Acela Service Cancelled till Summer

[AlanB]

Amtrak will not be able to get any of its high-speed trains up and running again until summer, officials said Wednesday, another setback in restarting Acela Express service after brake problems were discovered.
Amtrak officials speaking at Union Station said the trains will resume service once replacement brake parts are retrofitted onto the trains.

The full, sad story from 1010 WINS News Radio.

 

[battalion51]

One word, wow.

 

[Steve4031]

Unfortunately, this really did not suprise me. I am going to be in Washington, D.C. in late July, and was going to try to work an Acela trip into my plans. Maybe not now.

 

[Viewliner]

One word, wow.

Exactly.

I'm glad I've ridden it at least once for now...especially knowing it'll be this long now, it's a shame but at least they've caught it in time so far. It'll be wierd having the NEC back to 1999 basically for awhile (except for the fact we're in Phase VI now and with Regionals now).

Ironic how Amtrak was about to elimante the Metroliners and have only Acelas...and now all of the Acelas are gone (for now) and Metroliners are back in full force)

 

[AlanB]

From Trains News Wire:

Metroliner service to replace suspended Amtrak Acela Express trains; Bombardier lacks inventory for fast fix on Acela brakes
WASHINGTON – Following last week's suspension of Acela Express trains owing to cracks found in the spokes of the trains’ brakes' rotors, Amtrak today announced it is substantially increasing Northeast Corridor service to cope with passenger demand. The centerpiece of the replacement service is the re-introduction of Metroliner trains in most Washington-New York Acela Express weekday time slots between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. effective Monday, April 25. All 13 hourly departures will be covered by Metroliners starting May 2.

In addition, Amtrak will offer its normal Metroliner service with both business and first class service and supplement Metroliners with 20 Regional train round trips between Washington and New York, with most departing at 5 minutes past the hour from the origination point.

Starting Monday, Amtrak will offer Boston-New York weekday trips at 100 percent of the existing Regional service, 9 round trips per day. Beginning May 2, 4 daily weekday Metroliner departures will replace some former Acela Express slots.

"We are going to do everything we can to satisfy our passengers, running a reliable schedule that they can count on," said William Crosbie, Amtrak's Senior Vice President of Operations. "We are going to provide as many trains on the schedule as we can to meet demand, but no train — Acela or otherwise — is going to be put into service unless it is safe."

Effective April 25, all Regional and Metroliner trains will require reservations. Amtrak is gathering cars from as far away as California to re-balance its passenger-car fleet and provide service in the Northeast Corridor while maintaining all other services systemwide. New Jersey Transit will be operating extra service between Trenton and New York City on the Northeast Corridor, substituting its trains for two Amtrak Clocker round trips that were canceled to provide extra Amtrak coaches for Regional service.

Crosbie said Amtrak is working with the Acela manufacturers consortium of Bombardier and Alstom to produce a plan to return the trains to service that includes inspection of the discs with a revised and approved inspection procedure, agreement on the life-cycle of the brake discs that meets Amtrak's approval, and a steady and reliable supply chain of replacement discs.

Crosbie stated that if these issues are resolved, a gradual return to service may occur. "Based on what we know at this point, it is our hope that the manufacturer will be able to resolve these issues and that the Acelas will gradually return to service this summer. But it will depend on these things happening — and nothing else happening to delay this process."

Meantime, in Montreal, Bombardier, the primary contractor of the sidelined Acela Express trains, said Wednesday it does not have enough new brake sets to replace all of the damaged ones found in Amtrak's 20-train fleet, according to a story in the Boston Globe. A Bombardier spokesman said the firm has only 80 new brake sets on hand for the 5-year-old high-speed trains.

Bombardier does not know when more brake sets will be available because the task will likely require the unique systems to be manufactured from scratch, said company spokesman David Slack. ''We're talking to our suppliers, and they're working out what and when they can deliver," he said. The brake systems are made by Germany's Knorr Brake Corp. The brake discs, where the cracked spokes were found, are manufactured by subcontractor Wabco Locomotive Products in Pennsylvania.

