Amfleet Replacement Discussion.

David Benton wrote:Acela2 is under RFP, amfleet replacement is just a twinkle in the planners eyes at this stage.

As long as they're structurally sound and Amtrak keeps the interiors maintained/updated as necessary, I'm perfectly fine with the Amfleets. Sure, I'd like larger windows and smoother riding trucks, but Amfleets are ok.

If amtrak thinks running this equipment as standard corridor fare is acceptable maybe they should be forced to open it up to competition. logically single levels should have been ordered before the acela and certainly the long hauls but illogical lyrics they decided to ordered new long hauls first

Why?

The Acela's "make money" (yeah, I know that's debatable, but Congress seems to have bought the argument) so it makes sense for Amtrak to go there first.
As for the long-hauls, last I checked, the Amfleet IIs have more mileage on them.

Open it up to competition? Jesus Christ, are we never going to figure out that passenger trains don't make money and that that's why private companies got out of the business?

Suburban Station wrote:If amtrak thinks running this equipment as standard corridor fare is acceptable maybe they should be forced to open it up to competition. logically single levels should have been ordered before the acela and certainly the long hauls but illogical lyrics they decided to ordered new long hauls first

Just what exactly is wrong with keeping the Amfleet I's in service longer? Yes they won't last beyond another 20 years at most with another overhaul and they're not the Acelas, but they're good, solid, dependable, and comfortable pieces of equipment. The fact that they've held up so well for 40 years and look great inside and out (though I am biased towards the "Captstone" livery ) is nothing short of astounding. Other types of newer single level coaching stock (Comet II, III, etc.) are just about ready to run their last miles with the CalTrans "Comarrows" being the only exception with their rebuild. I've taken the Regionals quite a few times over the past few years and I've never had any complaints.


I don't doubt that Amtrak would love to replace them right now. But as usual it's almost always a matter of "show me the money"...

One good reason is that with such hard use one would expect metal fatigue to set in eventually in the form of crack in the shell (initially visible only via ultrasonic testing). Once you've detected it its far too late. At that point the equipment likely would have to be removed from service immediately. I also don't think the FRA would want Amtrak running their equipment for that long for the same reasons. There's potential for regulatory pressure to retire that fleet from the FRA within 10-15 years and I think Amtrak is wisely pursuing replacement now. As far as the order of replacement goes getting rid of the oldest equipment first makes absolute sense. Amtrak is lucky they were able to keep the Heritage Baggage cars running as long as they did.

NH2060 wrote:

Suburban Station wrote:If amtrak thinks running this equipment as standard corridor fare is acceptable maybe they should be forced to open it up to competition. logically single levels should have been ordered before the acela and certainly the long hauls but illogical lyrics they decided to ordered new long hauls first

Just what exactly is wrong with keeping the Amfleet I's in service longer? Yes they won't last beyond another 20 years at most with another overhaul and they're not the Acelas, but they're good, solid, dependable, and comfortable pieces of equipment. The fact that they've held up so well for 40 years and look great inside and out (though I am biased towards the "Captstone" livery ) is nothing short of astounding. Other types of newer single level coaching stock (Comet II, III, etc.) are just about ready to run their last miles with the CalTrans "Comarrows" being the only exception with their rebuild. I've taken the Regionals quite a few times over the past few years and I've never had any complaints.


I don't doubt that Amtrak would love to replace them right now. But as usual it's almost always a matter of "show me the money"...

Frabricating your own parts because they haven't been produced in over 30 years gets progressively more expensive. Doing it for nearly 500 cars...very, very expensive.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Doing it for nearly 500 cars...very, very expensive.

I'm not convinced that's true if Amtrak has a manufacturing partner. At that point economies of scale takeover that don't exist when you're just overhauling five units a year using your own shop forces. The AEM-7AC rebuild is an example of a rebuild program that utilized an economy of scale and support from an industrial partner that made the program cheaper than it otherwise would have been for Amtrak to undertake such a program using their own resources.

