined. In the instant case of locomotive Tier 4 final standards, it might be observed that EMD missed being able to meet the NOx standard without SCR/urea on the 710 family by about 0.3%. Considering the absolute emission contribution of NOx from locomotive hours operating in the 'excess' part of operation, only a small percentage of an already small number of grams, and the substantial cost in many respects for EMD to design something to achieve it, I have to wonder if adjusting the standard to match engineering reality is something the government should have 'listened to'." [Posted by RME on Monday, March 13, 2017 12:33 PM])