Acela and light weight in the same sentence is a bit of an oxymoron.
I think the whole JetTrain project was a prime example of a government funded boondoggle, which shouldn't have been funded in the first place. It was just a way for FRA to show that they are doing something, in an area that they know little about, something that they have finally fessed upto, in considering the Tier III standards. There have been light weight diesel trains operating at 125mph elsewhere in the world since the 70s. The utter ignorance among the Americans about what goes on in the rest of the world actually enables this kind of nonsense to go on over and over again in the US. It is actually a good thing that the JetTrain project has been put to rest for good, with Bombardier a little enriched at the expense of the taxpayers in the process. Is it a surprise that Bombardier's premier passenger equipment manufacturers in Europe just looked on with amusement and then ignored the whole thing?
In the last decade and a half there have been and are light weight DMUs running around in several places in the world at 125mph. But of course that is Not Invented Here, so we have to go and piss away some more money in reinventing something.
As for Acelas, even Amtrak has come to the conclusion that this technology has no future since first of all by the time it was introduced it was already somewhat legacy. They have pretty much said openly that the next gen will be a very different thing based on different standards and a lighter weight.
Actually, Bombardier paid for half of the development cost so they lost just as much money as taxpayers did.
BTW, I lived in Europe for 5 years before moving to Korea where i have lived since 2008! I do not own a car and I ride Korail (KTX) to work every day so assuming I am some dumb American who has no idea what is going on with train travel in the rest of the world is a huge mistake on your part. I have also worked with turbine technology and can tell you that the JetTrain concept was quite sound. So much so that it is still being considered here in Asia AS A REPLACEMENT FOR DMUs!!! I can tell you from my daily experinece that while its true there are DMUs running at 125, most wouldn't come close to meeting US Tier III standards. Furthermore, to dismiss FRA requirements for safety as outdated because they require heavy trains than the Europeans or Asian countries demonstrates a lack of knowledge of current US railroad operations and the history of rail safety in the rest of the world.
To put it as simply as possible, FRA requirements require heavier passenger trains because they share tracks with heavier freight trains. If you have a contest on a one lane road between a 1972 Mack Truck and a 2013 VW Bug, the Mack truck will win every time.
And as far as the rest of the world is concerned...
First, in almost every case ALL their trains are lighter and smaller, so unless you are advocating moving vast amounts of freight off American railroads and onto higways to make American freight train an equal risk to everyone elses freight trains, you cannot compare the US with the rest of the world, period.
Second, the rest of the world has chosen to push people more toward trains and away from private transportation (cars). In order to do this they have sacrificed freight capacity and citizens who use public transit have had to sacrifice convenience of setting their own schedule. I KNOW THIS BECAUSE I LIVE THIS! In the US, we have chosen to maximize our railroads for freight, freeing up space on highways for virtually everyone to be able to chose to use private transit (cars) whenever they want regardless of schedules. The American model is based on freedom for the individual and letting freight worry about waiting for a train!
And thirdly, European and Asian Standards have actually started to move in the direction of the standards followed by the FRA. China, Korea and Japan have all conceded that to maintain current safety with new lighter trains, they have tosacrifice speed. That is why the focus in Asia has been on increasing power rather than cutting weight. In fact, each version of the KTX has been getting progressively heavier in order to allow for greater structural strength to allow faster speeds! This clearly shows recognition that the FRA's reliance on brute physics over flowery engineering is the right path.
