New Superliners

Regarding moving back to single level for national commonality: No, no, and no.

You guys are just patently wrong and I've explained it before.

You have a body shell. It sits on a frame. In that body shell are things. The whole assembly rides on trucks and is coupled together to other such assemblies.

How many body shells have you ever seen in need of repair? If a body shell is compromised, it is usually scrapped.

The things inside the body shells are different. HVAC, chairs, door mechanisms, PA, toilet, flip-down beds. Those can be shared from car-to-car. Regardless of body shell. Those items need constant repair and attention and stocking one type versus many is a big deal. The configuration of the body shell often has no bearing on which chair is used for example. You see the same chairs between superliner, Talgo 1, Horizon, and Amfleet.

Besides, if fleet commonality were such a big deal, why did they just buy a new fleet of Acelas for premium leaving regional trains up to a second fleet that doesnt much make it off the corridor? If fleet commonality were such a big deal, why didn't they buy enough Acela-2 to cover all the NEC schedules? If fleet commonality were such a big deal, why did they buy a tiny fleet of Talgos for Cascades? If fleet commonality were such a big deal why did they buy Surfliners for California when they originally ran those trains with Horizon cars, the most common car in the continent at the time?

Fleet commonality is a myth and the evidence proves it. The math doesn't stand up and neither does the repair math.

The big deal is component commonality, and they've done a good job of working toward such.

Tadman is correct. I have noted the many components that are common. What is even more important is that component connections are now common across all equipment. That way when the present inventory of a part is used up a new and hopefully better part will fit right

Why not both?!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/7547061@N02/29295489551

I could go either way. The only way Amtrak can have maximum capacity for some of their routes is if they have nore room avaliable for seats on the lower level rather than being taken up by the axle. Abother thing that could help would be if both the upper and lower levels have doors accessing the next car, so this way people wouldn't have to travel up flights of stairs to get to the next car. Thus can also allow for more capacity and flow for people moving between the cars without there being a traffic jam in the aisleway for people looking for seats, as I have seen on NJT. I think Siemens or Stadler has something of this nature, with passageways to the next car on both levels of the coach.
But for the most part, amtrak seems to be going single level as they chose the single level option for CALDOT services instead of the bilevel design

Y'all are smoking something questionably legal if you think that any of the manufacturers (a shrinking number at that) are going to design something that has to go thru a crush test.

It's my opinion that anything Amtrak procures from here out will be an existing & already certified design, whether it's from Siemens or Alstom, because they're the only two real options left. Likewise with motive power.

There are already diners, bag cars and sleepers in the Viewliner platform, so the only real add would be chair cars and maybe a cafe or parlor/lounge. Either Alstom or CAF could manage the build.

Siemens has baggage, chair and cafe cars already, so the only new options needed would be a sleepers and maybe a parlor/lounge.

Neither option would require new certification at Pueblo or a crush test. The shells and mechanicals are already approved so time to market is a lot shorter than you'd have waiting on certification of new bi-levels.

The Auto Train is the one reason I think they might stick with bilevels. Regardless of what happens with network changes, the Auto Train is one long distance train that isn't going anywhere. If you go single level with the auto train you are going to need an even longer train. But given that the Auto Train is sort of its own animal that's not really part of the Amtrak network it's not out of the realm of possibility that it would get its own separate fleet from the rest of the network.

Mr. Norman sorry to hear your January trip was so bad. I enjoyed my trip in October, though I know you much prefer air travel to trains which I can respect - 18+ hours on a train isn't for everyone (as that is probably the vast majority of people these days.) My rail enthusiasm was born from my dislike, fear and anxiety of flying. Though I do enjoy traveling by train I am open to some network changes that make sense, though probably not to the level you would hope for. I have to admit it is hard to justify a route like the Sunset Limited in its current form for example.

Gilbert B Norman wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2020 6:42 am ...
The moral is, why order equipment that could only be assigned to LD's? This means no Superliners, and A-II's with two vestibules and automatic doors like the A-I's....

I guess I missed the memo that said Superliners cant' be good corridor stock. Their basic platform is used for Surfliners which are great. They would be even better if the crews would open all the doors rather than one set, but that's another "Amtrak we know what we're doing stop asking questions" issue.

It goes back to more butts in seats per axle/coupler/HVAC. That was why they were going to bilevel for the midwest until the big mysterious blunder with Nippon Sharyo happened.

As I understand it the actual failure of the Nippon car has not been disclosed. Was it straight crush, torsional, angle, or some other type ?

Does it matter what was wrong, if failed test and did not comply with requirements and Nippon Sharyo
could not correct the problem.

If the failure mode on the Nippon car is known then engineering for a new design car does not have to start from zero.

now that Nippon Sharyo order is dead and gone, and FRA reform is here, we don't have to do this again. Amtrak can purchase modern equipment

The Nippon-Sharyo was working on the 3rd gen Surfliner/Midwest fleet prototype car,the body shell was the first,then the Crush test fail,
the great silence from the factory.
Afterwords,NO REASON FOR THE FAILURE WAS DISCLOSED, Nippon-Sharyo "fell" on the sword,and left the US market.
Siemens got awarded the new contract,using the basic "Brightline specs",showed the mandated Crush test on a video,
now building the Caltrain(Amtrak/Ca) cars first with the Midwest fleet to follow.

Wabtec holds the BBD super II blueprints,that could be reused to buils the 3rd gen superliner/surfliners.
DRN,the reason for the failure needs to be knwn,so as not to repeat that failure!!!

no rail manufacturer is going to share their fails or success, it ruins the health of company .
No company is going to share their engineering data unless the competitor is willing to shell out big bucks.

You forget there's federal $$$$$$ involved along with the states,everything is public record.

ehh no unless they buy and pay the company secrets are safe.

Alstom has a successful Superclone with the California Car and the Surfliner Car. Bombardier (or whoever their assignee is - Wabtec?) holds the original Superliner drawings and the Budd Hi-Level drawings. It’s pretty terrible that neither of them got this contract.