First (and not to steal Jeff's thunder!) shouldn't we be discussing this in the M-8 thread?
MCL1981 wrote:Could they mean it can only support a 4 car consist at the same time as also supporting other Amtrak trains in the area? Basically, take the total power available, subtract the maximum amount Amtrak could need on their worst day, and what's left is enough to power a 4 car EMU consist.
+1. Not to mention that Amtrak has plans to add up to 10 more Acela trips on the Shore Line by 2030 which might be the maximum amount of electric service the current infrastructure could handle without upgrading each substation and transformer station (or whatever the smaller ones are called) which would certainly not come cheap. Metro-North after all needed to upgrade the New Haven Line substations to support the M-8s.
But in all fairness to Amtrak would
you want foreign electric power that not only would eat into your electric supply, but also require that the pans be lowered and then raised again where the voltage changes just to avoid an explosion? Yes Metro-North lowers it's pans going to and from GCT every single day @ Pelham, but not down and back up again in such a short period of time where there's not much wiggle room (and isn't the changeover in that S-curve cut under I-91?). All it would take is for an engineer to inadvertently forget to drop the pans and... well you can guess the rest.
Let's not rush to judgement and deduce that Amtrak is pulling a fast one. It's their electrification system on their ROW so if they're getting cold feet about having quicker/faster accelerating electric commuter trains running on their tracks there has to be a good reason for that.