Acela Replacement and Disposition Discussion

Arlington wrote:
Landmark, iconic, and much-fetishized. just like its Concorde and Space Shuttle counterparts, the love of fans will not save it once its useful life ends, and particularly not if superior world-standard replacements are readily at hand.

The only question is will Amtrak have enough equipment to meet demand once the A-2s are in full service ? If passenger demand proves exceptional and exceeds system capacity then maybe Amtrak would keep A-1s in service on some secondary service ?

I think Concorde is a particularly apt metaphor in this case. Lots of superficial interest ... no real demand.

The above isn't a comment about supersonic jet travel, merely a comparative regarding the actual jets themselves which like the Bombardier Acelas have no future outside a museum.

gokeefe wrote: The above isn't a comment about supersonic jet travel, merely a comparative regarding the actual jets themselves which like the Bombardier Acelas have no future outside a museum.

Richard Branson wanted the Concordes, but the powers that be weren't willing to support continued operation under Virgin. Similarly, I imagine it's partly up to Bombardier whether or not they want to support any proposals for the AX, including maintaining the required supply chain for continued operation.

Backshophoss wrote:The cars are not compatible with the rest of the fleet and have an internal coupling setup that only works with the power cars and other Acela
cars. The only "normal" couplers are on the A end(front)of the power cars.

You could saw the ends off of one car & manufacture two special couplers. If you did that you would have a Unicorn fleet with Centaur couplers

Backshophoss wrote:The cars are not compatible with the rest of the fleet and have an internal coupling setup that only works with the power cars and other Acela
cars. The only "normal" couplers are on the A end(front)of the power cars.

The same can be said about VIA Renaissance cars, yet VIA found a solution.

east point wrote:

Arlington wrote:
Landmark, iconic, and much-fetishized. just like its Concorde and Space Shuttle counterparts, the love of fans will not save it once its useful life ends, and particularly not if superior world-standard replacements are readily at hand.

The only question is will Amtrak have enough equipment to meet demand once the A-2s are in full service ? If passenger demand proves exceptional and exceeds system capacity then maybe Amtrak would keep A-1s in service on some secondary service ?

We already went through that with the canceled extra carriages order and the scrapped Hippos-to-power-cars conversions. The economics suck, suck, suck on running that BBD unicorn equipment. Nothing out there costs as much to run on the road today as the Acela sets. And those costs get mind-blowingly bad on repurposement past end-of-life/rebuild age. That's been documented to the nines. This hand-wringing is a railfan vs. economics argument. We want every piece of functional equipment to be preserved in-service for as long as it can theoretically last on belief that it's got some alternate use. And procurement economics, which has to project the cost amortization over life-of-vehicle, doesn't always agree with that stance. That's why some stuff is rebuilt to infinity and some stuff is 20-and-out. It's not an arbitrary calculation at all. I know some people here won't be dissuaded by that no matter how many official document dumps by gov't agencies state point-blank what economic factors inform their Fleet Plan decisions and budgeting...but wishing harder and positing technical couldas isn't going to make it true. It isn't even addressing the same set of questions that the carriers are with their Fleet Plans.


For the record, AMTK is keeping one Acela set in full working condition for the long-term as a high-speed test set and probably keeping a couple extra power cars and carriages in storage to feed that test set with replacement parts for at least a decade. You'll have your opportunities for fantrips and such in 10 years. But they're not introducing Acela 1 sets on the Keystone or making some "sub-premium"-premium sets for NEC supplementals because it's simply cheaper to buy more Aveilas if they need the expansion than try to wrestle more with Bombardier's mid-90's albatross.

F-line: What’s your source for the plan to keep an AX-1 trainset for high speed testing?

I think there are better than even odds that the Acela I sets never operate off Amtrak’s system. However, 121 cars (including #10003) is a very large “small fleet” to consider should it come up for sale. Installing AAR Type H couplers and further mods & updates wouldn’t be exactly trivial, but it wouldn’t be exactly prohibitive if the cars are shown to have potential life left.

