Railroad Forums 

  • Is Fluting Dead?

  • General discussion of passenger rail systems not otherwise covered in the specific forums in this category, including high speed rail.
General discussion of passenger rail systems not otherwise covered in the specific forums in this category, including high speed rail.

Moderators: mtuandrew, gprimr1

 #1551539  by bostontrainguy
 
Amtrak's Viewliners are maybe the last modern passenger car with fluting. Is fluting even necessary anymore? Is it only an aesthetic consideration? Would Amtrak order new Siemen's Venture coaches with fluting to match the Viewliners? Just curious if anyone has any ideas on this.
 #1551545  by eolesen
 
Fluting does contributes to the overall strength of the outer wall, but I doubt they'd add it after passing the crush tests.

UP operated a mix of smooth and fluted cars which wasn't too distracting. I think they still have at least one in the business car fleet (UPP 202 Willie James which started out as Pacific Domain).
 #1551565  by R36 Combine Coach
 
While most Budds had signature fluting, some did not: CTA 2600s are the most apparent. And the M-1/M-3 only had two fluting lines where the blue paint stripe would be. NYCT's R68/R68A and the Market-Frankford M4 may be the last rail transit cars with fluted sheetmetal, along with the CTA 3200s (ironically returning to fluting after
smooth stainless on the 2400/2600 series).
 #1551585  by bostontrainguy
 
mtuandrew wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 7:56 am All of the Nippon Sharyo gallery cars have fluting.
Too bad they didn't use a bunch of it on the bi-level :)
PRIIA-BI-Levels.jpg
PRIIA-BI-Levels.jpg (66.37 KiB) Viewed 1891 times
 #1551600  by Pensyfan19
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe their predecessors, that being the Surfliner Cab and the California Cab, had fluting on their side as well, along with the superliners.
 #1551859  by electricron
 
Most smooth sided coaches have wavy appearances as every small dent or bump is easily seen. Fluting hides or masks the waves, but not the dents. Coaches with fluting keep their new appearance longer than smooth sides, imho.
 #1551906  by Gilbert B Norman
 
Backshophoss wrote: Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:49 pm Believe BNSF Topeka Biz Car shop has it's own Fluting Machine.
Likely the case as I have observed a former NP Diner included in the consist of BNSF Executrains passing here.
 #1551926  by David Benton
 
Composite panels would take over any strength advantage of fluting. visually, I would say fluting is considered old fashioned.
Almost all long distance stock in Australia in the late sixties / seventies , was the Budd design manufactured under licence. .
 #1551952  by R36 Combine Coach
 
David Benton wrote: Mon Sep 07, 2020 4:54 pm Almost all long distance stock in Australia in the late sixties / seventies was the Budd design
manufactured under licence.
And the Silverliner/Arrow MUs built under Budd license by AVCO and Canadian Vickers with GE assembly used the
fluted stainless to great effect in same period.

All St. Louis stainless cars built between 1966 and 1973 (NYCT R38/R40/R42/R44, Silverliner III and Arrow I/
MP85E6) have fluting, though minimal on the R44s.
 #1552006  by talltim
 
My impression is that fluting is pretty much a US and US export thing. Can’t think of many European examples, there were the French Mistral Inox (stainless steel) coaches. https://retours.eu/en/54-inox-grand-confort/
The Danish IC3 (as trialed by Amtrak) has very shallow fluting
 #1552040  by RRspatch
 
talltim wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2020 6:41 pm My impression is that fluting is pretty much a US and US export thing. Can’t think of many European examples, there were the French Mistral Inox (stainless steel) coaches. https://retours.eu/en/54-inox-grand-confort/
The Danish IC3 (as trialed by Amtrak) has very shallow fluting
The X2000 from Sweden had fluting to the point it looked right at home during it's north american tour.

Portugal (CP) had some cars in it's fleet listed on the Railfan Europe site as being Budd cars -
http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/pt/car ... dd_011.jpg
http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/pt/car ... dd_014.jpg
http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/pt/car/Budd/LEIRIA.jpg

Some of these CP cars ended up in Argentina.

In the UK I believe Budd built one car as an attempt to enter the UK railcar market. Unfortunately I can't seem to find anything on Google at this time. I believe the car was scrapped after being trialed in Ireland.