Train of the Week

The Talent , short for Talbot Leichter Nahverkehrs Triebwagen, is a family of multiple units for mainline railway use. It was developed by Waggonfabrik Talbot of Germany and designed by award winning industrial designer Alexander Neumeister shortly right shortly before the company was taken over by engineering giant Bombardier Transportation. The Talent comes in flavours of 2, 3, or 4 car articulated tilting or non-tilting trainsets. They can either be diesel or electric, high floor or low floor. Each Talent trainset is connected by Jacobs bogies shared between the carriages; and like other multiple units, multiple Talents can be coupled together to form longer trains to suit different service needs. This stylish little train can go up to 140 km/h (87 mph) and is widely used in Europe since it first entered service in 1996. NSB type 93 (Norwegian State Railways) Ottawa O-Train crossing Rideau River In 2001, 5 sets have been picked up by OC Transpo in Ottawa, Ontario for the O-...

The ES59ACi is the most powerful to date in the Evolution Series of locomotives from General Electric. Known as the HXN5, she is built for export to the Chinese Ministry of Railways for heavy haul mainline applications on non-electrified railway lines. Each unit is equipped with a 16 cylinder (vs. 12 for domestic and other export models) GEVO diesel engine as the prime mover and it produces 6,250 horsepower (4,660 kW). Also unlike the domestic models that used either the GE Hi-Ad (high adhesion ) or self-steering bogies , the ES49ACi featured 3-axle bogies similar to the ones developed by United Goninan of Australia used by the GE C38AChe , another locomotive GE sold to China. Although equipping with massive power, the ES59 is a lightweight. At 150 metric tonnes (vs. 188 tonnes for the ES44AC ), she is only 30 tonnes heavier than the P42DC. With an axle load of 25 tonnes, the ES59 is able to provide a maximum starting tractive effort of 620 kN (vs. 881 kN for the ES44AC) and a...

Built between 1988 and 1994, the ElectroMotive F59PH is probably one of the locomotives GTA transit riders are the most familiar with. The humble looking, 4-axle machines with their big, easily recognisable green logo in the front have taken tens of millions of riders every year in and out of the economic core of our nation, Downtown Toronto. The F59PH was the first of the F59 series of passenger locomotives and was initially only purchased by two commuter railroads, the GO Transit of Toronto, Ontario, and the Metrolink of Los Angeles, California. Eighty-three units were produced in total, 49 for the GO Transit, all of which built at General Motors Diesel’s London, Ontario plant. The F59PH are powered by 12 cylinder EMD 710 prime movers which produce 3,000 hp (2,240 kW). She weighs a mere 118 short tons (107 metric tonnes or 105 Imperial tons) and has a top speed of 83 mph (133 km/h) when moving 10 bi-level cars. Starting from 2009, the F59PH are to gradually replaced by n...

The Toronto Rocket are the new Bombardier AC propulsion subway cars purchased by the Toronto Transit Commission to replace the H-Series Hawker Siddeley cars manufactured between 1965 and 1990. The name Toronto Rocket came from the TTC Name the New Subway Train Contest conducted in 2006. The production name of the Rocket is T35A08 and it is based on the current T1 and the vastly successful Movia sets used by many transit authorities in Europe and Asia. Example of a Movia set, the London Underground S Stock Toronto Rocket at the TTC Wilson subway yard Unlike anything Toronto has seen before, the Toronto Rocket are articulated trainsets that have full passenger access through the entire train (in fact, the Toronto Rockets brings many new features and offers TTC riders a taste of what some of the best subway systems in the world are like). This allows even passenger distribution in the trains and no longer will Torontonians have to squeeze into a single car when being...