I won’t hold my breath though.

mtuandrew wrote:F-line: What’s your source for the plan to keep an AX-1 trainset for high speed testing?

I think there are better than even odds that the Acela I sets never operate off Amtrak’s system. However, 121 cars (including #10003) is a very large “small fleet” to consider should it come up for sale. Installing AAR Type H couplers and further mods & updates wouldn’t be exactly trivial, but it wouldn’t be exactly prohibitive if the cars are shown to have potential life left.

I won’t hold my breath though.

Why would you want them for high speed testing? What could they possibly do that can't already by done by the Avelias or by some other train in the rest of the world?

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:

east point wrote:

Arlington wrote:
Landmark, iconic, and much-fetishized. just like its Concorde and Space Shuttle counterparts, the love of fans will not save it once its useful life ends, and particularly not if superior world-standard replacements are readily at hand.

The only question is will Amtrak have enough equipment to meet demand once the A-2s are in full service ? If passenger demand proves exceptional and exceeds system capacity then maybe Amtrak would keep A-1s in service on some secondary service ?

We already went through that with the canceled extra carriages order and the scrapped Hippos-to-power-cars conversions. The economics suck, suck, suck on running that BBD unicorn equipment. Nothing out there costs as much to run on the road today as the Acela sets. And those costs get mind-blowingly bad on repurposement past end-of-life/rebuild age. That's been documented to the nines. This hand-wringing is a railfan vs. economics argument. We want every piece of functional equipment to be preserved in-service for as long as it can theoretically last on belief that it's got some alternate use. And procurement economics, which has to project the cost amortization over life-of-vehicle, doesn't always agree with that stance. That's why some stuff is rebuilt to infinity and some stuff is 20-and-out. It's not an arbitrary calculation at all. I know some people here won't be dissuaded by that no matter how many official document dumps by gov't agencies state point-blank what economic factors inform their Fleet Plan decisions and budgeting...but wishing harder and positing technical couldas isn't going to make it true. It isn't even addressing the same set of questions that the carriers are with their Fleet Plans.

Perhaps the wrong thread ... but I think its worth remembering that for whatever reason Bombardier is doing some kind of work on the MARC HHP-8s. That being said ... I agree with you on the Bombardier Acelas. The only future they have is in a museum. The power to weight ratio alone is sufficient reason not to re-purpose them. With regards to keeping a set for testing it would be nice to know or see where that came from (if its out there publicly).

east point wrote:The only question is will Amtrak have enough equipment to meet demand once the A-2s are in full service ? If passenger demand proves exceptional and exceeds system capacity then maybe Amtrak would keep A-1s in service on some secondary service ?

If the system, is groaning under induced demand, the right solution is going to be to lengthen the trains that are already on the corridor provisioned from a common-fleet, and signal, and MNRR slot, and power substation standpoint.

- exercise the option for additional Avelia coaches and lengthen the A-2s. This is also the right answer from a branding (service-consistency) standpoint, and from an energy consumption, maintenance, and dispatch reliability. (Avelias are 10% cheaper to operate)
- add V-2 coaches to the LDs that ply the corridor and allow more of them to handle local traffic (knock wood, the V-2 coaches will be delivered by 2021, about when there'd be the first hint of toomuch demand)
- If A-2s have taken slots from existing Amfleet NER trains, break those and reallocate their coaches, lengthening the NER trains that remain.

mtuandrew wrote:However, 121 cars (including #10003) is a very large “small fleet” to consider should it come up for sale. Installing AAR Type H couplers and further mods & updates wouldn’t be exactly trivial, but it wouldn’t be exactly prohibitive if the cars are shown to have potential life left.

Especially in an era where building FRA compliant stainless steel cars seems to be a monumental challenge, with carmakers either failing altogether (Nippon Sharyo) or producing cars at a rate of maybe 10 per year (CAF).

[quote="ArlingtonIf the system, is groaning under induced demand, the right solution is going to be to lengthen the trains that are already on the corridor provisioned from a common-fleet, and signal, and MNRR slot, and power substation standpoint.

