Siemens to manufacture 83 Airo Intercity Trainsets for Amtrak: Design, Delivery, Acceptance

The five Talgo VI sets have been out of service since June of last year. The Cascades are currently running with the two Talgo 8 sets and a few set 3-4 car Horizon sets.

At present, the Seattle-Vancouver BC round trips are not running, and there are fewer Seattle-Portland round trips than planned. In order to operate a full schedule and meet demand, more cars are needed.

I suspect that displaced Midwest Horizons will head west to fill the shortage, but that will require the Siemens cars for the Midwest to enter service first.

njtmnrrbuff wrote: ↑Wed Dec 08, 2021 8:02 pm In the Pacific Northwest, the Cascades have had their issues with the Talgo equipment. I think after the derailment occurred on the original startup date of the bypass, that caused Amtrak, Oregon DOT, and WSDOT to be very apprehensive with keeping the Talgos in service for a very long time.

I didn't think it was a matter of being apprehensive... wasn't the waiver on the Talgo not meeting crashworthiness standards rescinded by the FRA?

Per http://www.highspeed-rail.org/Documents ... uppert.pdf :

The new ALC-42E will not be a dual-power engine, but a pure diesel engine that can operate via external HEP-type power sources. For catenary/battery compatibility, they came up with a "genius" idea of introducing dedicated "head end power cars" (AVP/BUS) equipped with pantographs, batteries and converter/inverters, which will, in turn, provide power to these engines and passerenger cars.

The separation of traction and transmission systems are quite common on modern MUs, but only on MUs, where there are multiple power cars backing up each other. As for Amtrak's new trainset, such design creates a single point of failure: Any malfunction of the HEP system will force the trainset to use diesel power, which seems to be awful.

Why???
Dual mode locomotives exist elsewhere and should be used for NEC trains that terminate somewhere not along the corridor. The Sprinters are fine and should be kept for NEC service that stays on the NEC its whole route.
Why add this unnecessary complication?

Okay, that confuses me, but there's some clarity with the linked PDF. Let me step through this...

• The ALC-42E variant is primary diesel... or really diesel-generating to it's traction system (probably AC).
• A combo Business-class car and caternary power unit will trail this engine to ether provide traction power to the ALC-42E AND HEP to passenger cars... or it'll stand idle when off caternary power and let the diesel's generators provide HEP.

Is that right?

Yes. And the "power unit" will be battery-equipped so that the engine may operate under battery power.

So...either they're going to have to do some interesting switching at Washington for the LD trains and Regionals, or they're all going to be hauling around a heavy car's worth of dead weight for the entire trip.

So correct me if I'm wrong here: they're replacing the Sprinters with diesels that will only draw HEP from the wires?!

MattW wrote: ↑Wed Mar 02, 2022 12:43 pm So...either they're going to have to do some interesting switching at Washington for the LD trains and Regionals, or they're all going to be hauling around a heavy car's worth of dead weight for the entire trip.

I'm surprised that they didn't buy B units, with traction motors, to help with the propulsion of this gear.

TurningOfTheWheel wrote: ↑Wed Mar 02, 2022 1:07 pm So correct me if I'm wrong here: they're replacing the Sprinters with diesels that will only draw HEP from the wires?!

No. The Auxiliary Power Car can draw power from the overhead wires and provide power to run the locomotive's engine.

Another way of looking at this is that you can use the auxiliary power cars with any ALC-42 so all ALC-42s can run on and off corridor.

So this car behind the locomotive will have the Pantograph?

It will have the pantagraph and switchgear needed to provide HEP and traction power. Technically the ALC's engine won't need power. The traction motors do.

Dead weight in the form of a power car is a tradeoff for not having a regionally limited fleet or carrying that dead weight inside the engine's carbody. Being business class, its already going to be lighter via fewer seats...

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This is exactly the opposite of what Talgo did in Spain where the engines are the normal electric engines and the following power car has diesel generators for off catenary use where needed.

This European setup contributed to the terrific Talgo crash in Spain where the heavy higher-center-of-gravity of that generator car pulled the train off of the tracks. You can see it clearly in the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-ZtCFq ... el=ABCNews

You have to wonder if the train might have made it through the curve if that diesel generator wasn't inserted into the Talgo pendular train consist.

eolesen wrote: ↑Wed Mar 02, 2022 3:42 pm It will have the pantagraph and switchgear needed to provide HEP and traction power. Technically the ALC's engine won't need power. The traction motors do.

Dead weight in the form of a power car is a tradeoff for not having a regionally limited fleet or carrying that dead weight inside the engine's carbody. Being business class, its already going to be lighter via fewer seats...

Not only that, it saves time because you're not switching engines out. You're just shutting down the electric connection and firing up the diesel. You're not even doing this on the move. I bet it'll take no more than 5 minutes to do stopped at Harrisburg and Washington Union....

Hell, if the set goes on the Pennsy with a ALC-42E, you'll end up saving on diesel fuel because the engine only needs to go between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg (instead of Pittsburgh to Philly). Switch power at Harrisburg. Plus, since it's business class, that car is making money.

The only outlier would be the Empire Corridor service, but you'll need a third rail unit instead of a caternary unit (maybe combined?) that has batteries rather than business class seats... because of that Spuyten Duyvil Bridge it uses.

STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Wed Mar 02, 2022 7:30 pm The only outlier would be the Empire Corridor service, but you'll need a third rail unit instead of a caternary unit (maybe combined?) that has batteries rather than business class seats... because of that Spuyten Duyvil Bridge it uses.

There are 144 options on the Metro North dual mode Chargers order. 20 of those options are expected to be used by NYDOT for Empire Corridor services.