See The Comet Trail. On Friday, March 14, 2025, MTA Metro-North operated an Inspection Train on the Hudson Line with MNCW 214 (40th Ann/Employee Appreciation) and MNCW 211 (40th Ann/New York Central) with 2 Office Cars (MN1 & MN3), the Laser Car, and a Shoreliner Cab Car. The office cars are in fact old, one former New York Central and the other former Lackawanna Railroad. The locomotives are contemporary models, but "wrapped" in the paint scheme of predecessor railroads. The train headed up the Hudson Like to Poughkeepsie, where the locomotives ran around the cars for the return trip to Grand Central Terminal, giving railroad executives and management the opportunity to inspect many ongoing, completed, and needed improvements on the line. The locomotives are on the (geographically) south end of the train here, something that one can only see on rare occasions like these inspection train. Also unusual in this photo is the Laser Car being at the end of the train, during normal operations it is bracketed by a locomotive and a regular coach.
The Laser Train car (MNCW 5010) is one of two Comet IIIs (5009 is the other) purchased by the MTA for West-Of-Hudson service. After retirement, the pair came to the east side of the river, and one has become the Laser Train car while the other sits in storage. Frequently operated with a Brookville BL20GH/GHM, it did run for a short time with a GE P32AC-DM.
This car was equipped with The LaserTrain works by vaporizing ("laser ablation" of) leaf residue off of the rails throughout the system. The task of leaf removal had previously been done by MNR's "Water World" trains spraying water, which will still supplement for this task. During the autumn season, leaves falling on the tracks can cause "slip-slide" conditions when run over by trains, and are especially a problem for braking. Poor rail adhesion causes flat spots on train wheels, which requires the trains to be withdrawn from service for maintenance. The LaserTrain does this traveling at 60 miles per hour, while trains that spray water must travel much more slowly to be effective. Metro-North states that during the pilot test last in 2022, this car cleaned over 12,000 miles of track, which resulted in "the lowest wheel-true cost season on record". This colorful wrap was recently applied by MNR, with a leaf design decorating the car.
