Amtrak's Fiscal Picture for 2013 and Beyond

[afigg]

If you look at the replacement dates, the Is will be hitting 40 years old at the time of replacement. That tends to be when things more or less start breaking down and the problems start adding up. Even with maintenance, reliability becomes a problem; 50 years is, as a rule, pushing it (though British Rail and its successors have gone past this limit with some of the Mark I cars, in general there was a push to replace those still in use during the late 90s and early 2000s). Reliability starts getting spotty and upkeep can get to be uneconomical. Also note that Amtrak plans to keep at least some Is in service for a little while thereafter as backups/spares.

yes, I think many people don't think about the needs for long term planning for equipment replacement. Planning for equipment orders have to look 5, 10, 15 years out. The V3.1 Fleet Strategy Plan calls for ordering 100 Superliner replacements a year starting in FY 2018. (Which is after the 130 + options corridor bi-level cars would be delivered).

If Amtrak places an order for 300 Superliner I & Parlor car replacements, at ~100 per year, with delivery starting in FY2018 (maybe), the last of the order would be delivered in FY2021 or FY2022. The Superliner Is were delivered from 1979 to 1981. Which would make the Superliner Is 41 to 43 years old by the time all the replacements were available for revenue service. Amtrak may not retire all the Superliner Is right away; might cherry pick from the units that are in better condition and recently overhauled to use for testing service expansion routes or for additional capacity in peak seasonal periods for a few years.

Another issue is attrition losses. Amtrak has had some significant attrition losses to the Superliner fleet. If one figures they lose 1 or 2 cars per year averaged over a long period, after 10 years, Amtrak may not have enough Superliners available to maintain the current service routes and frequencies.

Edit: spelling

 

[Anderson]

If you look at the replacement dates, the Is will be hitting 40 years old at the time of replacement. That tends to be when things more or less start breaking down and the problems start adding up. Even with maintenance, reliability becomes a problem; 50 years is, as a rule, pushing it (though British Rail and its successors have gone past this limit with some of the Mark I cars, in general there was a push to replace those still in use during the late 90s and early 2000s). Reliability starts getting spotty and upkeep can get to be uneconomical. Also note that Amtrak plans to keep at least some Is in service for a little while thereafter as backups/spares.

yes, I think many people don't think about the needs for long term planning for equipment replacement. Planning for equipment orders have to look 5, 10, 15 years out. The V3.1 Fleet Strategy Plan calls for ordering 100 Superliner replacements a year starting in FY 2018. (Which is after the 130 + options corridor bi-level cars would be delivered).

If Amtrak places an order for 300 Superliner I & Parlor car replacements, at ~100 per year, with delivery starting in FY2018 (maybe), the last of the order would be delivered in FY2021 or FY2022. The Superliner Is were delivered from 1979 to 1981. Which would make the Superliner Is 41 to 43 years old by the time all the replacements were available for revenue service. Amtrak may not retire all the Superliner Is right away; might cherry pick from the units that are in better condition and recently overhauled to use for testing service expansion routes or for additional capacity in peak seasonal periods for a few years.

Another issue is attrition loses. Amtrak has had some significant attrition losses to the Superliner fleet. If one figures they lose 1 or 2 cars per year averaged over a long period, after 10 years, Amtrak may not have enough Superliners available to maintain the current service routes and frequencies.

That's another good point on attrition losses. You're going to lose a certain number of cars to anything from crashes to catastrophic part failures that can't economically be repaired to (in the case of one of the Slumbercoaches) vandalism. Moreover, that ratio is going to slowly go up as wear and tear builds up.

Assuming that I were in Amtrak's shoes, what I would likely do is this:

-Place the largest order for replacement cars that I can. This might, in theory, cover some of the IIs as well as the Is (IIRC we've lost a few to attrition there as well).

-When the new cars come out, keep about 1/4 of the Is in service (probably on a decided set of routes, such as the CONO/TE/SL combination)

-With the rest of the cars, which should be depreciated out, use some as "surge fleet" cars. Keep the rest as either "spares" (for parts, if need be) or as "rebuildables" (that can, in a capacity crisis, pitched to Congress as something akin to the wreck repairs).

-Failing that second bit, try to sell them to the states at little over scrap prices for use on new corridors and the like.

 

[cirdan]

It has been said before (not by me) that one problem of equipment ordering in the past has been the boom and bust cycle of orders which means that in the bust parts of the cycles, manufacturers have been hard pressed and have had to lay off workers and so lost knowledge, or may even have closed down completely. The result is that when the boom returns, there often isn't the capacity and skillsets to handle it and you get delays and quality issues. Spreading out orders over a longer period would help manufacturers plan more long term and preserve knowledge and capacity and so make manufacturing of passenger rail equipment more attractive in the USA. Orders from other operators such as commuter rail lines could be piggy backed, creating extra income for manufacturers. Nobody is going to invest in a new plant and a massive recruitment/training drive for a single order. But if there is a prospect of follow-up orders for the next 15 years or so, it suddenly becomes a very attractive proposition.

 

[johnny.menhennet]

Nobody is going to invest in a new plant and a massive recruitment/training drive for a single order.

Talgo, in Wisconsin, for a whopping total of 4 trains (yes although to two states).

But I know what you mean about the spreading out of the manufacturing and I agree with it.