I do think that Amtrak has got serious reasons for not wanting to even consider attempting to rebuild 500 cars, even with a partner such as CAF or Siemens and that unlike the AEM-7 program the modifications required are so extensive as to be extremely cost prohibitive.

Amfleets are nothing like the AEM-7AC's. The AEM-7 lineage was still being produced new as the ALP-44M just 2 years prior to the start of the reman program. The even older Swedish SJ Class Rc's that the Toasters are based on is still the backbone of Sweden's electric fleet, with one operator sending theirs through a huge Bombardier modernization overhaul in 2010, a full decade after the remans. There was never an outright cutoff where you could no longer get third-party sourced components like there was when Bombardier stopped sourcing defunct Budd designs. No comparison whatsoever.


Amtrak doesn't have a manufacturing partner that can make old parts for a Bombardier-via-Budd design with ancient licensing red tape to square. That's exactly why they fabricate in-house instead of outsourcing. Getting the licensing in order and getting somebody's assembly line outfitted is damn expensive and chews up a lot of the savings that may have come from economy-of-scale. The economics are sub-optimal. If the economics were optimal, Amtrak would've planned all along for another rebuild and wouldn't have bothered putting together a Fleet Plan that specced replacements.

Can we please get out of fantasyland and stop inventing overly complicated ways to keep somebody's personal favorite cars immortal because reasons? The only way Amtrak jumps through all the extra hoops and inefficiencies of another rebuild is if they flat-out can't get a Congressional appropriation to RFP and purchase a new set of cars, and have no hope of that changing before the current lifespan of the cars is shot. Then and only then does the government legalese make it a path of least resistance to attempt a rebuild on a small percentage of the fleet, then triage as they can to scrape up money to put a few more cars in the rebuild program. It'd be lousy value-for-money on a per-car basis, but something they can do without a massive up-front outlay if it comes to that.

For obvious reasons, we should hope they aren't put in that position because a whole lot more mission-critical finances would get sacked than just the new rolling stock budget if Congressional paralysis were total and everlasting enough to force those kinds of tough decisions.

Suggest that you go to Amtrak.com // reports and documents, // fleet strategy plan. You will find that the Amfleet - 2s have ~ 40 %^ more miles than the -1s, The fleet strategy plan states the -2s will be replaced first due to that metric. It may be that the -2s will go into a reserve fleet and be used occasionally on NEC & SD trains when loads high ?

So let us worry about replacing -2s which will have different auxiliaries.

The design for the new cars follows the Viewliner M.O. (whether they end up being Viewliner-derived or some totally other design): modular interior sections that can be configured/reconfigured at-will to different layouts. Therefore the LD coaches, corridor + state-sponsored coaches, and all manner of specialty cars (business class, cafe/dinette, half-bag, etc.) come off the assembly line in exactly the same package. They only get differentiated post-manufacture when they're opened up and the livery sections are snapped in. This is unlike the ongoing Viewbag/Viewfood/Viewdorm order where there's actual structural differences between the car types in terms of window/door layout and electrical. So the distinction between Amfleet I's and II's disappears with the replacements and AMTK can structure the order of deployment any way they see fit. The sequencing in the Fleet Plan is scheduled to replace the II's first because, as you note, they're a lot more worn out than the I's and lower on reserves. But if they wanted to they could multitask the replacements: alternate a corridor and an LD replacement 1:1 until the LD's are done, replace two Amfleet II's for every I, replace X coaches for every 1 dinette or biz class, and on and on. They could adjust the delivery sequence on-the-fly so long as the snap-in sections for any given interior are ready when the cars come come off the assembly line. So while it's still most likely the II's will get replaced first, they have the ability to adjust at the last minute if there's a dire need to front-load or multitask something involving the I's.

