Economics and Thoughts on an Single Level Surge / Reserve Fleet

The PRIIA reports covered adding a car(s) to various rotes. Those reports are no longer available. Memory is faulty but a couple figures I remember was one additional coach on Meteor netted about $700,000 + for a full year. Crescent was not very good based on what I believe was the empty running ATL <>- NOL .
Also car operating costs per mile were $4.00 + per coach were published somewhere. Corrections are welcomed.

I imagine sleeper net will be somewhere in that ball park ?

Well, let me remind everyone of something that just happened in the airlines... a new type of equipment had a defect that resulted in sidelining hundreds of that aircraft model worldwide.

Some airlines had operational spares they could swap out for the grounded types. Others struggled to keep up on reduced equipment.

If there was a serious enough issue discovered after initial Venture deliveries, Amtrak would be hard pressed to make up the difference without a reserve fleet.

Saving 100 cars for a reserve fleet isn't a bad idea.

Storage space abounds in the US. It doesn't have to be in a yard. Amtrak could store cars on military bases, something private railroads can't do. Beech Grove also has storage.

There are also commercial options.. NRE is closing Silvas and Dixmoor, both of which have plenty of storage both inside and out. UP just closed down a large chunk of their Rochelle yard, which is fairly well secured and away from urban vandals...

Storage seems to be a solvable issue.



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Bear's facilities length from end to end of its yard is around 3800 feet in length, per Google Earth. It appears to have 10 tracks in its' storage yard, about a total of 38,000 feet.
That's about 4,500 feet to short, and leaves no room for anything else but stored Amfleet Is in its' storage yard. Just to accommodate all the Amfleet Is, they would have to add two more storage tracks at Bear.
I am not going to suggest it can not be done, but why crowd your main heavy maintenance facility with old Amfleet Is for a long duration? I can see doing so short term, but long term it would be in the best interests of Amtrak to scrap them.

As noted, no one is really arguing that Amtrak should (or even would) keep all 400+ cars. A 100 is far more practical (I can't imagine a situation, even on Thanksgiving) where Amtrak would need to essentially double its fleet size for a surge.

But also, there's plenty of places to store them. For one, Amtrak probably wouldn't want to store them all in one location. Keep 5 in Albany, 15 at Sunnyside, 5 in DC, etc. You'll want to keep them where you'll use them. Of course the same issue ends up cropping up. They're not rolling in passenger service without the requisite inspections which means having the ability to surge that, or at least make sure that does impact ongoing inspections of the current fleet.

I didn't hear anyone say to keep them in Bear... I'd keep them central to the network, and mentioned a couple possible storage sites within Amtrak's control, a couple that might be available to acquire or lease, and then there's others which could be used on a contract basis. Either way, you'd probably want to have reserves dispersed to where they could easily get a COTS and be back in service if needed, be it an Amtrak or other road's shop.

If I recall, Yuma Proving Grounds and Camp Douglas have unused rail, and I'd guess a couple of the larger military reservations out east do as well. Lock 'em up inside the wire.

Take what can't be sold or kept in reserve out to the desert so that they're less likely to get water damage. Or sell 'em to Mexico. That has precedent...

We're way off topic, and I suspect the moderators may want to split this (as I think a surge fleet topic is useful).
But that said, for something you plan on using annually (like a surge) you do want them somewhere central, or at least close to the action. Keeping them out in the middle of the desert may work for very long term storage but isn't cost-effective if you have to drag them to the East coast and back every year.

Like I say, disperse a limited number around the system. And if you keep their inspections up, you have extra equipment to swap in for bad equipment.

In the long run, as someone else suggested, it may be more worthwhile to simply move equipment as needed, does the Downeaster need as many cars on Thanksgiving? If not, use those on the NEC, etc.

I tend to think about the topic as this:

At worst case, NJ Transit is chewing up 14 slots of 24 going southbound from NYP. Extending out all Amtrak trains to 10 Regional cars (1 cafe, 9 passenger)... currently means you have to take out one reserve train, and thus lease cars from MARC (because the MARC IIs fit and still work). In the past, it's been one full train set of 10 cars (with a cafe attached).

