Replace NE Regional Amfleets with Italian Pendolinos?

Suburban Station wrote: tilting trains is hardly new or unproven technology. if they are gonig to buy a backwards car like the viewliner they better plan to offer lower prices

Lower prices than what? They'd be nicer than the current Amfleets! And prices will be lower than those for Acela service.

Matt Johnson wrote:

Suburban Station wrote: tilting trains is hardly new or unproven technology. if they are gonig to buy a backwards car like the viewliner they better plan to offer lower prices

Lower prices than what? They'd be nicer than the current Amfleets! And prices will be lower than those for Acela service.

Backwards car? Again... the "tilting train" you're discussing is nothing like what is required for the NEC and its feeders. By the time you finish making all the changes discussed it's new.

Compare that to the Viewliner which is operating on the NEC now and needs one major change (adding a 2nd vestibule) and you've got your coach ready to go.

Greg Moore wrote:

Matt Johnson wrote:

Suburban Station wrote: tilting trains is hardly new or unproven technology. if they are gonig to buy a backwards car like the viewliner they better plan to offer lower prices

Lower prices than what? They'd be nicer than the current Amfleets! And prices will be lower than those for Acela service.

Backwards car? Again... the "tilting train" you're discussing is nothing like what is required for the NEC and its feeders. By the time you finish making all the changes discussed it's new.

Compare that to the Viewliner which is operating on the NEC now and needs one major change (adding a 2nd vestibule) and you've got your coach ready to go.

^THIS^. It is not enough to post pretty pictures of something overseas and trot out the same "It was invented here, therefore it must suck" canard pooh-poohing the non-exotic proven designs. You guys explain to us--after running through the entire checklist of modifications needed to get them operable on the NEC--how it doesn't end up an all-new design with all-new center of gravity...which just happens to be the most important consideration of ALL for tilting-anything. Changing the center of gravity makes it a new design. If it's not very nearly off-shelf compatible with NEC loading gauge, platform height, car width for gapless platforms, car height for the tunnels, AND being able to turn off and lock the passive-tilt mechanism when passing through rigid confines like the North River Tunnels...adaptation = a resulting new design. It touches things too central to what a passive-tilt car is. So until those questions get answered...this is pure theory. And RFP's don't get issued for theories.

I think you need to think 30 years ahead, rather than 30 years behind. Traps and step are unlikely to be acceptable in 30 years time. Nor would the Weight or "crash technology"of a 40 year old Viewliner design.
As I have said before, I think the new coach will be better based on the Acela2 design, or rather share design and componetry with it.
There would be real economy of scale then .

David Benton wrote:I think you need to think 30 years ahead, rather than 30 years behind. Traps and step are unlikely to be acceptable in 30 years time. Nor would the Weight or "crash technology"of a 40 year old Viewliner design.
As I have said before, I think the new coach will be better based on the acela2 design,

You think every station on the east coast that Amtrak stops at will have high-level platforms in the next 30 years? Remember these new cars will have to be able to run anywhere Amtrak currently runs and probably quite a few areas it doesn't currently run but will in the next 30 years.
I do agree that how we plan for crashes will change though.
And I'll buy an Acela II design far more likely than a Pendolino.

Greg Moore wrote:

David Benton wrote:I think you need to think 30 years ahead, rather than 30 years behind. Traps and step are unlikely to be acceptable in 30 years time. Nor would the Weight or "crash technology"of a 40 year old Viewliner design.
As I have said before, I think the new coach will be better based on the acela2 design,

You think every station on the east coast that Amtrak stops at will have high-level platforms in the next 30 years? Remember these new cars will have to be able to run anywhere Amtrak currently runs and probably quite a few areas it doesn't currently run but will in the next 30 years.
I do agree that how we plan for crashes will change though.
And I'll buy an Acela II design far more likely than a Pendolino.

Well, this isn't a national fleet. Superliner-derived cars are only a couple years away from taking up ALL low-boarding corridor route territory and confining the single-levels to a much more geographically-compact region. And sooner or later somebody will spread some grant funding love and kick the MBTA and SEPTA in the butt to get their backlog of low commuter rail platforms on the NEC raised and eliminate everyone's dwell times from working a trap on the corridor and Keystone. Everybody else--including tiny funding-challenged MARC--is on the home stretch on flipping theirs over on the NEC. The Empire south-of-Albany only has 2 lows. All of the lows on the Springfield LIne are going away within 18 months. And Amtrak's got very few self-controlled stops on the NEC or Keystone west-of-SEPTA left to settle up.

Traps are mainly an issue on long-term for the LD's that share the NEC. And in the short/mid-term for:

-- The Empire west of Albany until New York hashes out its space-sharing differences with CSX for the high-speed rail program, and can raise its single-side platforms level the whole way to Buffalo.

