The truth about Arrow III top speed?

I know this was covered ad nauseum on the old forum, so I apologize for not being attentive. I was on an Arrow consist today returning from NYP. I had my aeronautical (very accurate on groundspeed) GPS on and west of New Brunswick, we briefly hit 90+. I'm not going to mention the train number because I don't want to get anyone in hack. I thought I had read that the Arrows were limited to 80 after the rebuild. Was that just Amtrak legislating or are most physically incapable of higher speed? Just curious.

They are still quite capable of higher speeds....fastest I have seen is 96/97ish :D

There is no "limiter" (maybe at the absolute top speed, I dunno) but not one at 80 mph.

But NJT restricts them to 80 mph for whatever reason you decide to believe, I dunno the "real" answer, only what I have been told -

* Because when rebuilt, one truck in a pair was left unpowered, the other trucks had to work too hard, and was causing problems.

* Hollow axle shafts were getting cracks (or was it solid axle shafts - I think it was hollow)

* Heat cracks in the wheels

Thats all i can thnk of right now......im sure others wll come up with other reasons they have heard.

They do ride rather smooth at higher speeds though, IMO.

It has something to do with the gearing in the motors from the way I understand it.

Yea, gearing is too, ive heard that one, but I dunno, becuase, as I understand it, they were rebuilt with 100 mph in mind, and actually were ran at 100 until some problems surfaced. So I would think that they would gear them for being able to run at that speed, because they were and did, for a limited amount of time however.

Im pretty sure its NJT that restricts them to 80, and its on paper, not, as I stated above, actually physically limited to 80 - and you saw that on your GPS.

The actual maximum speed for the AIII's is well in excess of 80 mph (More than 100). I personally witnessed an engineer demonstrate this for me on the NEC one time. The vehicle overspeed is still set at 103 on the Arrows, even though NJT has lowered their maximum speed. He did have to cut out the overspeed to obtain the speed we did, however, it was done do to a previous cab signal failure. I wont mention the rest of the details until the day after this individual retires.

Thanks, guys.

If anyone from NJT is monitoring -- WE MUST HAVE HAD A STRONG TAILWIND. :D
(Hey, It always worked on my bosses.)

Kind of reminds me of ludicrous speed.

hahaha

I wonder if that train Sir was on got better signals because CTEC probably thought it was a Metroliner or one of there trains!!!

Dispatcher is probably thinking, "Those lights moving across that fast, CAN'T be an NJT train!!!" :D

Those are some interesting theories. I'll have to ask some of the Mechanical Dept. gurus about this.

Previous to their rebuilding/retirement, the Arrow II/IIIs were good for 105mph on the NEC. I've gone that speed with Arrows on the M&E in the meadows and between the Maplewood PG and Highland Av. If you had four good running Arrow IIs, you were "good to go"!

Wow. 105 b/w Maplewood and Highland. That must have been great!

Nick:

They should probably have lights in the cab:

Light Speed -> Ridiculous Speed -> Ludricrous Speed

And don't forget about that emergency stop (never use) lever!!

arrow wrote:Nick:

They should probably have lights in the cab:

Light Speed -> Ridiculous Speed -> Ludricrous Speed

And don't forget about that emergency stop (never use) lever!!

LOL! That is great! I can see the it all now: Lord Helmet at the controls and the passengers hanging on for dear life.

It could also be used as a quick way to flip the seats!

I could see some poor schlub standing there at S. Orange station minding his own business, maybe reading a paper, hears a rattle in the catenary and the rails singing, makes him start to look up, then all of a sudden, all hell breaks loose, hat knocked off, deafening roar, kicked up ballast, then maybe getting a piece of newspaper following behind the train in the windblast getting stuck on his leg. He's standing there thinking to himself.......

"WTF was that?" hahahaha

thats all i can thnk of right now......im sure others wll come up with other reasons they have heard.

I've also heard:

* Gearbox cracking
* Lack of disc brakes ( == too much heat buildup in wheels from braking)
* Overloads inverters (would be unusual for this to be the case, though, most times (at least in the rest of industry outside the RRs), it's the exact opposite - the inverters can happily burn the motors up)

Or, it could just be Amtrak being Amtrak

OR: Maybe the Arrows really are capable of ludicrous speeds and all of this defect and gear talk is a concpiracy!