Siemens Caltrans/IDOT Venture design, engineering, testing and delivery (2012-1Q 2024)

[Metra Electric Rider]

Wouldn't going single level require longer platforms in some cases (obviously a lot of the Illinois services and Hiawatha's are single level at the moment)?

 

[MisterUptempo]

With it looking more and more like the N-S contract is going down in flames, and any chance of extending the deadline on funding might require acquiring rolling stock that will be the fastest to get onto the rails, not necessarily the best product for the job, what happens next?

Looking long-term, if the mission of the NGEC is still a valid one (an attempt to standardize railcars), and, in most cases, manufacturers are unwilling to commit the resources necessary to develop new rolling stock for US markets themselves, wouldn't it make sense for the NGEC to seek out funding to contract out with a railcar manufacturer (Siemens, CAF, N-S) to design, develop, and produce proof-of-concept prototypes of bi-level and single level cars, and run them on routes to shake out the bugs? The designs would be owned by the NGEC and any entity (Amtrak, state DOT) looking to build cars could utilize them (perhaps with a licensing fee) and just issue an RFP for bids to fabricate them.

Obviously, pursuing this idea comes far too late for the CalTrans/IDOT order, but the current order was meant to mark the beginning of the NGEC's implementation, not its end. Amtrak and state DOTs will still need rolling stock in the future. It might help next time to know that the committee's standards, revised or otherwise, are achievable.

 

[neroden]

Yep, the buff strength requirement is a very very old one and there are literally many hundreds of cars that meet that requirement running around today - read that as all cars in commercial operation. So no one is going to relax that one, except for what is allowed with CEM in the modified standard.

...and the part everyone complained about about that is that it didn't allow for CEM (i.e. meeting the "buff strength" rule was less safe than modern European trains), so now that CEM is allowed instead, that's OK.

I think what will change is the weight requirement, since that is basically just a made up one. Having worked in many standards committees I have watched aghast many times as completely pointless requirements were added in because it was the favorite hobby horse of the guy on the committee who had never built anything in his/her life and got it to work. It happens. In most cases they are harmless twiddles that fall by the wayside. Sometimes not.

The weight requirement was clearly not driven by the track weight limits, structure weight limits, or financial requirements for operational cost.
Then again, the 1940s buff strength rule wasn't driven by anything at all, it's just made-up. You can tell how arbitrary the number is by how round it is. A coherent CEM specification is designed so that people in the people-carrying part of the structure are not injured when the largest, fastest plausible crash happens, and the forces you'd expect from that crash can be figured. It won't come out nice and round.

 

[Tarm]

Taglgos are tried and true. They do work in the Pacific Northwest. They will have automatic doors which allow boarding at all doors. Not sure about push pull operations.

The Chicago hub could be modernized into a Talgo hub for MidWest corridor trains.

This would be a pretty fast process compared to starting over.

Well, what goes around comes around. I can remember posting on another forum that the smartest thing to do when Gov. Walker killed the Madison train was to take the grant money and buy 40Talgo trains sets. My gosh the US factory was all ready up and running. If the powers to be had done that we would be riding them now in the Midwest.

Take a Talgo train set, hook on a Charger locomotive and you have a modern, energy efficient, low emission, ADA accessible passenger train.

Can anyone give me a reason not to just buy off the shelf Talgo trains sets for corridor service?

 

[PRR 60]

Taglgos are tried and true. They do work in the Pacific Northwest. They will have automatic doors which allow boarding at all doors. Not sure about push pull operations.

The Chicago hub could be modernized into a Talgo hub for MidWest corridor trains.

This would be a pretty fast process compared to starting over.

Well, what goes around comes around. I can remember posting on another forum that the smartest thing to do when Gov. Walker killed the Madison train was to take the grant money and buy 40Talgo trains sets. My gosh the US factory was all ready up and running. If the powers to be had done that we would be riding them now in the Midwest.

Take a Talgo train set, hook on a Charger locomotive and you have a modern, energy efficient, low emission, ADA accessible passenger train.

Can anyone give me a reason not to just buy off the shelf Talgo trains sets for corridor service?

Despite the assembly being in the US, too many of the components for the Talgo's came from overseas. The product did not meet the Buy America requirements of the FRA stimulus funding. Also, the multi-state group that put together the specification for the car purchase standardized on a bi-level car for the both the California and midwest trains. Between the Buy America issue (that maybe could have been overcome) and the midwest states deciding to go for bi-level rather than single level, Talgo was doomed.

