Coasting to the Finish Line: In the spring of 2022, Coaster 3001 was the only F59 locomotive in regular passenger service in Southern California. Even so, its operations in the golden state were limited. North County Transit District, which runs the Coaster commuter train service, began operating a 15 round trip per weekday schedule in 2021, requiring 5 train sets in service each day rather than the previous 4. As a result, all train sets were shortened from 5 to 4 cars in length. Having only two locomotives as backup, NCTD began regularly using an F59 locomotive on one of these sets, although use was limited to just two round trips per day on most days. In this scene from April of 2022, a well worn locomotive 3001 leads its train across the Los Peñasquitos Lagoon at the northern edge of the San Diego city limits. Soon enough, 3001 and sister 3002, which was mostly being used in non revenue service at this point, will be replaced by two new SC-44 Charger locomotives, built by Siemens-Mobility. NCTD approved the order in October of 2020 and the new locomotives are set to arrive in May of 2023 as of this writing.