The high-speed service was stopped last Friday after an inspector found cracks in the brake rotors following a test conducted to see if Amtrak could increase Acela's speed. Amtrak officials said the tests did not cause the cracks because they were found throughout the fleet.

The full story can be found here.

Interesting to note, that the plan is to operate Metroliners north of NY beginning May 2nd.

Not so good news for those NJT customers who like to ride the Clockers, as this article suggests that only one round trip per day will now be Amfleets. The other two round trips will use NJT coaches and only run as far a Trenton.

 

[jccollins]

Amtrak had better revise their operations and revenue budgets - this will impact both big time, especially the revenues. It's too bad since much of the high speed market will inevitably be lost to the airlines and it is hard to recoup the passengers once they have found reliable alternates. Just look at the Coast Starlight - the ridership has been dismal ever since the two month service disruption despite Amtrak's discounted offers for the line and the Starlight is a longhaul route. Longhauls aren't usually impacted nearly as much by extended service disruptions as the multi-frequency corridor trains are.

 

[AlanB]

I forgot to mention my own personal observations today, when I saw two Acela Express sets just sitting on the Sunnyside Yard loop tracks going no where fast.

 

[Firebert]

Question: Are they unable to pull good brake discs off of some sets to get other sets running?

-Firebert

 

[AlanB]

Question:  Are they unable to pull good brake discs off of some sets to get other sets running?
-Firebert

I'm guessing that its too labor intensive to consider that option and it is a huge task to move those brakes around. I suspect that they tried that with the one set that did run on Monday. However, as noted in more than one newstory in the other topic on this problem, that set never made its full run, since they were having wheel balancing problems.

Additionally its possible that further, perhaps more intensive testing has shown that the remaining so-called good brakes may well either not be good, or close to developing the same problem. Therefore it certainly wouldn't be worth the effort to try and cobble a few sets together just for a few weeks time.

 

[cbender]

Question: Are they unable to pull good brake discs off of some sets to get other sets running?

I think they were initially going to try this. One Acela train ran on ?Monday? from NYP - WAS, but after that they stopped things entirely. I heard something about the 'wheels not being balanced', but don't remember the details.

If I had to guess, I'd say that since so many brakes discs failed, Amtrak and Bombardier want to fully understand the root of the problem before they run any more trains.

This mess is going to screw up my 'buy 2 get one free' Guest Rewards bonu - I need one more one way trip, so I'll have to get it on one of the Metroliners.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

This is a shame, but at least it happened before there was a big high speed wreck, with many lives lost. Glad the metroliners are still around, after all.

 

[AlanB]

Here's Amtrak's Press Release:

April 20, 2005  Amtrak Announces Return of Metroliner to Replace Suspended Acela Express

Work continues to restore Acela service  

WASHINGTON - Amtrak today announced it is substantially increasing Northeast Corridor train service to meet passenger demand following last week's suspension of Acela Express trains.

The centerpiece of the replacement service is the introduction of Metroliner trains in most Washington-New York Acela weekday time slots between 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. effective Monday, April 25. All thirteen hourly departures will be covered by Metroliners starting May 2. Specifically, Amtrak will:

Provide on-the-hour Metroliner service between Washington and New York City each weekday departing both end-points nearly every hour between 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., effective April 25. Metroliner service increases to every-hour-on-the-hour weekdays from Washington and New York starting Monday, May 2.

Offer Metroliner service with both Business class and First class service, a popular amenity that had been offered by the Acela Express trains.

Supplement Metroliners with 20 Regional train roundtrips between Washington and New York, with most departing at five minutes past the hour from their origination point.

Starting April 25, offer Boston-New York weekday trips at 100 percent of the existing Regional service, nine roundtrips per day. Beginning May 2, four daily weekday Metroliner departures will replace some former Acela train slots.

