Viewliner II Delivery/Production

[D.Carleton]

The MK Viewliner shells were made at the former Pullman plant in Chicago. There is a lovely picture of one, albeit reversed, on page 29 of the Sept. 2009 issue of Trains.

[David Benton]

i suspect the main reason for choosing stainless is to reduce the amount of reverse engineering required .
with modern metal treatment and paints i don't believe stainless has that much of an advantage over other materials . it certainly has some disadvantages , probably the main one being its simply a bitch to work with .
Dare i say the bare metal look of amtrak's cars looks old fashioned these days , what would really stand out as new , would be a nice classy paintjob .

[Pacific 2-3-1]

i suspect the main reason for choosing stainless is to reduce the amount of reverse engineering required .
with modern metal treatment and paints i don't believe stainless has that much of an advantage over other materials . it certainly has some disadvantages , probably the main one being its simply a bitch to work with .
Dare i say the bare metal look of amtrak's cars looks old fashioned these days , what would really stand out as new , would be a nice classy paintjob .

It works for AmericanAirlines!

[electricron]

Nothing shines like stainless steel in the sun...

[phillytrainman]

With all due respect and for the sake of accuracy, the original Viewliner shells were built by the Budd Company's Port Washington Research Center. The first car shell left Budd’s plant on July 1, 1985 after stress testing and moved to Amtrak’s Beech Grove Facility for completion. The first completed Viewliner, sleeper 2300, was finished on September 30, 1987 by Amtrak forces. Budd had already closed by this time (April 3, 1987).

[DutchRailnut]

only the 3 pre-production shells were made by BUDD, the production shells were done elsewhere.

[phillytrainman]

My error, a previous writer was referring to production Viewliners. I wrote about the 3 prototype Vielinwers. This should be interesting to see how CAF does with this order. CAF's average car price of $2.3M each is basically $1.9M in 1993 dollars which was the price of the origianl Viewliners when the contract was signed. Sorry for my oversight. There were 3 prototypes. 2 sleepers #2300 & #2301 and one diner #8400.

[D.Carleton]

Sorry, I was too tired (lazy) to write out Morrison-Knudsen. In other news, Trains.com has an interesting quote from Mr. Boardman regarding the order:

"The specification gives the builder the flexibility for enhancements and upgrades, but we did not require the cars to have the same shape."

At this rate, maybe the new cars will look like this?

[phillytrainman]

Stainless steel car shells are not acid dipped. Having worked for several car builders in the past, I can state that unequivocally. Budd's Automotive Division did do a dip or phosphate wash to clean steel auto body parts, but rail cars have never been dipped. Spot welding, or "shotwelding" as it was originally called, was a clean process and did not require any acid dipping to weld stainless sheets or stainless steel structural members. The most difficult welds are those of the LAHT end underframes to the #301L stainless steel carbody structure.

[David Benton]

Nowdays , the skin is more likely to be glued on , than welded anyway .
Thanks for that , i couldnt fiqure why you would dip Stainless in an acid bath .

[phillytrainman]

Trust me, the cars are fully welded including skins. Look up National Geographic show entitled, "New York City Subway Car." They show the hold process of how Alstom welds the entire R160 carshell in Lapa, Brazil and then performs final assembly in Hornell, NY. No glue.

[phillytrainman]

You're welcome. Sorry, that should be "show the whole process" in my previous posting.

[Jersey_Mike]

Trust me, the cars are fully welded including skins. Look up National Geographic show entitled, "New York City Subway Car." They show the hold process of how Alstom welds the entire R160 carshell in Lapa, Brazil and then performs final assembly in Hornell, NY. No glue.

What is the reason stainless carbody welding has been driven overseas? It is just the labour costs or are there environmental issues? I remember talking to Phil about this and he suspected it was environmental.

[phillytrainman]

Apparently, car orders are not of the volume that entice U.S. steel producers to make runs or batches of the necessary #301L stainless. Steel producers like Allegheny Ludlum, who once produced stainless steel, ceased production many years ago. Even 1,100+ car orders like the LIRR /MNR M-7 did not seem to be enough to get interest in the domestic steel industry, which just tells me they don't want to be bothered.

[Tadman]

WIth the domestic carbuilding industry as a whole, they suffered 30 years of bad business from 1950 to 1980. They were toast, no matter how good the late 1970s or 1980's could've been. In fact, the mass orders by Amtrak and transit agencies weren't all that great anyway. Doing business withe businessmen at UP or IC is not like doing business with bureaucrats at Amtrak or MTA. Other than Bombardier and MPI, nobody touches passenger rolling stock because it's just not lucrative. Although I respect Bombardier and MPI, especially MPI for recently developing an entire independent line, they're nothing compared to the truly profitably P-S or EMD of the passenger era. That's why we'll continue to see token efforts by foreign companies to build passenger cars locally.