Long Distance (LD) fleet replacement discussion (2022 - 2024Q1)

[jis]

MODERATOR'S NOTE: About two dozen posts on Auto Train have been moved to the Auto Train thread:

https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/auto-train-discussions.83366/page-6#post-1001825
Please post any further Auto Train related material to the Auto Train thread and not here, unless it is specifically about new equipment acquisition.

Thank you for your understanding, cooperation and participation.

 

[Anderson]

Savings in per-passenger CO2 emissions using rail rather than air ... https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_file_download.cfm?p_download_id=541838

There are contradictory statements from Europe but then again that’s European rail which is far more electrified meaning less emissions on main lines vs the U.S. where we have continued on Diesel.

On the second statement. I was in error. I had to double check my self well I was taking the weekend. It was a projection made by the original Autotrain in justification for its Midwest line. A line that failed. Though a degree of that failure was Autotrain itself which couldn’t maintain operating the second line due to lack of rolling stock.

And the derailments. And Amtrak having issues on the line (IIRC wasn't Auto-Train piggybacking on the Floridian?).

[As to the emissions bit from electrification vs diesel, that definitely makes some assumptions about the underlying power sources.]

 

[Anderson]

There was a time when some Class 1 railroads felt the need to replace their top trains equipment in only 11 years, to be competitive.
Hence both the prewar 1938 streamlined Brroadway Limited, and Twentieth Century Limited got all new equipment in 1949…
If only Amtrak could do that today…

As others noted, this was also in the context of railroads tending to cascade equipment to lower-tier trains on a regular basis. Also, there were significant "gains" to be had on those trains as equipment became lighter and capable of going faster, and where the equipment being replaced on the lower-tier trains didn't have (for example) air conditioning. Some of the reassigned heavyweight cars got re-dressed to look like streamlined cars as well.

The late-40s overhauls were probably also a matter of scale - passenger equipment production got drastically cut back from 1942-46 (I think a limited amount might have been allowed to continue, at least of commuter-type equipment, but there was an approvals process and some already-ordered trains in the early 40s got dumped because of that), so there was a lot of replacement that had been delayed. I suspect that a few railroads just decided to overhaul all of their top-tier trains (and cascade the existing equipment down the line) at the same time and were able to get some discounts from Budd, Pullman-Standard, and ACF for larger orders.

And finally, I'd point out that trains like the Twentieth Century Limited and Broadway Limited were in an odd category of their own. IIRC second sections weren't unheard-of, after all, but the fact is also that there were "secondary" top tier trains. I've linked a timetable below, but the idea of cars being dropped back from the Twentieth Century Limited to the Advance Commodore Vanderbilt or Commodore Vanderbilt, or ending up on the Detroiter or Cleveland Limited (both of which were all-Pullman no-intermediate-stop expresses) wouldn't have been absurd. Per the timetable below, you had a bank of twelve trains arriving into Grand Central from west of Buffalo between 0630 and 0930. In that context, overhauling the top trains every decade or so made a lot of sense in a way that Amtrak just hasn't had the scale to manage.

In short, this wasn't "The New York Central/Pennsylvania Railroad were replacing their equipment every 11 years", it was a whole bunch of circumstances stacking up to make it necessary...and not all of those had to do with just those trains.

Link: https://streamlinermemories.info/NYC/NYC48-4TT.pdf

 

[railiner]

Another nice thing from the post-war era, was the ability of railroads to order new equipment from at least four US car builders: Budd, Pullman-Standard, ACF, and St. Louis Car…

Not to mention new locomotives from GM (EMD), Alco, Baldwin, Fairbanks-Morse, GE, Lima, and more. Or…as some large roads did, build their own!

 

[dlagrua]

Another nice thing from the post-war era, was the ability of railroads to order new equipment from at least four US car builders: Budd, Pullman-Standard, ACF, and St. Louis Car…

Not to mention new locomotives from GM (EMD), Alco, Baldwin, Fairbanks-Morse, GE, Lima, and more. Or…as some large roads did, build their own!

Lack of rail equipment sources is a problem today but we still have Siemens, Bombardier, Greenbriar (currently only freight) , Alstom, CAF, Nippon Sharyo, that could manufacturer passenger equipment. Budd is still in business but out of rail car manufacturing. Last I checked ACF was building only tank cars. Some of the above sources have proven slow or unreliable so who is left? As reported earlier, requests for a feasibility study were issued in December but I have not read that Amtrak or Via has received any responses. Where will Amtrak source new LD sleeper, dining cars is a question? The bigger question is; given todays requirements, can anyone still build a Superliner?

 

[joelkfla]

The bigger question is; given todays requirements, can anyone still build a Superliner?

Not that big a question, if Amtrak wants to build a homogeneous fleet.

Anyhow, IMO, any assumption that future designs will be based on current ones is faulty.

 

[jis]

Lack of rail equipment sources is a problem today but we still have Siemens, Bombardier, Greenbriar (currently only freight) , Alstom, CAF, Nippon Sharyo, that could manufacturer passenger equipment.