So assume 10 cars, and 10 slots. That's 100 cars. Keeping 100 Amfleet 1's sounds about right.

We know how long these Siemens trainsets are, right?

OK; let's hypothesize that the Amfleets selected to become the "surge" fleet could be coupled to the engine before the seven car fixed Siemens consist, modeled after OBB and CD RailJet.

This would give Amtrak flexibility to add cars to the base consist as needed (railfans; it won't look pretty: "sorry 'bout that) for peaks, e.g. Sunday after THANX.

Could the Amfleets selected be made compatible with whatever coupler the Siemens have (sure hope not the European standard; I cringe when I see a Carman standing in between live cars hooking those up). How about the rest? power controls, door controls....(on and on).

Would the cost to make the "surge" Amfleet roster compatible with the Sirmens sets be worth it, or would they be limited to operate as only separate trains?

Ponder time, volks.

Hi, mods! Why not rename this thread Surge Fleet Discussion? Someone suggested a thread on that over the the Siemen's thread.

Arborwayfan wrote: ↑Mon Apr 26, 2021 12:54 pm Hi, mods! Why not rename this thread Surge Fleet Discussion? Someone suggested a thread on that over the the Siemen's thread.

Nomis split this thread out.

That said... 7 car fleet? I can see 9 or 10 along the NEC, but not 7. That may be more for the Chicago centric or LA centric area.

Locating a surge fleet should be decentralized. The obvious reason is that in case of a weather disaster Amtrak would not loose ability to use a lot of the surge fleet. As well I cannot imagine the problems if a tornado went thru the Chicago facility at noon time taking out a large amount of the LD fleet. There would be an immediate need for the surge fleet.

If someone thinks about it there are some locations of Amtrak terminals can each probably take 10 - 25 cars to meet surge demands. Example -- Miami once the stored V-2s are back in service it will have more space. Certain locations can take more especially Beech . Beech cleaned out over 50 non repairable cars so that is a location and also it has real-estate that can add more track space. It might be that Amtrak could store cars at NJ Transit's hurricane storage area. Wasn't that capacity planned at 200 EMUs / cars ? If NJT needed to use it Amtrak could pull surge cars out and park the surge cars on tracks that will not be used during a hurricane emergency. Also maybe Amtrak could add some tracks there ? Once there was a need to move surge cars Amtrak could ferry out a very long unit train of the cars. The brake system on each car would have to be set to freight.

One thing needed is some kind of HEP ground connection that would activate once a month to exercise HVAC and recharge batteries. Cars might need to be modified so the potable water system can be purged to prevent freeze problems. Brake COTS is not really a problem as that I believe it is still only once every 5 years ?

Someone did suggest military bases, which are vast, even after several rounds of base closure and consolidation. This isn't England.

I'm not saying it will happen. For one thing, Amtrak has to run a balance sheet, and I don't know if that would play out well. As for maintenance, plenty of airplanes sit out in the desert storage.

Mr. Kitchin. I must say I have often wondered what's involved with making any of the "Desert Air Force" airworthy again. Surely there's more than "gas 'er up and wheels up".

By analogy, what if Amtrak were to send the entire 1000 car Am and Superliner fleets off to an "undisclosed desert hideaway" as they are retired. Could there possibly be any National Security benefit in so doing?

The problem with scattering them around the country is keeping an inventory of spare parts for them at all those different locations. If you are going to keep them around for a yearly surge, it would be better to host them all in just one location.
If they are only going to keep 10-100 Amfleet Is around, which ones would you keep? I would suggest the 39 Business class cars because they could also be used with approximately the same seat pitch as Amfleet IIs.
Amfleet I Coach class seating capacity is 72.
Amfleet I Business class seating capacity is 62.
Amfleet II Amcoach class seating capacity is 59.

But isn't keeping the existing 81 Horizon car fleet going to be used for the surge fleet anyways after all the new Venture cars enter service. They are lighter than Amfleets and use similar bogies (trucks) as some Superliners. Or am I wrong there?