Midwest Venture discussion 2023 Q3 -2024

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šŸ¤” One thing that I don't understand is, if you are buying train sets to give your riders a consistent new experience, why would you not require things to be delivered as trainsets instead of getting the order delivered as a smorgasbord of cars in random order. bot VIA and Brightline took the approach of getting full train sets delivered at a time, as is California (mostly). But I suppose Midwest and Amtrak together have their own approach.šŸ¤”
 
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šŸ¤” One thing that I don;t understand is, if you are buying train sets to give your riders a consistent new experience, why would you not require things to be delivered as trainsets instead of getting the order delivered as a smorgasbord of cars in random order. bot VIA and Brightline took the approach of getting full train sets delivered at a time, as is California (mostly). But I suppose Midwest and Amtrak together have their own approach.šŸ¤”
Well, the new Acelas were ordered and delivered as trainsts. and they're having their problems. The Airos are also being ordered as trainsets, we'll see how that turns out.

I would imagine that the Midwest folks wanted to ba able mix and match the new equipment with their existing rolling stock, which is something you can't do with a semi-permanently coupled trainset.
 
Partly because building cars that match all together makes production easier, so requiring something else would be reflected in the final price. Partly because the Midwest has gotten a year or more of use out of their coach cars, while California waited quite a while with nearly complete trainsets out of service and a capacity crunch. Partly because Via's entire order is less than a third of the Next Generation Passenger Car order, so "batching" isn't as noticeable for VIA. Also, I believe Via only ordered Coach, Business, and Cab Control configurations, no cafe cars? Partly because Brightline now orders one type of car at a time for their expansion orders, and couldn't start until all 20 initial cars were delivered. Partly because Brightline also doesn't run a cafe car and also doesn't have cab control cars - just three types of rolling stock for the whole operation.

Edit - I read your comment as criticizing Amtrak Midwest's delivery order, not the car configuration.

Trainset maintenance takes facilities set up for it. Trainsets reduce flexibility to change consists and to include Horizon or Amfleet cars in the consist, so adjusting for a holiday period or in response to changing demand is more difficult. This way they aren't committed to a maximum length or a fixed consist, they're able to mitigate the equipment shortage by running married pairs and individual cars as they were received, and they can mix in Horizon or Amfleet as required. Finally, looking towards the future, they aren't committed to one Venture fleet either - they could buy any standard height floor passenger rolling stock to expand Midwest service. Bombardier multilevels, a future California/Long Distance derived transition coach (that one is logistically more complicated), overhauled ex-NEC Amfleets, or a competing single level design.

Since they got seventeen trainsets worth of equipment but not enough to run every trainset at six cars long (and there's already another state dipping their toe into the pool, plus Michigan probably will want more than three daily trains on the Wolverine once the improvements are done, plus...) it's pretty likely there will be a followup order of something in a few years, and in the interim a mixed fleet with the old cars is likely to persist. And they knew this when ordering, at least in broad strokes.
 
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Well, the new Acelas were ordered and delivered as trainsts. and they're having their problems. The Airos are also being ordered as trainsets, we'll see how that turns out.

I would imagine that the Midwest folks wanted to ba able mix and match the new equipment with their existing rolling stock, which is something you can't do with a semi-permanently coupled trainset.
Well yeah that was a bit of rhetorical flourish on my part. Oh I know why they did it. They should explain to people why they did it so that they ready they have to sell Business Class seat5s as Coach. It will be interesting when they suddenly up the price and Class on those BC seats being sold as Coach now confusing people , not that anyone cares perhaps. The funny thing is that the Midwest folks are having their problems too, one thing one would imagine they could avoid with the freedom to shuffle whatever together into trains.

Out of scope in this thread but the Avelia Liberty issues are not in the same class as for train sets operating at slow pokey speeds. Not too many non-semi-permanently coupled trains that operate at 155+mph anywhere in the world AFAIK even more so when they use Jacob's trucks.
 
Which problem would uncoupling the married pairs avoid?
The theory is is if there is a failure in one of the cars then that can be uncoupled and replaced on the fly. I know that Brightline does such anyway if there is a big enough failure that cannot be fixed overnight even in their semi-permanently coupled sets, So it does not appear to be an issue when push comes to shove.
 
I'm still curious at the specific sound on the venture cars as I rode one not too long ago and still encountered the sound. I have ensured that there is audio in this video.
View attachment IMG_2360.mov
Previously, I received messages from other members that the previous video's audio didn't work. Does anyone know that this alert/chime means on venture cars? Just curious.
 
I'm still curious at the specific sound on the venture cars as I rode one not too long ago and still encountered the sound. I have ensured that there is audio in this video.

Previously, I received messages from other members that the previous video's audio didn't work. Does anyone know that this alert/chime means on venture cars? Just curious.
Metra had chimes - somewhat similar, if less elegant - to alert crew to curves.
 
I'm still curious at the specific sound on the venture cars as I rode one not too long ago and still encountered the sound. I have ensured that there is audio in this video.
View attachment 37053
Previously, I received messages from other members that the previous video's audio didn't work. Does anyone know that this alert/chime means on venture cars? Just curious.
The California Ventures have the same thing. I think theyā€™re a conductor call system when people hit the call bells. I noticed the little icon changes in the overhead screen when the chimes go off. I suspect that the placement of the bells in the bathroom is causing the call bells to be triggered frequently.
 
šŸ¤” One thing that I don't understand is, if you are buying train sets to give your riders a consistent new experience, why would you not require things to be delivered as trainsets instead of getting the order delivered as a smorgasbord of cars in random order. bot VIA and Brightline took the approach of getting full train sets delivered at a time, as is California (mostly). But I suppose Midwest and Amtrak together have their own approach.šŸ¤”
I think traditionally new cars have always been delivered as available from the factory, meaning mixed consists were the norm during transitional periods. I guess this also allows for training and familiarization of both operational and maintenance staff to be phased over a longer period. It saves on the need to somehow store entire consists until they are ready to go, and it also means the older equipment that is in the worst condition can be eliminated first and on a case-by-case basis.

The only cases where this doesn't work is where there is some incompatibility between the newer and older equipment.
 
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