Amtrak California buying 27 coach cars, 2 engines

afiggatt wrote:

jamesinclair wrote:

afiggatt wrote:In the reallocation of the Florida HSR grants announced today, there were $336 million in grants for new rolling stock.
$68 million to CA to buy 15 bi-levels and 4 locomotives for the Surfliner, San Joaquin, and Capital Corridors services.

Is this in addition to the already announced?

So a grand total of 42 coach cars and 6 engines?

For California, yes. If the previously funded Illinois grant for the Chicago to St. Louis corridor for 30 passenger cars and the 48 bi-levels for the mid-West are added up, the result is a surprisingly round number of 120 bi-level passenger cars. Sounds to me like the FRA and Amtrak worked out what would be enough to place a initial production run RFP.

Yes, it does seem like the concerns about it being too small an order have flown out the window. 120 is more than enough to get any manufacturer excited (and make the price reasonable).

I can't remember where Alstom had their "Pacific Surfliner" carbody shells assembled. The earlier "California Car" shells were made by SOREFRAME in Portugal for M-K Co. (later Amerail).

I'm wondering if the new order in question will mandate that the corridor bilevel carbody shells be fabricated in the USA (and/or that the final assembly be performed in each individual state A LA the Wisconsin Talgos).

Bombardier did not qualify for the recent Amtrak low-level car order because of first of these two requirements.

That leaves just Alstom, CAF and Kawasaki, I think, as being ready, willing and able!

Sumitomo/Nippon Sharyo is building an assembly plant in Illinois, but is not fabricating the METRA Electric gallery-style carbodies there.

I think rotem will build the metrolink cars in Califionia . or at least aseemble them there .

I highly doubt we'll ever see any stainless steel shells fabricated in this country any more. From what people have said in previous threads there is some sort of acid bath process that no domestic supplier has the capacity to perform and would be reluctant to re-engineer due to environmental regulations. All the current purchase requirements call for is for domestic assembly. That means all the high value added components are made overseas and then bolted together by domestic workers with the lowest possible skill/wage.

After Rotem's latest experience the suppliers might want to modify their manufacturing processes so that the assembly instructions can take the form of "insert tab A into slot B".

Jersey_Mike wrote:

Who buys 2 engines ???

I believe that West Coast Express in Vancouver bought a single MP36 so buying two would not be without precedent.

You are correct. I rode the train powered by that single MP36 during my Vancouver trip in April.

electricron wrote:With all the new Superliners coming on line, where does Amtrak plan to use the Horizons being replaced? According to Amtrak's future plans, the Horizons aren't due for retirement until 2030 or so. Can they be used effectively on the Northeast Corridor, as there will no other place left for them to go? Unless Amtrak plans to refurbish them for long distance coach services, mixed with existing and new Viewliner rail cars.

They would likely go to Chicago with the rest of the Horizons. All these cars have not been firmly ordered yet, and even IF they are, it's not like they will all be arriving for service at the same time. They would not be much use on the NE Corridor, due to their manual Dutch door operation.

afiggatt wrote:

jamesinclair wrote:

afiggatt wrote:In the reallocation of the Florida HSR grants announced today, there were $336 million in grants for new rolling stock.
$68 million to CA to buy 15 bi-levels and 4 locomotives for the Surfliner, San Joaquin, and Capital Corridors services.

Is this in addition to the already announced?

So a grand total of 42 coach cars and 6 engines?

For California, yes. If the previously funded Illinois grant for the Chicago to St. Louis corridor for 30 passenger cars and the 48 bi-levels for the mid-West are added up, the result is a surprisingly round number of 120 bi-level passenger cars. Sounds to me like the FRA and Amtrak worked out what would be enough to place a initial production run RFP.

With FRA funds obligated, staff is working with Caltrans Rail to get RFP bid package for new rail cars prepared for early 2012.

http://www.capitolcorridor.org/included ... Report.pdf
Bid package early 2012 means signing a contract mid 2012. Delivery is probably late 2014 to late 2016 or first half of 2017. I believe funds have to be expended by late 2017. That seems like a long time away.

Mentioned at the end of an article on air quality at Chicago Union station:

Amtrak, meanwhile, is planning to replace all of its locomotives with cleaner models starting in 2015. The upgrades depend on federal funding that has been targeted for congressional budget cuts.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... 4245.story

This may build on the specifications that California is developing for their 125 mph locomotives to be bid this year.