"We are going to do everything we can to satisfy our passengers, running a reliable schedule that they can count on," said Amtrak's Senior Vice President of Operations, William Crosbie. "We are going to provide as many trains on the schedule as we can to meet demand, but no train - Acela or otherwise - is going to be put into service unless it is safe."

Acela Express Update

Crosbie stated that the railroad is working with the Acela manufacturer's consortium of Bombardier and Alstom to produce a plan to return the trains to service that includes inspection of the discs with a revised and approved inspection procedure, agreement on the life-cycle of the brake discs that meets Amtrak's approval, and a steady and reliable supply chain of replacement discs.

"The trains are under warranty, and it is the responsibility of the manufacturer consortium to come up with a plan for service restoration," Crosbie said. "We will work with the consortium and federal rail safety officials to be certain the Acela trains can be safely and reliably operated."

Crosbie stated that if these issues are resolved, a gradual return to service may occur. "Based on what we know at this point, it is our hope that the manufacturer will be able to resolve these issues and that the Acelas will gradually return to service this summer. But it will depend on these things happening - and nothing else happening to delay this process."

Reservations Required Starting April 25

Effective April 25, all Regional and Metroliner trains will require reservations, which may be made in advance on line (www.amtrak.com) or by calling 1-800-USA-RAIL, or at the train station prior to boarding. Potential for crowding on trains will be minimized by this previously planned conversion of Northeast Corridor trains to all-reserved status (except for Keystone and Clocker trains.)

Amtrak is gathering train equipment from as far away as California to rebalance its train fleet and provide the best possible service in the busy Northeast Corridor while maintaining all other service, system-wide.

New Jersey Transit will be operating extra service between Trenton and New York City, substituting for two Clocker round trips that were canceled to provide extra Amtrak coaches for Regional service.

The full press release, including a temporary Metroliner schedule can be found here.

 

[Steve4031]

What would the business class amenities be? IIRC, when I rode the Acela to Boston in Business Class, all I got was a seat, which was fine with me. So what is being added on the Metroliners?

 

[AlanB]

What would the business class amenities be? IIRC, when I rode the Acela to Boston in Business Class, all I got was a seat, which was fine with me. So what is being added on the Metroliners?

There is no business class amenity other than speed, only first class gets extra stuff.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

The worry I have is much bigger, that W will use this, happening at the worst possible moment (for Amtrak, that is; it's the BEST possible moment for W), to argue "See - this whole (Amtrak) thing needs to be scrapped. Let the states design and fund pax rail service if they really think they want it". Call me cynical, but I wouldn't be real surprised to find that the administration actually knew about the cracks and wanted to time the announcement of the "discovery" of them for right now just to make their proposed "reform" (termination) of Amtrak successful.

 

[AlanB]

Call me cynical, but I wouldn't be real surprised to find that the administration actually knew about the cracks and wanted to time the announcement of the "discovery" of them for right now just to make their proposed "reform" (termination) of Amtrak successful.

Sorry, but I think that you're being a bit too cynical with that one.

If this was known by Amtrak management sooner, there is no way that David Gunn would have kept those trains running. If the administration fought him over that, he would have resigned and blown the whistle on them.

David is President of Amtrak for one main reason, he thinks that America needs passenger service and he wanted to reform Amtrak to improve it. But he can go back to his retirement any time he wants. He doesn't need the job, he was already retired when the Amtrak board called upon him to help.

But I firmly believe that he would walk away and let the system fail, before he would knowingly place any passenger's or crew member's life in danger.

 

[engine999]

It is a shame. Atleast the legacy of the metroliner will last allittle longer. Hopefully the acela's can be repaired faster then expected.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

This may have already have addressed---if so, my apologies. But what about the new timetables? As it relates to these Acela-related changes? Are they printed and out yet? Can they still be corrected, and just arrive a little later than usual? Anything been said about that?

