Speculation about remaining life of Superliners

[Green Maned Lion]

Problem is, a new car with a 50 year life will need a couple of million dollars rehab when it’s 25. In other words, where the current cars are now. So it would seem that rehab isn’t a bad investment amortised over 25 years. Twenty five years is still a lot of service.

The 25 year old cars? There are no national Amtrak cars that are about 25, except the Acela sets. V2s are 5-10, the V1s are about 30, the S2s are about 33. Replacement of these cars are not what this discussion is primarily about; they may choose to also replace the S2s and turn those into surge or expansion cars, but the Airo order is about replacing the ~49 year old Amfleet Is and this discussion is primarily about starting the roughly decade long process of replacing the ~47 year old S1s.

By the time they reach 60ish (just 4 years after this rather idealized time frame) some S1s, replacements or not, and regardless of vaguely sane economics and parts availability, are going to need to be taken off the road because of inherent structural fatigue failure that could only be repaired by jacking up the Amtrak stripes and driving a new car under it.

 

[GDRRiley]

The last attempt to build new Superliner derived cars failed crash testing. If that had been a successful program, we'd have a hot production line to source interim LD coaches from.

The C21 car was at 798k lbs vs the 800k lbs it needed to be. The car was 99.75% the way there
From the 2016 NGEC

 

[cocojacoby]

That was the biggest surprise to me. We needed those cars very badly and they would have also been the fastest pathway to a new Superliner replacement. They also put a major competitive car builder out of business in the US. An exception for such a minor infraction should have been acceptable. This put everything back for years and just seemed very unreasonable.

 

[zephyr17]

and this is precisely the reason they can't keep on repairing the existing SLs to last for 70+ years as maybe a tourist or heritage railroad could. The cars do not fulfill modern day crash requirements. Any life extension can a best be a temporary fix. Imagine there being a major accident with multiple deaths and the anti-Amtrak crowd figuring out these cars have lived well beyond their designed lifespans and do not fulfill crash requirements. This could totally pull the rug from under Amtrak.

Car strength requirements are literally decades old and remain in effect. They are not "modern". In fact "modern" requirements would no doubt reduce buff strength standards (which is what the Nippon Sharyo cars failed, though not by much) from what they are today. Heavy US standards are an impediment to acquiring otherwise modern equipment since US standards significantly exceed the requirements used elsewhere, such as Europe or Japan.

Superliners met them when built and doubtlessly still do.

VIA Rail Canada just a couple years ago developed concerns about whether their Budd fleet, built in 1954/55 still met crash/buff strength requirements (same as in the US). They sacrificed several cars in destructive testing. The card met and passed the standards with flying colors, very much exceeding the requirements. Those cars are currently 70 years old and, as a result of the testing, expected to have 10 years more of safe life in regular revenue service.

I do not think that Superliners need to be sacrificed to destructive testing just to make sure they still meet the current requirements, the same requirements that were in force when they were built. That the Nippon Sharyo cars failed it right out of the gate has no bearing whatsoever on Superliners that met and meet it.

 

[UserNameRequired]

The C21 car was at 798k lbs vs the 800k lbs it needed to be. The car was 99.75% the way there
From the 2016 NGEC
View attachment 38837

Does anyone have a link to any pictures of this C21 prototype? I am curious what they would have looked like inside and out.

 

[cocojacoby]

Sure:

 

[MARC Rider]

The C21 car was at 798k lbs vs the 800k lbs it needed to be. The car was 99.75% the way there
From the 2016 NGEC
View attachment 38837

How many tests were done? Does anybody have an idea of the test to test variability? the engineering tests I used to do had variabilities of 1 to 10 percent. 798k out of 800k is a lot less than that. Unless there's something about the tests I don't understand, I would have passed them if I were the approving official.

 

[zephyr17]

How many tests were done? Does anybody have an idea of the test to test variability? the engineering tests I used to do had variabilities of 1 to 10 percent. 798k out of 800k is a lot less than that. Unless there's something about the tests I don't understand, I would have passed them if I were the approving official.

800,000 lbs compression strength is a bright line requirement with no wiggle room. You either pass it or you don't. The "approving official" had no authority to pass it even it failed by just a single pound. I don't know if multiple tests were made in the big vise that's used to test compression strength, but most cars tested exceed it by a considerable margin. The recent test-to-failure on VIA's 70 year old fleet got up well over 1,000,000 lbs before failure.

Nippon Sharyo had every incentive to pass the test and probably had as many attempts as were allowed. It means using up car bodies, though. Any that fail cannot be re-tested or used. That may have been a limiting factor on their end.

Close but no cigar is a miss in meeting minimum regulatory requirements. Meeting regulations is neither horseshoes nor hand grenades.

 

[Siegmund]

The engineering tests I used to do had variabilities of 1 to 10 percent. 798k out of 800k is a lot less than that. Unless there's something about the tests I don't understand, I would have passed them if I were the approving official.