Bombardier Rail Equipment is a subsidiary of Alstom now. Greenbriar is in no position to really participate in this round of RFI/RFP as far as I can tell.

Budd is still in business but out of rail car manufacturing. Last I checked ACF was building only tank cars. Some of the above sources have proven slow or unreliable so who is left?

Just because they have a familiar name does not mean they will get back into manufacturing passenger cars anytime soon, if ever.

As reported earlier, requests for a feasibility study were issued in December but I have not read that Amtrak or Via has received any responses.

Here is your chance to learn that there were ten responses to the Amtrak RFI.

https://www.railwayage.com/passenge...-first-step-to-reequip-long-distance-network/
The RFP is likely to be issued in the next few months.

Where will Amtrak source new LD sleeper, dining cars is a question? The bigger question is; given todays requirements, can anyone still build a Superliner?

Why would they not, if Amtrak chooses to order them. Afterall they have been building and delivering bilevels of various sorts to Finland, Russia, Germany etc. Why would they not do so for the US, just because Nippon-Sharyo managed to screw up?

 

[Mailliw]

Bilevel does not equal Superliner. Any proposed bilevel car would almost certainly be a North American adaptation of an existing product (like how Venture Coaches are derived from Viaggio Coaches). One of the the problems with the Viewliner II order was that CAF was asked build cars to order based on another company's design.
Superliners have multiple flaws such as poor accessibility and lack of headroom or luggage storage in sleeping compartments. The former is much harder to fix in a bilevel design than the latter.

 

[cocojacoby]

Going back to the last car bid for the ill-fated bilevels, there were five bidders: Alstom, Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF), Kawasaki, Siemens, and Sumitomo.

As we all know Sumitomo won the bid and origianally contracted Nippon Sharyo to build the cars (or at least attempt to) and the final successful work went to Siemens.

So you have to wonder what really went on behind the scenes. Why didn't Nippon Sharyo bid in the first place? Why was the contract awarded to Sumitomo? Sure they are a huge company but have they ever built a railcar? Apparently not since they had to subcontract it out to an actual railcar builder.

Did Siemens get paid what was their original bid was or less? Did Sumitomo just eat the difference?

Think of how different everything would be if the original award went to one of the four actual railcar builders who bid. Just seems like an awkward arrangement from day one. Why use basically an untested middleman?

 

[jis]

Going back to the last car bid for the ill-fated bilevels, there were five bidders: Alstom, Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF), Kawasaki, Siemens, and Sumitomo.

As we all know Sumitomo won the bid and origianally contracted Nippon Sharyo to build the cars (or at least attempt to) and the final successful work went to Siemens.

So you have to wonder what really went on behind the scenes. Why didn't Nippon Sharyo bid in the first place? Why was the contract awarded to Sumitomo? Sure they are a huge company but have they ever built a railcar? Apparently not since they had to subcontract it out to an actual railcar builder.

Did Siemens get paid what was their original bid was or less? Did Sumitomo just eat the difference?

Think of how different everything would be if the original award went to one of the four actual railcar builders who bid. Just seems like an awkward arrangement from day one. Why use basically an untested middleman?

To this day it is a mystery to me as to why the one company that had previously built something very close to the NGEC bi-level design among that group - Alstom (Surfliners directly, and California Cars via M-K) - was passed over. Was it just blind low bid selection by people completely ignorant of what it takes to design and build a car? Still a bit flummoxed I must say.

 

[cocojacoby]

Wasn't this a public bid? Is it possible to find this info somewhere?

 

[west point]

To this day it is a mystery to me as to why the one company that had previously built something very close to the NGEC bi-level design among that group - Alstom (Surfliners directly, and California Cars via M-K) - was passed over. Was it just blind low bid selection by people completely ignorant of what it takes to design and build a car? Still a bit flummoxed I must say.

Was a RFQ request for qualification used for the bid? Sumitomo certainly IMO was not qualified. RFQs seem to be more prevalent now?

 

[jis]

Was a RFQ request for qualification used for the bid? Sumitomo certainly IMO was not qualified. RFQs seem to be more prevalent now?

Supposedly all of that happened. Alstom was among those that dropped out because they could not commit to meeting the NGEC set weight requirements, which incidentally the previous Surfliner Cars do not meet either, apparently. And this lllighter weight was supposed to happen because CEM components were added while removing heavier structural components required to meet the non-deformation requirements of the previous buff strength standard without crumple zones.

It should be noted that no one was able to meet the NGEC set single level car weight requirements either. So under pressure from customers and vendors they changed the weight specifications so that the Midwest tender could accept the Siemens Venture cars.

Reading the proceeding of the meeting in which they made the change is quite illuminating. It is not clear what exact basis other than preconceived notions and warm and fuzzy feelings was involved in coming up with those numbers in the first place.