PRIAA single-level spec docs have a lot of verbiage about this. Its especially attractive for the state-sponsored shares, in that it affords a lot more diverse made-to-order specialty configurations without going totally off-the-reservation from Beech Grove's specs (i.e. closing the "NCDOT loophole"). The half-bag coach configuration in particular breaks down the barrier to a lot of routes (Vermonter, for example) that desire some baggage capacity but either don't qualify for a Viewbag assignment or can't afford to pay for a full bag.


The only cars in the next-gen order that'll be a completely different design are the cab cars replacing the Metroliners and Downeaster NPCU's. Obviously because the cab end + controls and associated crash management are integral parts of the cab car design differing from the trailers' design. Cabs are specced by the PRIAA docs as being a default cab-bag-coach configuration: cab at front, a small crew storage room behind the cab, a small baggage room behind the crew room, and a half-coach seating area at the rear. Only variation on that configuration is that the states can opt to swap out the seating section for a bigger baggage room.

Are you 100% sure on this? My understanding was that the LD cars would continue the practice of 1 vestibule and the corridor cars 2?

Greg Moore wrote:Are you 100% sure on this? My understanding was that the LD cars would continue the practice of 1 vestibule and the corridor cars 2?

The PRIAA docs (sorry, the PDF's online are all scans so I can't copypasta) say they're seeking a standardized carbody design for all vehicles in the fleet conforming to a common platform type, except when "specific features or functions that are deemed appropriate by the Technical Subgroups shall have priority over these requirements" (e.g. cab cars).

The Fleet Plan says, re: the LD's:

If Amtrak decides to expand long distance service, the fleet strategy will be adjusted to reflect the greater equipment need. As with the NEC, a major change in transportation patterns driven by external factors could result in a significant change in the demand for long distance trains. In that case, the fleet planning process is designed to accommodate such growth as it occurs.

Despite the secular growth scenario anticipated for Long Distance service, the fact that this existing fleet of both single level and bi-level equipment is scheduled for replacement with a new generation of conventional rolling stock creates an opportunity to advance a fleet acquisition strategy for conventional equipment for both state supported corridors and the NEC. The next generation of single and multi-level passenger coaches and café cars is being designed to meet the needs of corridors and Long Distance service. Amtrak continues to evaluate the need and viability of multi-level equipment and future updates of this strategy will reflect those learning’s and decisions.

Juxtaposing these two sources...yes, they have all the legalese wiggle room in the world to diverge the LD and corridor fleet designs as they see fit. No specific decision has been made on that, and they won't need to make any such decision until the money's actually appropriated to RFP some new cars. But, the philosophy they intend to pursue comes through pretty clear in their docs:

-- They're striving for design commonality and economy-of-scale between all new-purchase single-level and bi-level makes as much as humanly possible (e.g. except when cab cars vs. coaches, full-bags/diners vs. coaches, etc. force unavoidable structural/electrical changes to the base design).

-- They anticipate changing needs for fleet assignments during the life of the cars, and want complete as possible modularity on the interiors so they can adapt to changing roles and avoid unnecessary fleet imbalances.

All of that very strongly suggests that they're innately loathe to diverge the single-level carbody design over a relatively minor LD vs. corridor difference like having 1 vestibule vs. 2. To the degree that pinches capacity it ends up far easier to just order more generic cars in the LD modular livery to compensate rather than spend the money to produce a whole different carbody for a minority fleet that's harder to retrofit when LD vs. corridor car needs shift. So while they have leeway to make whatever decision they want re: divergent designs at the time they issue the RFP's, betting odds point to a strong probability of common 2 vestibules fleet-wide.

I completely agree with that analysis. I doubt very much that Amtrak will allow vestibule designs to impede them again as it has with the Amfleet I and II series (let alone the problems with the Horizon cars and trainline doors). One thing Amtrak has done over the past four decades has been to continue to increase fleet commonality. The more they have the more successful they have become.

Two vestibules are a MUST in the NEC. Without them dwell times will be increased.