Acela II (Alstom Avelia Liberty): Design, Production, Delivery, Acceptance

[SouthernRailway]

There is an Acela II parked at Philadelphia 30th Street Station today. It’s on the NYC side, in the yard.

[ThirdRail7]

I think it's more of a "you" being most people here other than me. Commuter rail has been 50/50 for 50 years or more. Sure, some, maybe even many, people complain about it. But you know what they complain about more? Uncomfortable seats with no heat or air conditioning and a late train. As has been mentioned even airlines are going to 50/50 in business and soon in coach as well. I spent 14 hours facing backwards in the air last summer. Most pleasant flight of my life. Sleepers are 50/50. perpendicular compartments are 50/50. Get over yourselves. it's not an issue.

It is for some people and there is a difference between a commuter train, the Surfliners a plane and a train moving at speeds 160mph over an infrastructure built in the late 1800s/early 1900s. This is particularly true when people have a choice of transportation products.

Even at 125mph, a lot of people do the "Keystone Shuffle" in Philadelphia. They ride forward and once the train unloads at PHL, they switch seats to face forward over the next segment.

They have calculated a certain degree of loss of ridership but years ago, they are counting on people like you, Andegold. They are counting on people like you that don't care which way they face...and it will work out to your benefit.

When these seats are assigned and available for preselection, you will likely see forward-facing seats cost more. If you don't care which way you face, you'll find a cheaper seat.

[AC4619]

There is an Acela II parked at Philadelphia 30th Street Station today. It’s on the NYC side, in the yard.

Indeed. It's actually been there for several days, I believe about a week. Yard workers appear to have moved it so it's more visible now. IIRC, that is the "second" set... that was supposed to go for testing on the NEC. They're also parking the Acela "1"s all over--they had a set over on 1-track @ 30th in-terminal for several days and several other sets scattered about last week. Didn't see it last time I was by though. Not sure if they're still doing that but I've seen them do this before when they've sidelined the Acela fleet over the years due to wheel cracking and other stuff, mostly using the coach yard for Acela storage. I'm guessing the yards don't have combined capacity to support all the parked equipment, though I was surprised to see the both new and old variants of the Acela fleet parked at 30th. I'm not sure if they're still testing the Acela with everything going on right now (at least on the NEC).

[andegold]

I wonder if a lot of the nausea people experience facing backwards is because they are more likely to not look out the window and therefore not have the visual clues to go with the motion? Conversely, it could be that the backward view contradicts with the motion and causes it.

I get seasick sometimes. I get nauseous in cabs, ubers, as a passenger with most drivers. Reading on a bus will upset my stomach. On a train? Never. I gladly sit facing the rear on NJT.

[Gilbert B Norman]

There is an Acela II parked at Philadelphia 30th Street Station today. It’s on the NYC side, in the yard.

Indeed. It's actually been there for several days, I believe about a week. Yard workers appear to have moved it so it's more visible now.

Oh well, some more "easels" for the "students of the Philadelphia Museum of Art".

[Tadman]

Even at 125mph, a lot of people do the "Keystone Shuffle" in Philadelphia. They ride forward and once the train unloads at PHL, they switch seats to face forward over the next segment.

This is an important question - "What is facing forward?"

Consider the Keystone that changes ends in Philly. Normally we could just chalk that up to being a weird Philly thing like the Eagles and what have. But it happens on the Surfliner in LA.

This happens a lot more in Europe. Not only are many seats fixed on locals and HST, but major stations like Frankfurt, Munich, etc... see end changes. Even WCML trains change ends in EDB when heading into Scotland.

[ThirdRail7]

My problem is the NEC. It isn't smooth by any stretch of the imagination. It has gotten better but it is still rough around the edges. Additionally, the NEC has a lot of traffic congestion. This train isn't going to just cruise along, unimpeded. That means quite a bit of braking, at high speeds. The train will need a superior braking system to smooth out the speed reductions and the infrastructure to make it comfortable for people sitting in two different directions.

[bostontrainguy]

My problem is the NEC. It isn't smooth by any stretch of the imagination. It has gotten better but it is still rough around the edges. Additionally, the NEC has a lot of traffic congestion. This train isn't going to just cruise along, unimpeded. That means quite a bit of braking, at high speeds. The train will need a superior braking system to smooth out the speed reductions and the infrastructure to make it comfortable for people sitting in two different directions.

Your post made me think of something. I never get nauseous on a roller coaster. The motion which certainly can be rough just doesn't cause me to become queasy. That is until I recently rode the Expedition Everest at Disney World. That coaster stops midway through the ride and then goes backwards for a short stretch. And yup my stomach was seriously upset for quite a while afterwards. The NEC isn't as bad as Everest but it certainly will affect some people.

[east point]

The NEC is not going to get smoother until Amtrak can do major undercutting of the tracks. There is a larger amount dedicated to that function in the new proposed budget. I can imagine that the big reduction in scheduled service is going to allow some daytime undercutting without completely shutting down a segment for the work. Probably an outside track in 4 track territory can allow for unimpeded traffic on opposite tracks.p

[ThirdRail7]

Amtrak has undertaken a massive undercutting project over the last few years. The undercutter works during the day. They were supposed to buy two more but I don't know if they hit the property.

[Matt Johnson]

I kind of feel like the original sleek concept vs the final kludge design was sort of a bait and switch. Can we get the original design back? Seriously, I wonder if there's any technical reason that the locomotives are completely slab sided.

[gokeefe]

I've been wondering for a while just exactly how bad the aesthetics supposedly are.

Here are two very recent videos for a side by side comparison.

Avelia

Acela (1)

The thing I noticed was when seen in motion the aesthetic issues are minimal. In fact the roofline of the Avelia is much smoother than the somewhat clunky Acela.

In general I think the issue with the transition between the Avelia power car and the passenger cars is primarily a problem for still photography.

[gokeefe]

Other notable features ...

Articulated trainset eliminates the gap between the cars that occurs with Acela and presents a much sleeker overall appearance along the car sidewalls and skirting. We have yet to see these trains running at speed I'm confident they will look very impressive indeed.

[bostontrainguy]

I kind of feel like the original sleek concept vs the final kludge design was sort of a bait and switch. Can we get the original design back? Seriously, I wonder if there's any technical reason that the locomotives are completely slab sided.

If you look at earlier renderings and models there was a fairing attached to the side of the power cars to help with the transition. I wish someone cared more about aesthetics and authorized that fairing and I assume it could still be done.

This was the Siemens concept:

Siemens.jpg (65.15 KiB) Viewed 1100 times

[gokeefe]

Note the non-articulated design ... With the exception of the power car to passenger transition Alstom's design still seems pretty sleek to me.