The Testing and Commissioning of the Re-Electrified Erie Lackawanna Railroad

This paper is concerned with a testing and commissioning program developed to meet the unique requirements of the rehabilitation and re-electrification of the Erie Lackawanna Railroad in New Jersey, which is being converted from a 3-kV dc to a 25-kV ac autotransformer scheme. This program was developed on behalf of the New Jersey Department of Transportation (owner) and New Jersey Transit (operator). Results are given of the preliminary testing phase in which it was necessary to simulate load testing of individual supply stations before they were required to supply power. The preliminary testing involves the use of primary injection techniques to verify and test the complex protection schemes being installed for the new system. Examples are given of the type of problems that were discovered in the preliminary testing phase and the benefits of the early detection of these errors, reducing the time necessary for system testing.