Acela Replacement and Disposition Discussion

It seems uncertain whether or not traps could be added. What does not seem uncertain to me is the political calculus behind giving Bombardier a contract to overhaul those trainsets and then operating them in Canada.

I’m pretty sure Amtrak will be selling the older Acela units for as low as scrap prices, so VIA wouldn’t be able to buy anything as nice cheaper. Sure, they will need some work, and they will have to resolve the power car problem because I doubt CN will electrify the entire corridor so the existing Acela power cars will work. But they have sufficient diesels already, it’s just a matter of coupling them to the string of Acela cars. With the old Acela cars on the corridor service, they should be able to retire all the existing cars, making them available for other services, the eastern providences and elsewhere VIA might wish to increase services.

I mean, if I were Amtrak I’d be trying to hawk these sets wherever I could, and if I were VIA I’d be at least moderately interested in replacing the Budd HEP2 and Metro Cammell Renaissance stock.

Now, if I were Bombardier, I would be offering VIA a package deal:
1) the 120 A-X cars (repurchased from Amtrak), rebuilt, rewired, made into singles, de-tilted and trapped if possible
2) upon delivery of 1), a further capstone rebuild of the LRC cars to essentially the same standard
3) a straight diesel version of the ALP-45DP

Anything to help rescue their good name with both national corporations.

Ron: I’d expect the Nightstars to simply leave service, and probably the Budd HEP2s as well. Trudeau hasn’t been particularly big on actually funding expanded VIA service, unfortunately.

Matt Johnson wrote:

Greg Moore wrote: My understanding is that active-tilt is more for customer comfort than anything else?
So engineers can just brace more going into the curve.

Correct, and yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

On another note, I'll be curious to see if the 20 Acela sets see any sort of second life. There has to be some value to the 40 locomotives and 120 coaches that are less than half the age of the workhorse Amfleets one would think. That's a lot of young rolling stock to just throw away, but then I suppose the unique maintenance requirements and also the lack of low level traps are limiting factors for any second act. But maybe some less stressful use of the coaches, sans active tilt, like running behind steam locomotives on some tourist/excursion operation?

It would never happen, but I'd love to see NYS electrify NYP-ALB and other than Hudson, all platforms are high-platform.

The Acelas have seen a lot of hard use. Yes, a lot less mileage than say the Amfleet IIs, but running consistently at 135MPH and up to 150MPH puts a lot more stress on a car than 110MPh or less.
And honestly, 110MPH to Albany would be just fine

Greg Moore wrote:.....land up to 150MPH puts a lot more stress on a car than 110MPh or less.
And honestly, 110MPH to Albany would be just fine

95 mph between Toronto and Montreal would be even finer.
As someone else replied, VIA is not going to get a major influx of funds to buy brand new equipment. The only time VIA did buy brand new coaches was the LRC order. They inherited most of the rail cars for the Canadian from CP, and they bought the Renaissance cars for the Ocean from Britain at a fire sale price because they decided not to run sleeper trains through the Chunnel. They would be basically saying to all their customers that they are allowing VIA to die a slow death if they don’t buy the Acelas at a fire sale price when the opportunity arises. Of course, the price will have to be acceptable low.

I don’t see Amtrak wishing to maintain these Acela cars in the future. That’s the whole purpose of replacing them with something new. If they can’t find a buyer for them they will find a scraper.

Did the "liberty" contract include a "High Speed" Track Geo Car? If not,figure on Amtrak holding on to 4 power cars and 1 consist of cars,
to allow the current High speed Track Geo Car to be used.

I’d hope Amtrak sprang for a new geometry car fully compatible with the Avelia!! I think we can safely assume that when the rest of the AX-1 fleet goes, so will #10003.

And I know it’s unlikely for the Acela cars to see a second use, but it’s a large captive fleet (121 cars, counting the aforementioned #10003) with a single owner. Worth a thought exercise for us, even if other roads’ mechanical departments disagree.

I can't imagine they DIDN'T buy something like #10003.

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/sing ... erway.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So its not a Pendolino, its a TGV power cars, with next gen TGV propulsion, Pendolino tilt mechanism with AGV cars. That's what we call a "mutt" in the USA. But since none of this is experimental should work like a charm.

From the article-

Amtrak initially favoured a Pendolino derivative’, Sherin explained, but ‘we were able to persuade them otherwise, partly because a move to a multiple-unit fleet would require significant alterations to depot facilities’. The Avelia Liberty is also designed to allow extra intermediate cars to be added without any mechanical or electrical alterations to the train.

Whats different from the Pendolino and what modification would it had required for depots? How does one easily add cars to a unit train that shares boogies?

frequentflyer wrote:http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/sing ... erway.html

So its not a Pendolino, its a TGV power cars, with next gen TGV propulsion, Pendolino tilt mechanism with AGV cars. That's what we call a "mutt" in the USA. But since none of this is experimental should work like a charm.

Whats different from the Pendolino and what modification would it had required for depots? How does one easily add cars to a unit train that shares boogies?

