Steve, sumpin' sure looks rotten here. Has Amtrak run out of serviceable GE's? My first inclination is that it looks like an F40, but then on second look I'm not sure. BTW, thanks for going up to North Station for the photos.
Taken from this page...Railroad Terminology "Cabbage Car. From Greg Peet... "Amtrak took some of their old F40's and removed the engine. That left a big empty space so they added a "garage door" on each side so they could haul baggage. These are used on the opposite end of the train from the engine. Going one way the locomotive leads the train. Going the other way the F40 is in the lead, providing a cab with controls, but the train never has to be turned, It's just push-pull. Anyway, these units are a "cab" and a "baggage" unit. Hence they are often called "cab-bage" cars. Amtrak has some official name for them, but I don't even remember it." The official Amtrak name is either an APCU, short for Auxiliary Power Control Unit, or a NPCU, short for Non Powered Control Unit."
Absolutely a cabbage car. They're pretty common out here on the West Coast. Don't remember how many they built, but they're former F40's with the cab still there, the engine is removed and they use them for baggage transport.
Great, thanks for the explanation. Aside from eliminating turning, it should provide space to carry bikes, backpacks, skis, snowshoes, and whatever else folks take to the Maine woods.
They use these often on the Amtrak Cascades service. I will see if I can get some photos as some of them are in the Cascades livery, which is different from the regular Amtrak livery. They run them on the opposite end from an F59PHI.
Thank you folks! Very helpful. Did you see today's purely coincidental posting in the N Scale forum? Amtrak Downeaster - TrainBoard.com
Amtrak does, indeed, refer to them as NPCU (Non-Powered Control Unit) but "cabbage" (cab + baggage) seems to have stuck. Also, bikes are frequent riders in the cabbage as the Northeaster picks up a lot of students either Boston bound, UNH bound, and/or Portland bound. Actually, I think it's a good re-purposing of out of date or unneeded equipment. Interestingsite: http://www.hebners.net/amtrak/amtF40CAB.html
I always wondered what the "garage door" was for. Now I know! I shot a few pics of these when I was in the Chicago area.
I've seen them in action on the Downeasters in both Boston & Portland: as well on the Oklahoma City-Ft. Worth Heartland Flyer:
Come to think about it, this would make a good modeling project using an F40 as a starting point (it could still be powered, since it's just the body getting modified with the addition of the "garage door").
