NJT MLV EMU Procurement

Andy:
1-These multilevel MU cars should be able to serve BOTH high and low level platforms in electrified territory.
They are supposedly identical to the previous multilevel coaches...
2-The former EL electrified routes DO have SOME high-level platforms - NEWARK BROAD STREET, SUMMIT and
DOVER are examples of prime M&E stations so equipped by NJT...MACTRAXX

R36 Combine Coach wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2024 10:42 pm Not yet. The first cars should still be at Plattsburgh nearing completion.

Then what happens? Off to Pueblo for the test track or delivery to NJT for in-service test runs?

The trailers can presumably go straight to NJT but the powered units I would expect to be going to Pueblo for crash testing, no?

Testing at Pueblo is required by FRA or some other regulatory agency?

Crash testing would be required by the FRA, yes.

Here is a link to them testing

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nj-trans ... er_android

Slightly higher quality here

I don't even post on the NJT forums but here's a video of the MLV EMUs from the New York City NBC.

To save everyone a few minutes: this is a non-powered trailer from the order that is barely distinguishable from the existing MLV cars.

The only new "features" it apparently has are USB charging ports (hopefully USB-C?) and LCD displays (which are useless if the conductors don't bother setting them up properly before the train departs).

What is the capacity of these cars compared to the ML II cars and the Arrows? The numbers make it seem like they don't add very many seats by going to an ML design compared to Arrows, but they aren't really apples to apples, since the ADA restrooms require a larger footprint compared to the restrooms of yesterday that are barely big enough to be a broom closet. Note I'm not arguing against making transit that is accessible for everyone, I'm just acknowledging the physical reality of designing cars with space so that everyone can use them.

They seem interesting from an engineering perspective, but NJT should have just pursued a single-level replacement for the Arrows that could switch voltage/phase on the fly, and created a design that would have allowed for more efficient operations on NJT and also worked for SEPTA, MARC Penn Line, MN PSA, SLE, and MBTA Providence Line. Technically, these could physically run on any of those services, but are ill-suited for them.

The numbers that keeps floating around in press releases is that the new cars increase the capacity of a 12-car set from 1,380 seats to 1,552 seats. You could argue that the increase is more than that due to no one liking middle seats. But I wonder if an apples to apples comparison would be a little bit more impressive than an 11% increase. They are claiming 1,380 seats in 12 cars or an average of 115 seats/car, with the MLs increasing that to an average of 129.3 seats per car. It's hard to find information about the ML car setups. Do the triplets all have restrooms and cabs, or are there some that don't and have to be paired with "fully featured" ones? And what is an apples to oranges comparison? The MN M-2 had 120/114, but the M-8s, partly due to the ADA compliant restroom, dropped to 111/101. That would suggest that, depending on door design for low-level boarding, a new single-level Arrow design would have had an average of around 105 seats per car as opposed to the 129.3 average of the MLs, meaning that the ML design nets you about 25 seats/car?

I found this in about 2 minutes on wikipedia:

- rest rooms go into non-cab, non-powered cars
- cab cars are not powered
- therefore, capacity of this new order is no different from previous orders for non-powered cars: 127 for cab, 132 for trailer with restroom

Then we can do some math: a 12-car set will have 4 powered cars, two cab cars, and one trailer with a restroom. That leaves us with 5 regular trailers. Regular trailer has 142 seats. 5*142+2*127+132 = 1096, leaving us with 1552-1096=456 seats for 4 cars or 114 seats per powered car.

Ironically, I cannot find any information on how many seats an Arrow III has.