It's not easy to add cars to a train that shares boogies, but it is not an impossible task. Amtrak has successfully added cars to the Cascades trains made by Talgo. DART added a middle car to its light rail vehicles and turned them into super light rail vehicles. Both examples prove it can be done. The biggest changes to the pits for a multiple unit power configuration train is the size of the pit required to safely drop and raise large motors at their new locations. The pits Amtrak uses already have space to drop and raise large motors at either end of the pit.

mtuandrew wrote:I mean, if I were Amtrak I’d be trying to hawk these sets wherever I could, and if I were VIA I’d be at least moderately interested in replacing the Budd HEP2 and Metro Cammell Renaissance stock.

Now, if I were Bombardier, I would be offering VIA a package deal:
1) the 120 A-X cars (repurchased from Amtrak), rebuilt, rewired, made into singles, de-tilted and trapped if possible
2) upon delivery of 1), a further capstone rebuild of the LRC cars to essentially the same standard
3) a straight diesel version of the ALP-45DP

Anything to help rescue their good name with both national corporations.

Ron: I’d expect the Nightstars to simply leave service, and probably the Budd HEP2s as well. Trudeau hasn’t been particularly big on actually funding expanded VIA service, unfortunately.

I doubt Bombardier would offer VIA anything as there is no likely possibility of any level of government funding it.

Helping Bombardier out to solve their aviation problems is one thing, but risking getting into ongoing bad press by giving money to their rail division is something that would be far too risky.

Just today indication that yet again Bombardier is going to miss yet another delivery promise on the streetcars for Toronto (the many times revised/broken promise had ended up with 40 deliveries this year, and the TTC is now saying they only anticipate getting 30, so they aren't even close).

Essentially nobody except Bombardier believes they will deliver the complete order of 204 vehicles by 2019 given in the first 8 years they have only managed to deliver 48 to date (with only a further 12 now expected by end of year).

And none of that considers their issues delivering to Metrolinx for the Toronto and other southern Ontario LRT lines.

As for replacing the Renaissance equipment, the original Acela wouldn't help given lack of sleeping accommodation in either the LRC or Acela designs and I would hope VIA would be cautious about attempting a radical redesign on the cheap.

electricron wrote:Bombardier could bring out their turbine power locomotive power units, or use diesels instead for the prime mover. It’s not like Bombardier hadn’t done so in the last - because they have. VIA is presently desiring new corridor rolling stock to replace their LRCs, and these could fit in nicely if the trap problems could be fixed.

Not to get too far off topic, but what the heck ever happened to this thing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8s7pcqpc4c" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Matt Johnson wrote:

electricron wrote:Bombardier could bring out their turbine power locomotive power units, or use diesels instead for the prime mover. It’s not like Bombardier hadn’t done so in the last - because they have. VIA is presently desiring new corridor rolling stock to replace their LRCs, and these could fit in nicely if the trap problems could be fixed.

Not to get too far off topic, but what the heck ever happened to this thing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8s7pcqpc4c" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That engine and the "retired" Acela cars could run somewhere for Amtrak. Example: Boston - Portland/Brunswick

I was suggesting using Acela cars to replace Renaissance coaches used on the corridor, not those used on the Ocean. The Renaissance coaches now used on the corridor could then be moved elsewhere, for example the new VIA trains proposed for Novia Scotia and New Brunswick. There’s 120 Acela coaches, 20 sets of 6 cars each, available to replace 98 LRC cars (26 clubs and 72 coaches) and 47 Renaissance coaches 14 clubs and 33 coaches). Not all the Renaissance coaches are used on the corridor. ,
The Acela first class cars have 44 seats, the business cars have 65 seats, the bistro car can accommodate passengers. There’s 304 seats available for sale on every 6 car train ( 1 first + 1 bistro, + 4 business). X 20 trains = 6,080 seats.

The LRC club cars have 44 seats, the coach cars have 68 seats, there is no bistro car. There’s 360 seats available for sale on a 6 car train (2 club + 4 economy). Total seats = 1,144 + 4,896 = 6,040 seats , total sets = approximately 13

The Renaissance corridor train club car have 48 seats, the coach cars have 48 seats, there is no bistro car. There’s 288 seats available for sale on a 6 car train (2 club + 4 economy). Total seats = 2,256 seats , total sets = approximately 7.
Remember not all Renaissance cars are used exclusively for corridor work.

The Acela bistro cars could be refurbished into a club car where additional seats could be sold. It’ll be up to VIA to determine how many fare paying seats to add.

VIA's been pretty transparent on what its fleet plans are. The whole lump-sum Corridor-assigned fleet is going to be replaced by one completely homogenous fleet of new locos and coaches, because they've determined that paying that cost up-front is better than continuing to struggle maintaining wildly divergent makes (whether they be prehistoric, merely "old", or not-so-old). That immediately rules out any supplemental experimentation on the Corridor because they approached this calculation from an assumption that they'd be cash-strapped any which way...and even if it requires taking out a loan to make the procurement a clean sweep is still better for them financially at the decade level than trying to make ends meet with continuing wild fragmentation swapping out some-old for some-new/borrowed/blue. Whether you agree or not...they've pretty clearly stated that this is their business case for choosing the Fleet Strategy they chose.

The HEP1 LD fleet is staying long-term, and I guess the off-Corridor remainders are all TBD's depending on whether there's enough money to pad the Corridor order with extra options or if they default to keeping a portion of the Renaissance fleet in service on those routes. But any which way, there's no 'in' for anyone else's hand-me-down carriages to get a trial.