There are operational issues as well. Talgo's are fixed trainsets. There is no easy way to add or subtract cars, so the trainset and passenger capacity is what you have every day regardless of demand. If there is a problem with one car, the entire set has to be taken out of service. Plus, there was still the need to build a maintenance facility and stock parts just for Talgo. That was the problem that resulted in Wisconsin not taking possession of their two trainsets, Michigan passing, and now maybe California passing as well. The Milwaukee maintenance facility would have cost over $60 million. Originally, the maintenance facility was included in the federal grant for the Madison extension. When Wisconsin pulled out of the Madison project, the FRA killed funding for the Talgo maintenance facility as well. With having to pay an additional $60 million to build a facility to maintain two trainsets, Wisconsin refused to take possession of the two Talgo's. Wisconsin settled with Talgo for $9 million.

One interesting possibility if the bi-level car order goes down the drain is Wisconsin joining in with a purchase of whatever replaces that order. Wisconsin is a member of the multi-state group, and if there is any federal funding for the car purchase, could be in line to get a share.

 

[bretton88]

I'm sure if talgo got a large scale order, they would figure out the whole Buy American issue. The bigger issue is the talgo maintenance requirements, probably necessitating several maintenance bases around the Midwest to be built.

Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

 

[Steve4031]

They only have one talgo maintenance base in Seattle iirc for the entire northwest operation.

They would need a bigger one in Chicago. The train sets would just have to cycle through for maintenance. As far as Thanksgiving maybe extra frequencies or couple two sets together and double spot at the shorter platforms.

 

[Eric S]

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought that although the 2 Wisconsin Talgo trainsets, purchased with state funds, did not meet Buy America requirements, the 2 Oregon trainsets, purchased with federal funds, did meet the requirements. I do recall hearing a Talgo official state at a WisARP meeting that Talgo would meet Buy America requirements for the 2 additional trainsets Wisconsin planned to buy for the Madison extension.

 

[frequentflyer]

Why are we discussing Talgo when a world renowned producer of high speed rail named Siemens has already delivered modern single level cars on time to a customer and is ready NOW?

 

[Ryan]

Because if a new order is going to be placed, it's going to go out for competitive bid, and Tango may be one of the bidders?

 

[jis]

Because if a new order is going to be placed, it's going to go out for competitive bid, and Tango may be one of the bidders?

It does take two to Tango afterall

 

[PVD]

It's is not always a function of who the vendor is, sometimes it is a result of what you are asking them to build, and under what conditions.

 

[Steve4031]

Why are we discussing Talgo when a world renowned producer of high speed rail named Siemens has already delivered modern single level cars on time to a customer and is ready NOW?

Siemans was discussed earlier in this thread. The issue that came up was that the sieman cars did not have traps for low level platforms. Thus the discussion wandered over to Talgo.

 

[west point]

It would never happen but if Siemens could take over the CAF plant and properly manage the production of V-2s Amtrak could get a decent delivery schedule.. Then Amtrak would get the needed single level passenger cars of all types that it desperately needs.

 

[Ryan]

Seimens may build good railcars, but viewing them as a savior that can step in and make everything right is probably a bit over the top.

 

[jis]

Maybe the solution lies in Amtrak abandoning the strategy of trying to find a manufacturer for the late eighties, early nineties Viewliner design? I have now pulled on my thrice charmed chain mail, for those that are familiar with D&D versions.

I can almost bet that Siemens will decline to take on CAF's contract even if CAF were to go for such.

 

[A Voice]

If more Viewliners are ever to be built I would strongly suspect it will be CAF who gets the contract; They now have some experience with the process and they're just late; They haven't bungled the design and/or production to the level of Bombardier or Nippon-Sharyo.

The Siemens car design allows for modification for traps, but the Brightline cars do not have them. You would still have the problem of level boarding (no high platforms in the Midwest, and it would cost much more than the car order itself to build them). That is an advantage with Talgo, but as stated with a new contract we don't really know who will even bid. let alone assume who the winner might be.

Maybe the solution lies in Amtrak abandoning the strategy of trying to find a manufacturer for the late eighties, early nineties Viewliner design? I have now pulled on my thrice charmed chain mail, for those that are familiar with D&D versions.