This press release states a 12 car Arrow III train has 1380 seats, suggesting the Arrow III cars have 115 seats each in 23 rows of 5 seats (the press release calls out Arrow III seating is 3 person bench seating and the MLV fleet is two-by-two seating, so the MLV has either a wider aisle or wider seating or both).

lensovet wrote: ↑Sun Nov 03, 2024 1:26 pm I found this in about 2 minutes on wikipedia:

- rest rooms go into non-cab, non-powered cars
- cab cars are not powered
- therefore, capacity of this new order is no different from previous orders for non-powered cars: 127 for cab, 132 for trailer with restroom

I saw the same thing on Wikipedia, but it's not clear how that translates from individual cars that are coupled together with a locomotive to triplet sets of EMUs. How many of the cars in a consist are actually powered? The main benefit to EMUs is that every car is powered, if these only have a few powered cars, are they actually going to accelerate much faster than the ALP-46A trains? Any faster than ALP-46A trains if they were properly consisted with a minimum 1:6 locomotive to car ratio?

Then we can do some math: a 12-car set will have 4 powered cars, two cab cars, and one trailer with a restroom. That leaves us with 5 regular trailers. Regular trailer has 142 seats. 5*142+2*127+132 = 1096, leaving us with 1552-1096=456 seats for 4 cars or 114 seats per powered car.

If that's the case, you lose 28 seats to the equipment to power the car. I'm not sure if that's a negative because you're essentially back to a single level Arrow car, or impressive that they managed to cram that much stuff into an extremely tight clearance profile.

Ironically, I cannot find any information on how many seats an Arrow III has.

Yeah, I'm just working off of the average, but that doesn't tell you how it breaks down on a per-car basis.

Back to performance, the Arrow III cars don't appear to be that powerful, although they are a bit lighter than newer cars. They only have 1,125HP/pair or 750HP per single car. The M-8, by comparison, is 1,060HP/car, as is the M-7, although the third rail infrastructure limitations in the areas that they run reduces that significantly. The M-8s are zippy when you have 8,000HP and 8 of your 9 cars are powered. I can't even find a horsepower rating for the SLVs.

Arrow III: 562.5-750HP/car, 6 of 8 axles powered on pairs
M-8: 1060HP/car, all axles powered
12 car ML set with ALP-46A: 625HP/car 4 axles powered for whole train

So for these ML III cars, how many horsepower are they going to be? It seems that if there are 4 powered cars per train, they would need to be almost 2,000HP each just to match a single ALP-46A. But is the ALP-46A limited by tractive effort at low speeds such that it can't actually apply that 7,500HP to the rail until it gets up to a higher speed, leading to slow acceleration? So is having 16 powered axles instead of 4 going to be a game-changer? How will their performance compare to just putting two locomotives with 8 powered axles on a 12-car set of ML I or II cars? Much less the lighter Comets?

Do we know what they weigh? 150,000? More? ML II cars weigh up to 139,250lb for a cab car. An ALP-46A weighs 202,822lb, so it appears that the ML IIIs will have a little bit more weight over powered axles compared to a pair of ALP-46As, but not by that much.

The Comet V is 100,000lb, so it seems that these new MLs may not really provide any benefit over existing equipment, if NJT actually had enough locomotives. A 12-car set of Comet Vs with two ALP-46As actually appears to have about the same or possibly even slightly more powered tonnage relative to total train tonnage compared to a 12-car set of these new ML IIIs with 4 powered units.

It appears the only way to actually make trains accelerate faster is to power everything, and make EMUs that look like Arrows (low-level and 25hz capable) but are powered like M-8s. Imagine what Arrow IV cars could have been with a 12-car, 12,720HP set with every axle powered. Or are there some nonlinear relationships in how horsepower and tractive effort translate into acceleration that I'm missing here and the ML III cars actually will be faster than the occasional properly powered ML I/II train with two ALP-46As?

By comparison the Arrow I was 700 HP (four 175 HP motors per car and geared for high speed unlike the Silverliner III (550). The Westinghouse Metroliners were 1,200 HP (GEs were 1,020).

The Lackawanna electrics were in motor-trailer pairs, with the motor unit having four GE 740 motors (255 HP each, 1,020 total).

post1493646.html#p1493646

There are no married pairs in this consist. The powered (pantograph-bearing) cars are the only powered (with motors) cars. Note that the original order had a ratio of roughly 1:1 for trailers and powered cars, so in a typical consist, I suspect we will be seeing more than 1 powered car for every 2 trailers, as otherwise these will be running like molasses.