Why is the ride so rough between NYC and DC?

Regarding funding, or lack thereof, concerning the NEC, as long as the politics remain so dysfunctional between Congress and the White House, maybe it is time for the folks in this region to take the initiative. Two thoughts come to mind.
1. Perhaps a maintenance surcharge of one dollar be added to the price of every rail ticket, commuter or Amtrak, with this money devoted solely to track and ROW maintenance. In exchange, access fees for commuter operators would be frozen at current levels.
2. I remember when a railroad bridge crossed over a highway that the railroad would attach its name to advertise its presence. If there are places like that in the northeast, maybe Amtrak could lease this space for an outdoor advertiser's billboard. This and other real estate investment income would also be directed to track maintenance, as would be access fees from freight railroads who use the corridor.

Amtrak is pretty good at advertising revenue, especially in stations but I’ve seen it on the NEC as well.

Re: Arborway’s point, historic preservation laws are also much weaker in the USA vs Europe. We never had two world wars to knock down infrastructure, but in return our nation never had much preservation awareness of our pre-colonial history aside from the most obvious (a very few remaining mounds in the midwest that weren’t demolished, some pueblos in the west) and has been thoroughly unsentimental about our early American history. Not so in Europe or Japan (much less so post-Cultural Revolution China, and I can’t speak to Korea or India) where those sites are the literal foundation of their cultures and are to be preserved or even rebuilt at any cost. No one could ever propose to build a railroad through the Notre Dame site for instance, yet Paris has an immense transportation network despite catacombs and Roman ruins.

America just doesn’t value passenger rail much, and I think it should.

Have to wonder about the NEC sub grade? It has been as much as 150+ years that the first subgrade was placed. It may be because of poor or no drainage, the beating from all the trains making it mush or other problems that complete replacement will be the only ultimate answer? Complete isolation of each track removal of all sub grade and built to 2100 standards not 1800s ? NJT was observed doing that on the main line. They dug down 10 feet in places.

Train60 wrote:

ajl1239 wrote:money. as I understand it, Amtrak does/did not have the staff nor equipment to keep up on ballast/undercutting. you would make such a decision if you weren't sure whether funding would be consistently available. not just from the feds but prior to PRIIA, commuter railroads did not contribute as much to ongoing maintenance either. it takes years to recover once you let it go.

Keep in mind that Amtrak has $370 million of new MOW equipment on order for the NEC.

REF
https://media.amtrak.com/2018/07/smooth ... customers/

It is my hope that this signals real change. The commuter railroads now contribute capital which itself should provide more stable funding to the nec and branch lines and hopefully lead to improved ballast/undercutting, among other things

Engineer Spike wrote:I think part of the problem is that Amfleet cars ride like lumber wagons. Too bad Martin Blomberg isn’t still alive. I’m sure he would have been able to design a light, high speed, and comfortable riding truck. He seems to have hit it out of the park while at Pullman and EMD. Hopefully the engineer in charge of the trucks on the successor coach fleet has a good knack at it.

Agreed. I have no idea why the original Metroliner had traditional trucks and then the replacement Amfleet, the same thing, got the Pioneer trucks. Why didn't they stick with the original trucks? The Pioneer wasn't known for a great ride.

The NEC is reasonably functional but it's not a beauty contestant. The ride is so much better in Germany it's not even in the same league. NEC reminds me a bit of the rollercoasters at Cedar Point.

Tadman wrote:
Agreed. I have no idea why the original Metroliner had traditional trucks and then the replacement Amfleet, the same thing, got the Pioneer trucks. Why didn't they stick with the original trucks? The Pioneer wasn't known for a great ride.

Budd had the hammer/nail syndrome. The Pioneer supposedly is hard on track (I wouldn't be surprised - the unsprung weight on it is likely very high,especially now that hollow axles are verboten in the US for some reason), and wasn't really designed for ride qualities anyway. Unless theyr'e on darn near perfect track, then they're actually quite nice. The cab car Metros really aren't that much better riding anyway,

Supposedly they used the trucks they did on the Metros because they needed to wedge in the huge traction motors the thing had (the cars were rated something stupid like 1200HP a car, with a much higher 1 hour rating). Frankly, I have to wonder if a lot of the design decisions made was the PRR medling in the project to try to ensure its failure - they really didn't have any enthusiasm for it.

The NEC is reasonably functional but it's not a beauty contestant. The ride is so much better in Germany it's not even in the same league. NEC reminds me a bit of the rollercoasters at Cedar Point.

I wonder if anyone's ever studied why? Most European mainlines see a lot more traffic than the NEC, and it's been hinted a few times that they spend less per kilometer on maintenance, too. I'd be curious how the track forces of European trains compare to US ones, but I suspect the answer is pretty obvious. Of course, the FRA doesn't regulate that (or braking distances, amazingly), so nobody cares. "The taxpayer will pay for it anyway..."

From my observations, the european construction standards are far more demanding. The ballast and roadbed preparation, the tolerances to which the gauge and elevation variation between tracks is much tighter. That costs big money at construction time. Further, although there is more trains per hour, I suspect the axle load and force vectors are a lot lighter and more uniform, leading to less wear and tear. The NEC still has some freight including coal trains, six axle freight, and heavy passenger trains such as (10) car ML's. That's got to be hard on the track compared to ICE or Talgo trains.

Even look at the fixing hardware in Europe. The methods of fixing the rail to ties are far bigger and more precise than just spiking the tracks down, or clipping them as some lines do.

Quick note on the Metros, I’ve read that there was pressure to make them heavier for supposed crashworthiness, hence bigger motors, hence bigger trucks. The Pioneer III (Silverliner I) was able to be just as fast if not faster than the Metroliner while riding on Pioneer trucks, so theoretically speed shouldn’t have been a problem. If PRR Mechanical had been willing to take a stand and keep the original design (80,000? lb) weight, we would have had PRR, PC, and Amtrak MUs for many more years on the Corridor as well as much less wear from high-speed trains. Probably would have translated well into unpowered regional and long-distance coaches too.

What Tadman said. ^^

Are the St. Louis-GSI Series 70s similar in weight to Pioneers?

A 1995 DOT report on passenger car trucks noted that the Amfleet Pioneer III trucks have a very high primary spring stiffness, creating high forces on the track structure. This was verified in tests.

Is the comet inboard-bearing truck seen on NJT and Boston the Pioneer truck? Or do they just look similar due to inboard bearings?

Tadman wrote:Is the comet inboard-bearing truck seen on NJT and Boston the Pioneer truck? Or do they just look similar due to inboard bearings?

They are not the same, nor is the outboard-bearing GSI the same as the Metroliner truck. (I think those are an AAR Type B as were under Alcos and GEs, but I’m not sure.)

mtuandrew wrote:

Tadman wrote:Is the comet inboard-bearing truck seen on NJT and Boston the Pioneer truck? Or do they just look similar due to inboard bearings?

They are not the same, nor is the outboard-bearing GSI the same as the Metroliner truck.

The Series 70s were quite common from the late 50s/early 60s onward, but the company that built them under GSI license (Buckeye Steel/Columbus Castings) shut down just after Silverliner Vs (last cars the use these trucks). I also recall from ERA Bulletins in 2003/2004 that MBTA had problems with Columbus Castings supplying their new Blue Line cars from Siemens.