 

[AlanB]

This may have already have addressed---if so, my apologies. But what about the new timetables? As it relates to these Acela-related changes? Are they printed and out yet? Can they still be corrected, and just arrive a little later than usual? Anything been said about that?

The timetables have already been printed and are almost certainly already distributed to the train stations for this weekend. And since there are changes that have nothing to do with Acela, they can't hold it up.

Additionally, with a few exceptions, Amtrak is simply going to substitute a Metroliner for an Acela. So there really is no need to pull the schedules, since the Metroliners will basically meet the schedule anyhow.

 

[battalion51]

From what I've heard all jobs containing an Acela are being Cancelled effective Monday, and replaced with jobs containing Regionals/Metroliners or they are going to be forced to bump into a new base. No Conductors & Engineers are expected to be furloughed, 10 Engineers & 20 Conductors from Boston will have a bump on Monday. As far as LSA's are concerned some will be furloughed due a low number of jobs to replace current positions (the disappearance of a First Class attendant being the biggie).

 

[Miami Joe]

Good evening, everyone! :lol:

The disc defect is also affecting AMF II's! The same disc is used on AMF II's and we have removed cars from service.

Can't tell ya about the Acela set-up but the AMF II is labor intensive. THe discs are pressed on, so the wheels and journal bearings have to be pressed off too.

If all new parts are on hand, 2-4 hrs per axle. If using same parts, 3-6 hrs per axle.

MJ

 

[AlanB]

As far as LSA's are concerned some will be furloughed due a low number of jobs to replace current positions (the disappearance of a First Class attendant being the biggie).

Why would First Class attendant jobs be disapearing, when Metroliners offer First Class service?

Amtrak was just about to eliminate all Metroliners, to head to an all Acela service. Now that things have gone exactly the opposite way, with Metroliners replacing almost all of the now cancelled Acela's, there should be very few furloughs. I think when the dust settles, there will be 4 less Metroliners per day, than there would have been Acela's.

 

[AlanB]

The disc defect is also affecting AMF II's! The same disc is used on AMF II's and we have removed cars from service.
Can't tell ya about the Acela set-up but the AMF II is labor intensive. THe discs are pressed on, so the wheels and journal bearings have to be pressed off too.

If all new parts are on hand, 2-4 hrs per axle. If using same parts, 3-6 hrs per axle.

MJ

Joe,

I'm confused. :unsure:

First the defect isn't in the disc itself for the Acela, it's in the spokes. Secondly, if they are using the same brake, then the fact that Bombardier having only 80 sets would be less of a problem. Amtrak must obviously have its own source for the brakes, and in theory should be able to supplement the Bom's inventory.

 

[battalion51]

As far as LSA's are concerned some will be furloughed due a low number of jobs to replace current positions (the disappearance of a First Class attendant being the biggie).

Why would First Class attendant jobs be disapearing, when Metroliners offer First Class service?

Amtrak was just about to eliminate all Metroliners, to head to an all Acela service. Now that things have gone exactly the opposite way, with Metroliners replacing almost all of the now cancelled Acela's, there should be very few furloughs. I think when the dust settles, there will be 4 less Metroliners per day, than there would have been Acela's.

I'm just passin along what I've heard through the pipeline.

 

[AlanB]

As far as LSA's are concerned some will be furloughed due a low number of jobs to replace current positions (the disappearance of a First Class attendant being the biggie).

Why would First Class attendant jobs be disapearing, when Metroliners offer First Class service?

Amtrak was just about to eliminate all Metroliners, to head to an all Acela service. Now that things have gone exactly the opposite way, with Metroliners replacing almost all of the now cancelled Acela's, there should be very few furloughs. I think when the dust settles, there will be 4 less Metroliners per day, than there would have been Acela's.

I'm just passin along what I've heard through the pipeline.

Ok, I promise that I won't shoot the messenger. :lol:

I was just wondering, since it didn't make much sense to me. :blink: