by EuroStar
Here is an image from the article cited above. As per Wikipedia a standard cab car has 127 seats. A trailer with restroom has 132 and a regular trailer 142. Either those numbers are a little off or the new ones have a slightly different configuration (sorry, I have better things to do than to verify that Wikipedia has the correct numbers) because with these the math for the second configuration is 1*127+2*132+7*142=1385 not 1394 as specified in the image. Now let's back out the seats in the power cars from the last configuration: 1552-2*127-2*132-4*142=466 or about 116 seats per power car (4 of them). Taking a regular trailer with 142 seats if you take out all the seating at the mid-level (at the end), that is 20 and you are down to 122, so the claim is that the space of only 6 additional seats is necessary to house the transformers and all other equipment (of course they gain some space by eliminating the quarter doors). That seems aggressive to me, but hey I do not design these things for a living. I would guess that they could probably fit everything OK if they took out another 16 or so seats(4 rows on the lower level) going down to about 100 seats. That still is not bad though. Let's hope that BBD can actually do this. I do see where Backshophoss's scepticism is coming from though.
The one thing that I do not get though is how exactly they plan to MU these things if regular old trailers (MLV I and II) are in between them. It has always been my understanding that due to train dynamics, the multiple engines in a MU set need to talk to each other (and in this case they need to talk not only to each other, but to the two cab cars that *might* also be an older generation). The only way to do this without rewiring the existing MLV I and MLV II will be to use wireless. Wireless has been in use for "talk" between engines in the freight industry for a long time, but is there an example of it used in passenger service?
As for the Dinky, don'w worry, the last Arrow to be retired will be from the Dinky. Converting it light rail will be very expensive because they will need maintenance facility. There is enough space to extend the storage track for another car and doing so is much cheaper. Yeah, three cars will be a waste on the Dinky, but it is worth it if they can actually achieve the uniform fleet they are shooting for.
NJT also claims that the new trains will accelerate faster, so the power cars will really be overengined and overpowered otherwise there is no way they will be able to beat the acceleration of the Arrows. The overengine and the overpowering is also needed in case of failure. In a 12 car train, 4 power cars haul 8 trailer for ratio of 2 to 1. If one of the power cars fails then 3 power cars need to be able to limp with what is now 9 trailers for ratio of 3 to 1. So these things will need to be "about" 50% overpowered.
The one thing that I do not get though is how exactly they plan to MU these things if regular old trailers (MLV I and II) are in between them. It has always been my understanding that due to train dynamics, the multiple engines in a MU set need to talk to each other (and in this case they need to talk not only to each other, but to the two cab cars that *might* also be an older generation). The only way to do this without rewiring the existing MLV I and MLV II will be to use wireless. Wireless has been in use for "talk" between engines in the freight industry for a long time, but is there an example of it used in passenger service?
As for the Dinky, don'w worry, the last Arrow to be retired will be from the Dinky. Converting it light rail will be very expensive because they will need maintenance facility. There is enough space to extend the storage track for another car and doing so is much cheaper. Yeah, three cars will be a waste on the Dinky, but it is worth it if they can actually achieve the uniform fleet they are shooting for.
NJT also claims that the new trains will accelerate faster, so the power cars will really be overengined and overpowered otherwise there is no way they will be able to beat the acceleration of the Arrows. The overengine and the overpowering is also needed in case of failure. In a 12 car train, 4 power cars haul 8 trailer for ratio of 2 to 1. If one of the power cars fails then 3 power cars need to be able to limp with what is now 9 trailers for ratio of 3 to 1. So these things will need to be "about" 50% overpowered.