Reistrup questions safety of Amfleet equipment on NEC at 125 mph.

[Mystic River Dragon]

Yes, Deleted. A contributing editor wrote the by line. Well the age deadline AFAIK was 50years and the only caveat was that they overage were not allowed in interchange service. It also was not FRA but AAR directive. Just a couple errors.

“Contributing editor” can mean a freelance writer or, perhaps in this case, even a PR writer. So not a staff writer.

A good lesson for all magazine editors and publishers to scrutinize everything that comes in from the outside carefully.

 

[jis]

We have 750 employees with a combined 200 years of experience at misleading claims of experience totals. Which is why that statement is so transparent.

I know some of the people who write for railway age personally. I think it is a microcosm of the American rail scene- a bunch of people with large egos, limited comprehension of reality, and a bunch of conflicting personal agendas that seem to have been unwittingly (to the holder of them, anyway) crafted by organizations that are fairly transparently BANANAs.

I mean I agree the Amfleet are well past a sell by date for first-string fleet on our Country’s main rail backbone, but reducing their speed on the line least likely to have a derailment of all our nations rail infrastructure in a way that will divert passengers to far less safe highways is also sort of sadly humorous. It’s why I stopped being an advocate- it’s not for lack of belief in rail.

Oooh! I had not noticed it is a David Peter Allen piece! That in itself explains a lot. Thanks for indirectly bringing it to my attention

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

Isn’t David a staff writer for Railway Age?

If a staff person, or even a regular contributor, wrote it, I think there’s a very logical and quite innocent reason why it was posted then pulled.

Not often, but once in a while, a document can end up in the wrong pile (computer file these days) and skip a step —in this case, the editing/fact checking step—and be published before it was meant to be.

In my editing career, I’ve used project status trackers that ranged from checking the “edited” box on a piece of paper and signing my name to working with a project manager who kept track of where all the projects were.

The systems were all good, but none were foolproof. This article was probably pulled when they realized this step had been skipped by mistake.

 

[jis]

AFAIK David is not on the staff the last time I looked, but that may have changed since then. I do know him personally having had many interesting dinners, mostly in the Newark Ironbound District, with him, many moons ago. He is an Intellectual Property Attorney who is also a self proclaimed rail advocate like many of us, and occasionally writes stuff for Railway Age, often of a BANANA bent.

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

AFAIK David is not on the staff the last time I looked, but that may have changed since then. I do know him personally having had many interesting dinners, mostly in the Newark Ironbound District, with him, many moons ago. He is an Intellectual Property Attorney who is also a self proclaimed rail advocate like many of us, and occasionally writes stuff for Railway Age, often of a BANANA bent.

Yes, I’ve met him, too—at the RUN meeting in Springfield, Massachusetts, a few years ago. Energetic chap.

He may very well be a contributing writer for Railway Age—not on staff, but with enough pieces written for them that he almost is.

 

[west point]

The article had a Sunday date. Could be that is how it slipped into the Que? It disappeared early Monday morning. Draw your own conclusions.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Yes, I’ve met him, too—at the RUN meeting in Springfield, Massachusetts, a few years ago. Energetic chap.

He may very well be a contributing writer for Railway Age—not on staff, but with enough pieces written for them that he almost is.

Dave is a contributing editor but not on the masthead; he would have made that known to me if it happened. I’ve known him for many years and I actually consider him a friend. He’s a very intelligent man, but he also has a number of opinions that I quite distinctly disagree with. I also have always been of the axiom, “do not attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity”; he favors the inverse.

He was absolutely not the only person I had in mind with regards to people who write for Railway Age in my earlier post. I can think of several others I feel more strongly that way about, but I wasn’t really looking to get into personalities. I have too many frailties and misanthropies of my own for me to do that.

 

[Anderson]

Oh, gods, the Ameristar proposal.

[Okay, I'll say that I like the idea of three classes of service on a single train vs the Regional/Acela situation. That being said, the last time I got to ask them some questions (I forget whether it was in an RPA context or a VHSR context), let's just say that I do not feel as though I got straight answers to serious practical questions that came up.]

 

[MARC Rider]

Oh, gods, the Ameristar proposal.

[Okay, I'll say that I like the idea of three classes of service on a single train vs the Regional/Acela situation.

Back in the 1990s on the Northeast Direct trains, Amtrak ran three classes of service: Coach, "Custom" (like current Northeast Regional business class) and "Club" (kind of like Acela First). This was in addition to the Metroliners, which had more or less "custom" and "club" service. There must have been a reason why Amtrak went to only 2 classes or service on the regional trains. Personally, I don't mind that there are only 2 classes of service, but I wouldn't mind seeing a dining car on at least a few of the Washington-Boston trains that run through meal periods, and also the longer eastern day trains, like the Vermonter, Palmetto, Carolinian, Pennsylvanian. Maple Leaf, Adirondack, etc. Also some baggage cars on at least a few Washington-Boston trains.

 

[Steve4031]

The German DB approach for dining cars would work great on the corridor.

 

[Anderson]

Back in the 1990s on the Northeast Direct trains, Amtrak ran three classes of service: Coach, "Custom" (like current Northeast Regional business class) and "Club" (kind of like Acela First). This was in addition to the Metroliners, which had more or less "custom" and "club" service. There must have been a reason why Amtrak went to only 2 classes or service on the regional trains. Personally, I don't mind that there are only 2 classes of service, but I wouldn't mind seeing a dining car on at least a few of the Washington-Boston trains that run through meal periods, and also the longer eastern day trains, like the Vermonter, Palmetto, Carolinian, Pennsylvanian. Maple Leaf, Adirondack, etc. Also some baggage cars on at least a few Washington-Boston trains.

I think it was probably to support the Acelas via market segment differentiation. Basically, Club class on the Regionals might have been too close to the Acelas in terms of market segment, lowering the premium people would pay for the time saved on the Acelas.

 

[jis]

MODERATOR'S NOTE: Airline fare and class discussion has been moved to its own thread since they have little to do with the Reistrup venture. The new thread is at:

https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/airline-fare-and-class-discussion.84862/
Please post further airline fare and class related ite3ms on that thread and leave this thread for discussing the Reistrup project.

Thank you for your understanding, cooperation and participation.