I am sure there was plausible looking full justification, but not something that was critical enough not to change when push came to shove. Having been involved in standard setting bodies for over 25 years I can imagine how it went, since one of my roles back then was to push back on arbitrary nonsense being incorporated into standards, by armchair beard strokers.

 

[joelkfla]

armchair beard strokers.

 

[GDRRiley]

Wasn't this a public bid? Is it possible to find this info somewhere?

I have no idea where I found this (I download any old report that may get removed)
but here is all the specifications for the car

To this day it is a mystery to me as to why the one company that had previously built something very close to the NGEC bi-level design among that group - Alstom (Surfliners directly, and California Cars via M-K) - was passed over. Was it just blind low bid selection by people completely ignorant of what it takes to design and build a car? Still a bit flummoxed I must say.

Nippon Sharyo was making highliners and gallery cars. I'd argue those are pretty close carbody wise to the Bi level requirement.

 

[jis]

I have no idea where I found this (I download any old report that may get removed)
but here is all the specifications for the car

Nippon Sharyo was making highliners and gallery cars. I'd argue those are pretty close carbody wise to the Bi level requirement.

Yeah. It was the same problem that both would have faced and N-S faced and was not as clever as Alstom in figuring out that it was a fool's errand they were signing up for. None of those old designs met the new committee requirements.

 

[GDRRiley]

Yeah. It was the same problem that both would have faced and N-S faced and was not as clever as Alstom in figuring out that it was a fool's errand they were signing up for. None of those old designs met the new committee requirements.

yep, it need a ground up car which shouldn't have been a major issue. I wonder if Stadler would have been able to do it if they were in NA at the time. I don't know how much their US regs complaint bi level made for Rocky Mountaineer weighted

 

[jis]

yep, it need a ground up car which shouldn't have been a major issue. I wonder if Stadler would have been able to do it if they were in NA at the time. I don't know how much their US regs complaint bi level made for Rocky Mountaineer weighted

I have difficulty understanding this obsession with a weight different of 5'000lb or so though. It is not like they are designing cars to operate at 200mph. They will be running on the same ramshackle infrastructure mostly for the foreseeable future - most LD trains I mean. Yeah a few will run as fast as 110 or even 125. But that is pretty much it. Seems to me more like virtue signaling at great cost rather than anything that makes a huge difference.

 

[GDRRiley]

I have difficulty understanding this obsession with a weight different of 5'000lb or so though. It is not like they are designing cars to operate at 200mph. They will be running on the same ramshackle infrastructure mostly for the foreseeable future - most LD trains I mean. Yeah a few will run as fast as 110 or even 125. But that is pretty much it. Seems to me more like virtue signaling at great cost rather than anything that makes a huge difference.

I don't get why ether. superliners are 152-174k lbs, it would have still been a car on the lower end.

 

[west point]

Overweight??? Would the extra weight make the cars better able to with stand the beatings cars get on the RRs? Last longer??

 

[jis]

Overweight??? Would the extra weight make the cars better able to with stand the beatings cars get on the RRs? Last longer??

Not necessarily. There are many other factors that affect such things, possibly more than just the weight. Extra weight does add to the wear and tear both of the equipment and the track though, so there is that.

 

[Paniolo Man]

There is a large "Railway Interior Summit" this week in Salt Lake City, hosted by Stadler. Looks like big folks from Amtrak and many rolling stock manufacturers will be there. Unfortunately attendance costs a pretty penny and seems fairly exclusive. I wonder of Amtrak will make any indication to the direction they are taking for their LD order there.

A few of the confirmed speakers are the President and CEO of RPA, Amtrak's Director of Product Development & Customer Experience, and teams from Stadler, Siemens, and Alstom.

Hopefully presentations are posted online at some point.

 

[jis]

Interesting Blog by Jim Matthews of RPA:

https://railpassengers.org/happening-now/news/blog/new-rail-cars-are-harder-than-moon-landings/

 

[dlagrua]

Interesting Blog by Jim Matthews of RPA:

https://railpassengers.org/happening-now/news/blog/new-rail-cars-are-harder-than-moon-landings/

We had the pleasure of having dinner with Jim and Jonsie from the RPA on the CL a few years ago, and I can only say good things about them. They impressed me as hard working people very involved in supporting passenger rail. The information in Jims article referenced here is not encouraging but as time goes on we will see what evolves. It shouldn't take 7 or more years to purchase and deploy new LD sleeper equipment. but the requirements imposed by Amtrak may significantly slow down the process or perhaps result in little interest from the car building companies. Perhaps if VIA moves on this first it may provide incentive to move forward more expeditiously.

 

[Crowbar_k]

One thing dawned on me yesterday. Amtrak should buy only single level cars going forward. This is because there are many corridor stations that can be easily upgraded to high level platforms because the don't see freight trains (also, the venture cars have gap fillers, so it will now be possible to build high level platforms without gauntlet tracks), such as St Louis Gateway. However, these stations also serve as stops for superliner trains, so high platforms aren't possible. If Amtrak buys standard single level high floor equipment, this leaves open the possibility for raising the platform hight for many stations.