Acela Replacement and Disposition Discussion

Are these FRA approved , or will they need an exception to run ? ( sorry , I know the terminology is not correct, brain fried at the end of the week ).

The 3rd gen"Pendolino" in use by the the "Swiss Federal Railways"(SBB/CFF) seems to be the baseline Alstrom is
using for "ACELA LIBERTY" design for Amtrak.
The Lineage goes back to the Virgin UK rail franchise buying the 1st gen Pendolino's that are still in service now.

Alstrom seems to understand the FRA requirements.

With the power cars, these trains should be FRA compliant from the get-go. If they had been EMUs with distributed traction, then waivers might have been needed.

Could it be that those power-car looking things at the ends are merely non-revenue cab cars, rather than power cars?

I suppose that's possible, considering that the existing Pendolino EMUs only use a single pantograph.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa8mnSDN1hQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But then that would require a high voltage connection between cars, which I understand the FRA also frowns upon.

The initial class 372 Eurostar trains used 2 power units and 16 cars, so it''s not unfamiliar for Alstom to do it that way. The new Amelia Liberty will have two power cars with 9 coaches sandwiched in between - with the ability to add three more coaches if Amtrak ever needs them.

The contract is for 28 trains in the above configuration to start service in 2021, trains and 15 year maintenance and spare parts will cost Amtrak $2 Billion, with an option to extend the deal another 15 years. The press release didn't state if Amtrak is buying or leasing them, or whom they would be leasing them from.
Some math = $2,000,000,000 / 28 = $71,428,571 per train.

And like the Eurostar trains, they will be using Jacob bogies arrangement - where two cars sit atop a single two axle bogie. Which brings up my question, how long will the cars be?
Will they wheel span be the same meaning the cars will be shorter, or will the car length be the same meaning a larger wheel span. A larger wheel span could affect clearances to trackside structures on curves.

Gray Lady reports:

http://nytimes.com/2016/08/27/us/politi ... rains.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Fair Use:

A new era of high-speed train travel is coming to the nation’s busiest rail corridor.

Federal officials on Friday announced a $2.45 billion loan to Amtrak for the purchase of state-of-the-art trains to replace the aging Acela trains that use the Northeast Corridor from Washington to Boston.

Amtrak plans to put the first of 28 new trains into service in about five years. Once they are fully deployed, officials expect the Acela to depart every half-hour between Washington and New York and every hour between New York and Boston. That should increase passenger capacity by about 40 percent, they said

When the existing Acela equipment was announced, it was the lead Times story - also on Saturday. But alas, this time around, only Page 12.

Five years - place your bets!

The initial jobs list: https://jobsearch.alstom.com/search/?q= ... ction=desc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Rochester, Hornell, Naperville and other locations.

bdawe wrote:Could it be that those power-car looking things at the ends are merely non-revenue cab cars, rather than power cars?

Alstom says power car.

The trainset configuration includes an innovative compact power car and nine passenger cars

The singular power car is a bit odd though. Presuming a typo.

Questions:

• has Amtrak ever run 2 joined Acelas intentionally (as opposed to during a rescue of a failed set) and
  if "yes" would it be an option (technically and operationally considering platform lengths etc.) to run such a doubled-up service between the time when Avelia enters service to when the fleet is fully replaced, so as to create additional capacity sooner?

Acelas hst are prohibited from being mu'ed as per FRA. They can mu, but to my knowledge has never been done.

thanks amtrakhogger.

Damned FRA fun police

actually only two sets were originaly set up to MU, all except those two did not have MU train line receptacles under hood and only these two sets had passenger type H couplers.
all other Acela's only had a freight coupler and no MU receptacle's only receptacle under hood is single HEP plug to feed the train from outside source.

I saw that they are claiming the new design to be much lighter than the existing Acela. Is this weight reduction coming thru alternate materials (composites, aluminum)?

I hope that they're keeping the Acela name.

"Avelia" is the Alstom trademark for its line of trains, right, so Amtrak won't rename its Acela service to be "Avelia Liberty" will it? (I don't care for that name.)

Thanks.