Sources reveal that a total of $466 million is spent to replace old locomotives with new ones. Amtrak, a US National railroad passenger corporation is about to replace 20 to 30 years old locomotives that have severed the nation for about 3.5 million miles. We still are unable to find about how these new locomotives will be environment friendly since these will be powered by the same 12kV to 25kV power transmission lines. Whereas on the other hand, the new bus design by China which was proposed of course by a Chinese company, cuts down tons of carbon emission each year since it receives most of its power from pole mounted solar panels.
According to Joseph Boardman, President and CEO of Amtrak, the new Locomotives will be operating at speeds of 125 mph and will be equipped with state of the art regenerative braking system. Furthermore, these new Amtrak Locomotives are also designed to remain upright and on track in case of a collision. These new Locos will also be easy to maintain and would require less maintenance time which would result in increased availability.
Siemens has been assigned this task to manufacture these Locomotives in California. These electric Locomotives will become operational starting from 2013.