-- The Virginia Regionals. Which are a good bet to eventually go level-boarding (on the busier Richmond flank). There's plenty of space for freight passing tracks on that CSX route. The few stations the Superliner-based routes serve in addition to the Amfleet-based routes could be rigged up with super-long half-and-half platforms to serve the dual-purpose need. There aren't that many of them that qualify. And MARC and VRE commuter rail are always a decent possibility to merge in the future into some more robust "DelMarVa" transit agency. Which means VRE's gallery cars and MARC's high-boarding bi-levels can get mixed around...say, high-levels on the Penn, Fredericksburg, and Camden Lines, galleries on the Brunswick (zero highs, Superliner-only Amtrak overlap) and the Manassas Line (only 2 Lynchburger-overlap stops to half-and-half the platforms.

-- Maybe the Pennsylvanian if PennDOT is serious about ever making something more substantial out of that route. Another very high-capacity line at no shortage for passing track space around any platform west of Harrisburg.


Everywhere else that's on a northeastern freight clearance route not wide enough at most stops for passers--Vermonter, Adirondack, Ethan Allen, Maple Leaf post-Buffalo, etc.--you just do what eastern commuter rail has down to a science: retractable-edge one-car mini-highs. Those aren't crowded routes where front-door boarding is going to completely maim the schedule, and they're not going to be much more a couple trains per day.


Now...none of the necessary busywork on these platforms is going to happen quickly. Traps are ironclad-required on the next order. Bellyaching about that now is a completely useless exercise, and no-traps is a total and absolute moot point for designs you could consider for the next order. But I disagree that existence of traps is much of an impediment for the long-term. The actual number of flips and actual number of shoes touching the steps down is declining fast. Dramatically, soon, with this bi-level order...incrementally the more the outlier platforms gets overturned. Do the eat-your-peas busywork on flipping the remaining NEC/Keystone outliers, getting mini-highs and/or turnouts on the total non-ADA's up in freight clearance territory in the far north, and getting some movement on extending full-high territory to the VA Regionals (even if only to Richmond as a start) and across the Water Level Route on the Empire. Do that and a trap rarely ever gets flipped on a corridor-configured car. And then maybe two orders from now you won't even need to buy cars with traps for anything that's in a corridor configuration...just the much smaller Amfleet II-equivalent LD fleet for the routes that have to cross the boundary into all-lows land.

From the Stadler Flirt 3 website page:
Even the FLIRT3 meets the highest standards of comfort of the passengers. It represents the evolution in compliance with the new TSI standards, especially the crash norm EN 15227. The entire vehicle structure was built strictly modular. Thereby, it is possible to fulfill customer needs in a simple manner, such as carbody lengths, floor heights, number of doors. Furthermore, the interior of the FLIRT3 from the front to the rear end entrance is continuously accessible, in compliance with the TSI PRM. For operations in non-electrified lines is now also a very powerful diesel version (Power Module) available, respectively the resulting possible hybrid versions.


http://www.stadlerrail.com/en/vehicles/flirt-3/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As many of you know, Tex Rail placed an order for diesel Flirt 3s a few days ago

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/traff ... 13976.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

bdawe wrote:How many curving platforms would a NE regional be passing through at speed?

Metropark for one...

korax wrote:From the Stadler Flirt 3 website page:
Even the FLIRT3 meets the highest standards of comfort of the passengers. It represents the evolution in compliance with the new TSI standards, especially the crash norm EN 15227. The entire vehicle structure was built strictly modular. Thereby, it is possible to fulfill customer needs in a simple manner, such as carbody lengths, floor heights, number of doors. Furthermore, the interior of the FLIRT3 from the front to the rear end entrance is continuously accessible, in compliance with the TSI PRM. For operations in non-electrified lines is now also a very powerful diesel version (Power Module) available, respectively the resulting possible hybrid versions.


http://www.stadlerrail.com/en/vehicles/flirt-3/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As many of you know, Tex Rail placed an order for diesel Flirt 3s a few days ago

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/traff ... 13976.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Is this thread now just the rolling stock equivalent of posting cute cat pictures? This door height is not NEC-compatible:



By the time you modify that design for 48-inch platforms with the change in center of gravity that entails, it is no longer that design...it is a new design. A new design that exists only in theory. Just like all the other examples on the previous pages that only exist in theory.

There's fodder for a good discussion here, but we really need to narrow scope to some relevant designs. Can't just throw stuff at the wall, say "well X ordered these so what the hell is Amtrak's problem?". It doesn't work for the physical dimensions of where the single-level Amtrak fleet has to roam, that's the problem. The design is as irrelevant to what they have to purchase as suggesting that LIRR buy some Superliners for its next coach order.

Floor heights are important per ADA. To be fully compliant with ADA, the train floor and the platform height must be within 5/8 of an inch.
Source: http://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... eight.html
Acela floor height: 1295mm? (51")
Alstom AGV: 1155 mm (45")
Siemens Velaro: 1210 mm (48")
Kawasaki / Nippon Sharyo / Hitachi 700 Series Shinkansen: 1250 mm (49")
Talgo 350: 755 mm (30")

Therefore, there is not one HSR train being built today that meets the requirements for the NEC off the shelf. Every one of them will require a design change, every single one! Of course some require less changes than others, but they still need to be changed.