I have no information about this particular test.
But a different approving official might take those same facts and interpret it as "798k is an automatic fail. Between 800k and 880k is a fail unless you can prove with several replications that your variability is unusually small. Only a single number above 880k gives me confidence that the average strength is consistently above 800k."
In general I want the 2nd kind of official evaluating safety standards.

 

[UserNameRequired]

Sure:

View attachment 38840View attachment 38841

Wow that really looks like it would have been really nice. What a disappointment.

 

[railiner]

Sure:

View attachment 38840View attachment 38841

How tall over the rails was that car? Tall enough to allow two full decks, even over the trucks, as the lower picture seems to show?

 

[UserNameRequired]

How tall over the rails was that car? Tall enough to allow two full decks, even over the trucks, as the lower picture seems to show?

In the 2nd picture I see a semi trailer with rubber wheels that I would assume is for temporary movement around a factory or testing area. No bogies look to be installed.

 

[cocojacoby]

I believe they were 16' 2" exactly like the Superliners.

 

[railiner]

In the 2nd picture I see a semi trailer with rubber wheels that I would assume is for temporary movement around a factory or testing area. No bogies look to be installed.

Agreed, once on rails, rail trucks would replace those trailer bogies…but the photo shows what appears to be windows for the lower level all the way to the end of the car, which is not possible in a Superliner. That area only has enough height for utilities and a crawl in storage space…

 

[UserNameRequired]

The photo seems low resolution, but when I look at those 3 large windows I imagine mechanical equipment behind them, more like service doors left off than a glass window for passengers. The floor goes up there too for room for the bogies so no room to stand unless the ceiling went up too, but the upstairs door is placed as if the floor is level. At least that’s what I think I see.

 

[Cal]

The photo seems low resolution, but when I look at those 3 large windows I imagine mechanical equipment behind them, more like service doors left off than a glass window for passengers.

This is what I see. Today there is equipment in those areas, with latches in the same spots on Superliners and the California/Surfliner cars.

 

[GDRRiley]

How many tests were done? Does anybody have an idea of the test to test variability? the engineering tests I used to do had variabilities of 1 to 10 percent. 798k out of 800k is a lot less than that. Unless there's something about the tests I don't understand, I would have passed them if I were the approving official.

Single test because they only made one structural testing car, they could have crumpled a pre mass production car but they only had 1 of each type (Cafe, cab/coach and coach)
Its a brightline standard so have to pass no margin to fail.

How tall over the rails was that car? Tall enough to allow two full decks, even over the trucks, as the lower picture seems to show?

same 16ft 2in of a superliner, this a structural test car not a prototype car

Car strength requirements are literally decades old and remain in effect. They are not "modern". In fact "modern" requirements would no doubt reduce buff strength standards (which is what the Nippon Sharyo cars failed, though not by much) from what they are today. Heavy US standards are an impediment to acquiring otherwise modern equipment since US standards significantly exceed the requirements used elsewhere, such as Europe or Japan.

The US finally started allowing euro compliant stock built post 2007 when the standards were updated to be used under the crash standard T1 alt

Agreed, once on rails, rail trucks would replace those trailer bogies…but the photo shows what appears to be windows for the lower level all the way to the end of the car, which is not possible in a Superliner. That area only has enough height for utilities and a crawl in storage space…

that space is all for mechanical equipment mostly HVAC and electrical. The California, Surfliner and C21 would also have used some of that space for their straight stairs. For an Octagon or the Rotem clones the HVAC is above and they've got a 50in above rail head gangway.

 

[cirdan]

I have no information about this particular test.
But a different approving official might take those same facts and interpret it as "798k is an automatic fail. Between 800k and 880k is a fail unless you can prove with several replications that your variability is unusually small. Only a single number above 880k gives me confidence that the average strength is consistently above 800k."
In general I want the 2nd kind of official evaluating safety standards.

One would have to know whether the margin is already stacked inside the requirement or whether you are double stacking margins.

In other words, let's assume for the argument that somebody decided based on whatever considerations that we do not know, that actually 720k would be good enough but decided to add 10% margin and called it 800k.

And then the next official who didn't know that said, let's add 10% margin and call it 880k and failed a car that made it to 800k.

In other words the margin has been stacked double.

 

[cirdan]

How many tests were done? Does anybody have an idea of the test to test variability? the engineering tests I used to do had variabilities of 1 to 10 percent. 798k out of 800k is a lot less than that. Unless there's something about the tests I don't understand, I would have passed them if I were the approving official.

I did destructive testing too in an earlier job many decades ago. We had an underground bunker in which we sent surge currents of more than 10x spec through electrical components (not systems) and filmed their destruction with high speed cameras. Our variability was often in excess of 10% and repeatability was surprisingly poor, but the best indicator of upcoming failure was typically pre-stress damage from previous tests as seen on heat maps..