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

dha10001 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 9:01 am I noticed in one of these recent videos how slanted the side walls of the coaches are. They are noticeably narrower at top than at bottom, almost egglike. Is this to allow greater tilting within the same envelope? Could this enable tilting in areas with constrained horizontal clearance like on the New Haven Line? I recall reading that tilting is not allowed along that stretch due to the close track spacing. I know there is so much to the topic of tilting that we could have a whole thread on it, and most of it hearsay.

Anyway I'm curious to know what kind of time savings this trainset can deliver due to expanded tilting / higher speeds both in less constrained areas like the SE CT shore line, and more constrained areas like the New Haven Line.

Top speed on the MNR New Haven Line is 70 MPH. Tilting seems not to be required. Don't know if they'll ever let Amtrak run faster than 70.

Remember testing takes baby steps. It is necessary that at some lower speed the train set does not behave badly.

Rockingham Racer wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 1:10 pm

dha10001 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 9:01 am I noticed in one of these recent videos how slanted the side walls of the coaches are. They are noticeably narrower at top than at bottom, almost egglike. Is this to allow greater tilting within the same envelope? Could this enable tilting in areas with constrained horizontal clearance like on the New Haven Line? I recall reading that tilting is not allowed along that stretch due to the close track spacing. I know there is so much to the topic of tilting that we could have a whole thread on it, and most of it hearsay.

Anyway I'm curious to know what kind of time savings this trainset can deliver due to expanded tilting / higher speeds both in less constrained areas like the SE CT shore line, and more constrained areas like the New Haven Line.

Top speed on the MNR New Haven Line is 70 MPH. Tilting seems not to be required. Don't know if they'll ever let Amtrak run faster than 70.

I think it's 75 for the most part with limited parts of 80 on the NY State side of the NH Line. Could be wrong though.

I think this is correct, though Amtrak trains usually don't go that fast on the NH line when running under a normal schedule.

When it gets north of NYC, I'll drive down to New Haven/along the CT shore to get some shots.

Came across this cool picture on Instagram of Acela II at HAR! It was posted by user central_penn_railfan - not sure if that person also has a presence here or on a rail photo site, but wanted you all to see it.

Where was the photographer standing? Any guesses?

ExCon90 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2020 2:11 pm Where was the photographer standing? Any guesses?

About here?

Would have to be, but he'd have had to cross the track to get it from that angle. Maybe there was protection on the track if the equipment was accessible for exhibition. Great shot, in any case.

That was the run where it broke down and had to be towed back by an ACS-64. It successfully made it out to Harrisburg and back a couple of days ago.

Alright! Avelia Liberty now testing on the northeast corridor north of Philly!!! (specifically between County and Ham)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZLCFGJ8VQQ

Pensyfan19 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 26, 2020 9:37 pm Alright! Avelia Liberty now testing on the northeast corridor north of Philly!!! (specifically between County and Ham)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZLCFGJ8VQQ

Crew is on duty M-F at 7pm, symbol is KP2021.

[quote

Crew is on duty M-F at 7pm, symbol is KP2021.
[/quote]

Two questions:

Is the trainset testing each evening?

Does it leave and return to Philly each night?

Ben

liftedjeep wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 2:06 pm
Two questions:

Is the trainset testing each evening?

Does it leave and return to Philly each night?

Ben

So far this week yes, and yes.

Max speed however is 90 mph, and apparently it will not do high speed testing until the instrumentation currently on the set out at Pueblo gets transferred to this trainset.

I wonder if they are doing crew training for conductors and in the food cars during some of these test runs. Also wondering - there had been higher speed tests (160?) for an Acela 1 train set - are they testing the first train set at higher speeds than that?

photobug56 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 4:02 pm I wonder if they are doing crew training for conductors and in the food cars during some of these test runs. Also wondering - there had been higher speed tests (160?) for an Acela 1 train set - are they testing the first train set at higher speeds than that?

No and No as far as crew training goes. It's not the time for that. The trainset is not fully outfitted. It'll need to go back for the interiors to be installed.

As was mentioned regarding the higher speed testing, instrumentation for High Speed Testing is still needed.