The reason i posted the info from stadler is because of this info:

"The entire vehicle structure was built strictly modular. Thereby, it is possible to fulfill customer needs in a simple manner, such as carbody lengths, floor heights, number of doors..."

I was posting their info about how their interiors are modular and how this allows them to more easily change parameters such as floor/door height. Can they easily modify for NEC Platform heights? i dont know but they've already come fairly close.

Please note this page for their customized intercity high floor Flirt 3 trainset for Poland:

http://www.stadlerrail.com/media/uploads/F3PKP0814e.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Floor height= 1180 mm = 46.456 inches

korax wrote:The reason i posted the info from stadler is because of this info:

"The entire vehicle structure was built strictly modular. Thereby, it is possible to fulfill customer needs in a simple manner, such as carbody lengths, floor heights, number of doors..."

I was posting their info about how their interiors are modular and how this allows them to more easily change parameters such as floor/door height. Can they easily modify for NEC Platform heights? i dont know but they've already come fairly close.

Please note this page for their customized intercity high floor Flirt 3 trainset for Poland:

http://www.stadlerrail.com/media/uploads/F3PKP0814e.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Floor height= 1180 mm = 46.456 inches

^^Emphasis mine.^^


Customize it to a different center of gravity and it's not the same design anymore. It's not. Since those are still short of the NEC floor-height specs and floor-height spec tolerances, an NEC-ready design would be a still-different design from the heavily-customized Polish version.

It's not off-shelf. No matter how many times more cute cat pictures get posted in this thread of something that's not nearly close enough to NEC specs, we arrive in the same place: to make it work here the design has to get altered enough that it's a whole new and not- previously existing design. And you're asking that to compete in an RFP with previously existing designs. That's not a plausible buy scenario.

Stop it with the 'cute cat pictures'. It is not contributing to the conversation.

The whole thread seemed to me to discuss ways that future corridor rolling stock could be better based on designs used elsewhere, like pendolinos, talgos, Flirts, and so forth. We get it, the requirements of the NEC preclude off-the-shelf rolling stock. You've made your point. Move on

The implication of all of this 'not built here' emphasis would seem to be that Amtrak absolutely should go with the 'built-here', and ensure that we have our thirty year old designs for the next forty years, built to safety regulations that demonstrably do not improve safety or quality but do increase costs. This is not what many people commenting here would like to see of our national rail service, regardless of institutional inertia.

The issue is the NEC units have a unique requirement of having to go from at the least, Newport News to Boston South, so this preculdes a unique unit, and to avoid a unique non special (see Acella) unit, there is no pointof making a single medium level car that can't fit the needs of the entire system. I mean I can see the new dual decker fleet replacing everything west of Chicago and south of Virginia that doesn't need to go to DC (Autotrain/Carolina units, and a new Viewliner based NEC unit unifying every unit that needs to go up and down the east coast, and killing the last of the heritage fleet food service cars.

bdawe wrote:Stop it with the 'cute cat pictures'. It is not contributing to the conversation.

The whole thread seemed to me to discuss ways that future corridor rolling stock could be better based on designs used elsewhere, like pendolinos, talgos, Flirts, and so forth. We get it, the requirements of the NEC preclude off-the-shelf rolling stock. You've made your point. Move on

The implication of all of this 'not built here' emphasis would seem to be that Amtrak absolutely should go with the 'built-here', and ensure that we have our thirty year old designs for the next forty years, built to safety regulations that demonstrably do not improve safety or quality but do increase costs. This is not what many people commenting here would like to see of our national rail service, regardless of institutional inertia.

Then propose a solution that's not theory and a whole lot of wishful thinking. To adapt those designs for the NEC means they aren't those designs anymore; they're new designs. That's the crux of the issue. What is a relevant design for consideration for an Amfleet-replacement RFP that's going to be issued before the end of this decade? Designs that require modifications so major they're no longer the same design aren't going to work on a timetable where specs get frozen and put out to bid in as little as 3 or 4 years. Time's a wastin' if theory is expected to become reality by the time the contract to replace the Amfleets absolutely has to get bid.

So where does the design get from Point A to NEC-ready Point B in that span of time? And answer all questions emphatically about its reliability in that never-before-done NEC design derivation when it'll be going up against a bunch of traditional choices that do have 30 years of proven track record in this country and on the NEC? Everything does not suck and we have not failed at passenger rail if that buying option flat-out isn't available in 4 years when these specs have to go out for RFP. All it means is Amtrak has to bid out for what's available when it collects the manufacturer specs it gets from interested builders in that RFP. Procurements have to happen on a schedule; the Amfleets can't be held over for another half-decade for sole purpose of keeping the RFP door ajar so somebody can finish their R&D on an NEC-ready adaptation of "cool stuff". It doesn't work that way. Getting mad that it doesn't work that way is pointless. If they want cars on the property in 2024-25 before the Amfleets start dropping like flies...they go with the NEC-ready horses that are available in 2018-19.

Either find a practical way to turn design theory into design reality in 3 years before this process has to start, or life on the Corridor must go on. It's as simple as that.