I can almost bet that Siemens will decline to take on CAF's contract even if CAF were to go for such.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the basic Viewliner design, and aesthetically would be the best choice for eastern long-distance trains. That's a bit like saying we shouldn't build modern bi-level cars because the Superliner design dates from the 1970's (and originated with the hi-level cars over two decades earlier).

 

[A Voice]

Having worked in many standards committees I have watched aghast many times as completely pointless requirements were added in because it was the favorite hobby horse of the guy on the committee who had never built anything in his/her life and got it to work. It happens. In most cases they are harmless twiddles that fall by the wayside. Sometimes not.

Well, there are valid reasons why 'design by committee' is a derogatory term.....

 

[jis]

There is nothing inherently wrong with the basic Viewliner design, and aesthetically would be the best choice for eastern long-distance trains. That's a bit like saying we shouldn't build modern bi-level cars because the Superliner design dates from the 1970's (and originated with the hi-level cars over two decades earlier).

Actually not at all. The Superliner design is very very different from the HIlevel Santa Fe cars including very different dimensions and different structural design. The Surfliners are again considerably different due to bigger openings for two doors at the lower level. So while visually they look similar they are technically significantly different.

In Viewliners there are some possibly unnecessary cost increasing features inherent in the design. One is the inherent lack of consideration for using modern sealed airconditioning units that can be swapped out easily, instead of tinkering around with different parts in different cabinets. But that could possibly be fixed somehow. I am also not convinced that the whole business about replaceable modules has really worked out. To date nobody has ever changed out a module successfully with any less effort than if they were just built using other techniques used in car building. So while theoretically a nice idea I am not sure how practical it is. The net result of all this is that instead of using standard mass produced body shells and furnishing them, we have to do these small orders of special stuff that is not off the shelf and consequently get to pay a lot extra for them. I am not sure we are getting anything in return to justify the extra cost and pain.

 

[A Voice]

There is nothing inherently wrong with the basic Viewliner design, and aesthetically would be the best choice for eastern long-distance trains. That's a bit like saying we shouldn't build modern bi-level cars because the Superliner design dates from the 1970's (and originated with the hi-level cars over two decades earlier).

Actually not at all. The Superliner design is very very different from the HIlevel Santa Fe cars including very different dimensions and different structural design. The Surfliners are again considerably different due to bigger openings for two doors at the lower level. So while visually they look similar they are technically significantly different

So, we can do a technically different bi-level car but not a more mechanically modern Viewliner?

Obviously there are major mechanical design and technological differences from the Superliner to Surfliner, but they share the same basic design (doors aren't really a fundamental difference.....) of a bi-level railcar. And on the contrary, the 1970's design of the original Superliner did indeed owe much to the original Santa Fe Hi-level equipment (read what was said at the time). There was - and remains - simply no need to reinvent the wheel (the NGEC should have just learned a similar lesson).

There are no "standard mass produced body shells" for bi-level equipment to buy 'off-the-shelf' and furnish. They simply do not exist.

 

[jis]

The point is that Viewliner was an unnecessary reinvention of the wheel and we are still paying dearly for it. We cannot buy mass produced cars based on well established shell designs, something that has been explicitly enabled by the change in FRA rules, simply because we for unknown reasons, happen to be married to Viewliners. possibly there is an element of NIH there.

My original comment was only about single level Viewliners, and had nothing to do with bi-levels. It was part of a subthread which was suggesting that Siemens could take over the CAF order etc.

 

[Steve4031]

Some of the sleeping car trains in Europe and Japan apply a more modern approach to sleeping cars. I am not sure these would transfer well to the United States.

I like the rooms and window in a viewliner, perhaps the modular designs and AC/heating systems need to be rethought on the long distance coach design.

Siemens could probably produce a better single level long distance coach product than anybody else. Wonder how they could design a sleeper using the brighline type cars. I'm thinking long term in replacing superliners as well as single level coach cars. One standardized car design would make for easier and perhaps cheaper maintenance.

 

[PerRock]

Siemens does also manufacture over in Europe double-deck cars. Their doors look to be lower that standard European high-platform doors, but higher than our low-level. I don't think any of their double-deck trains are sleepers however.

peter

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Siemens cars are tri-level in Europe. City Night Line had tri-level sleeper, rebuild from coachs. OOB might still be use some of those on its now branded NightJet service.

 

[Steve4031]

I've seen pictures and these cars look pretty nice. I'm Sure they don't meet safety standards needed in USA.

Since the bright line cars have already passed US standards and tests, it would make sense to use them.