Safety of NEC Amfleet cars.

R36 Combine Coach wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 11:21 pm The lead Amfleet at Frankford (business class car 81528) was completely ripped. Most of the fatalities were in this
car.

Looking at the NTSB report... and it's a bit disappointing. The didn't measure the crumple strength of the cars.

The business car was an Amfleet I, so at the time it was on average 40 years old. Looking at the report's built-in photos, "ripped" is not how I would describe that car. It was mangled at both ends and maybe 18-24 feet of the car was left in some measure of "intact".

I think I see what's going on. The two former engineers are concerned about the shell as well as the trucks, and thus wants to accelerate the replacement process. FRA is only concentrating on the parts that touch rail, the trucks. Amtrak considers it moot as it knows the whole mess and put in the replacement order, which has to go by today's standards.

Only Paul Reistrup has a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Scott Spencer has Business Degree.

I spotted the same article; they don't want to immediately retire the cars, just remove them from the NEC to lines with a lower MAS. I get that. I think their main point is that the crash-worthiness standards of the 70's aren't as modern as standards today. They suggested using them in different corridors such as in Empire service, or on the Illinois corridors. Frankly, from Amtrak's point-of-view, I don't see why they wouldn't do that anyway.

The updated Railway Age commentary does state that:

"Amfleet I cars meet current federal safety standards set forth in 49 CFR 238 – Passenger Equipment Safety Standards."

Jeff Smith wrote: ↑Sat Apr 22, 2023 6:27 am I spotted the same article; they don't want to immediately retire the cars, just remove them from the NEC to lines with a lower MAS. I get that. I think their main point is that the crash-worthiness standards of the 70's aren't as modern as standards today. They suggested using them in different corridors such as in Empire service, or on the Illinois corridors. Frankly, from Amtrak's point-of-view, I don't see why they wouldn't do that anyway.

Another point can be said that the crash-worthiness safety standards are only good to 79 MPH and for higher speeds, better standards are needed.

Still... it's kinda moot. They're getting replaced all the same.

Whole article is written as a paid advertisement for Ameristar Rail.

Change my mind.

Nope, can't change your mind because that's exactly what it was. We've seen it before with that outfit who owns all of the old atsf bi-evels down in Madison Illinois.

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