- exercise the option for additional Avelia coaches and lengthen the A-2s. This is also the right answer from a branding (service-consistency) standpoint, and from an energy consumption, maintenance, and dispatch reliability. (Avelias are 10% cheaper to operate)
- add V-2 coaches to the LDs that ply the corridor and allow more of them to handle local traffic (knock wood, the V-2 coaches will be delivered by 2021, about when there'd be the first hint of toomuch demand)
- If A-2s have taken slots from existing Amfleet NER trains, break those and reallocate their coaches, lengthening the NER trains that remain.[/quote]

Hopefully lengthen the A-2s will be the only solution needed. How soon after exercising the options will they be available can be a problem ?. The problem of longer trains is the BOS winter servicing problem. As of now there is a practical limit of 8 car trains due to the BOS indoor servicing facility cannot be lengthened at its present location without major neighbor hood disruption and no other location has yet to be found anywhere close to BOS south station. Believe that Sunnyside and Ivy city can lengthen theirs ?

A lot of concern is the short term increase in demand exceeding capacity. Unless something drastic happens during the next 4 years the number of single level coaches on the NEC will not increase. One solution of course is turning equipment sets faster at WASH, NYP, BOS. That will require many more cleaning crews at those locations to keep cars relatively clean for quick turns.

east point wrote:The only question is will Amtrak have enough equipment to meet demand once the A-2s are in full service ? If passenger demand proves exceptional and exceeds system capacity then maybe Amtrak would keep A-1s in service on some secondary service ?

If Amtrak sells out all of the new Acela capacity that quickly the only real problem they are going to have is how to spend all of the money.

mtuandrew wrote:F-line: What’s your source for the plan to keep an AX-1 trainset for high speed testing?

Mentioned by employees umpteen pages ago in this thread. Note that they do already have that high-speed geo carriage sitting around that they can swap into an Acela set when they need to borrow one for testing, so the thinking was that they would continue using that for as long as it was worthwhile given that the NEC has so many incremental stretches of higher-speed uprates on-tap throughout the 2020's. Although currently tentative plans can always change come 2022 if it's indeed that much of a pain to keep the BBD equipment going (e.g. if the test train needs a mandatory shop inspection every time it's being taken out, that's probably a bridge too far). They can already run 125 MPH test trains any time they need to with conventional equipment lashed up with universal MOW cars, so the day-to-day uses for a >125 MPH test train are limited on the Corridor: tilt measurements and testing at MAS speed on the limited total amount of Class 8 trackage. If worst comes to worst Alstom just makes them an extra Aveila geo car at the extreme tail end of the contract and they stick with present practice of borrowing a revenue set on the overnights for tests.

gokeefe wrote:

east point wrote:The only question is will Amtrak have enough equipment to meet demand once the A-2s are in full service ? If passenger demand proves exceptional and exceeds system capacity then maybe Amtrak would keep A-1s in service on some secondary service ?

If Amtrak sells out all of the new Acela capacity that quickly the only real problem they are going to have is how to spend all of the money.

Yes, this too. If they need to do a supplemental order of Aveilas because they're exploding from the seams from Day 1, that's not going to be a hard thing to pay for with revenues the way the company is now structured. It means an already profitable service is going to be superduper profitable, compelling the immediate political pressure to put some of that profit back into expanding the service's capacity. This isn't at all like a systemwide shortage of LD cars and having to wait turn for up to a decade for another fixed procurement window because there aren't enough profitable routes canceling out the loss leaders in that division of the company.

Plus, using proven tech this time is going to make a supplemental order from Alstom less expensive than the supplemental order of Acela sets that they walked away from with BBD. More world-standardized carriages in the Aveila, unlike the extra overhead of manufacture/assembly of all the custom components in the Acela sets. And standardized power cars unlike the hail-mary of trying to design a Hippos rebuild that'll work properly as 150 MPH tilting pairs.