Siemens Venture Single Level Cars for CA/IL/Midwest

[Tadman]

WOW! I thought you guys were joking but you are freaking serious about using a Gallery commuter car for a intercity rail car! If it was such a good idea would not progressive California/Illinois order them? Brightline would have ordered them instead of most likely paying more for Siemens cars (see mods,I used Brightline to keep this in thread theme).

Instead of ordering Horizon cars, Amtrak should have ordered more gallery cars, it would have been cheaper! The solution to Amtrak car problems were right across the coach yard in the Metra yard?

Yes, exactly. Amtrak ordered 100 horizon cars and what were they? Comet commuter cars with nice chairs and manual doors. That's it and that's all. They've run millions of miles with no problem once the door problems were solved 20 years ago.

That's all we're suggesting here: buy gallery cars, use bigger seats. In the case of Milwaukee service, don't even buy bigger seats. Think about it: Milwaukee is 90 minutes. Commuter trains make many 2-3 hour runs - South Bend, Port Jervis, Montauk, Danbury, Cape Cod...

And yes, I remember the gallery cars on the Hiawatha and an Indiana train in the 80s. There is a reason why Amtrak did not keep them.

Everybody keeps saying this, yet nobody can say what that reason is. Was there a design flaw? Rust? Bad hvac?

I guess one can gut a commuter car and install less and softer seats, but what does that get you that the Siemens order does not? A lower floor?

Lower cost? Proven technology? Open assembly line? Higher capacity? I mean I feel like you win the lottery. More taste, less filling.

[/quote]There is a big difference between single level commuter car turned intercity and a cattle Gallery car turned intercity. The Metra traveler has no choice when traveling to Aurora, the Amtrak customer does.[/quote]

What is that big difference? You throw the term "Cattle" around to make this sound negative but don't actually city any facts, ridership surveys, reliability data, etc... just sounds like personal preference.

[Tadman]

Galley cars don’t go all the way to South Bend on the South Shore, they only go as far as Michigan
City.

Gallery cars are limited to Michigan City because they don't have dual pantographs and the wire east of MC is 100+ years old. The fear is that if they snag the wire, trying to offload passengers to a bus or parallel train in single tracks is rough, especially in Northern Indiana winters. It has nothing to do with carbody design or seats. The gallery cars have far better seats than the 0-100 series.

Galley cars maximum speeds per Nippon Sharyo is 79 mph.

You make a good point here. I have not heard of gallery cars going over 79 by design. That said, I bet it's far less costly to uprate the design of the trucks than it is to bet on a dumpster fire like the midwest gallery car fiasco. The gallery car is based on the lightweight single level design, and many railroads - PRR, IC, ATSF - ran those cars over 100.

[Mackensen]

In turn, the NGCE bilevel was an updating of a design whose lineage goes all the way back to the Hi-Level:

• Budd Hi-Level
• Pullman-Standard Superliner I
• Bombardier Superliner II
• Morrison-Knudsen California Car
• Alstom Surfliner

Over 60 years of purpose-built long-distance bilevel railcars capable of 90+ mph operation. Of the five designs, all save one (Hi-Level) involved significant government intervention in the design. Of the four with government involvement, only one, the California Car, had quality control problems, and they were fixed soon after delivery. Each of these designs has a likely service life of 40+ years. Maybe Nippon Sharyo just screwed the pooch.

[eolesen]

CNW used gallery cars on routes well over 300 miles into northern WI and MI, so it's hard to say the gallery car wasn't designed for long distance use when that was one of its initial missions 55+ years ago. The only difference between a long distance and short distance car is the style seating to be used.

In 1959, just about everyone expected intercity passenger traffic to eventually evaporate, and the CNW wanted commonality between their short and long distance fleet so they could easily refit long distance cars for commuter service when long distance travel finally died. It took 10 years longer than expected, but that's exactly what they did with at least one of the original long-distance bi-levels.

I'm also going to call foul on the notion that Amtrak wasn't thrilled about gallery cars. They were in service with Amtrak longer than they were with the CNW -- 20 years in red white and blue stripes, being retired between 1992 and 1995. The problem was small numbers. Of the 13 long distance bi-levels built for CNW, 12 made their way to Amtrak, and 4 are still in operation today up in Alaska, albeit rebuilt from the frame up. If they were such horrible cars, why wait 20 years to dead-line them?

I suspect if you took an existing N-S gallery car shell and put in Amfleet or Horizon style seats, it would be indistinguishable from a Horizon or Amfleet to most people, aside perhaps from the vestibule.

The only valid issue against them right now is the truck's max speed rating of 79mph. I'd expect 125 to be more than possible with higher speed trucks and disc braking vs. friction.

[Tadman]

In turn, the NGCE bilevel was an updating of a design whose lineage goes all the way back to the Hi-Level:

• Budd Hi-Level
• Pullman-Standard Superliner I
• Bombardier Superliner II
• Morrison-Knudsen California Car
• Alstom Surfliner

Over 60 years of purpose-built long-distance bilevel railcars capable of 90+ mph operation. Of the five designs, all save one (Hi-Level) involved significant government intervention in the design. Of the four with government involvement, only one, the California Car, had quality control problems, and they were fixed soon after delivery. Each of these designs has a likely service life of 40+ years. Maybe Nippon Sharyo just screwed the pooch.

I don't know that I agree with that. If NGEC were so similar, you wouldn't have had the crush test failure. It would've been a cake walk.

And let's be honest, the SL 1 and 2 coaches were darn similar to Hi-Level with some improvements.

[Mackensen]

Each of these designs represents an iterative improvement on the one before, with the possible exception of the S-I/S-II. There's a pretty good article in the August 1982 issue of Trains on the design of the Superliner and how it differed from the Hi-Level. The Superliners are taller and heavier. They have HEP instead of steam + diesel generators. The sleeper is a totally new design, as there was never a Hi-Level sleeper. That's a big deal for several reasons, not the least of which is the addition of showers and the related plumbing. Different trucks. Note also in this case one firm, Louis T. Klauder & Associates, worked with Amtrak on the design, which was then bid out. Similar to the Hi-Level? Sure, but probably as different from it as the Surfliner/California Car were from the the S-I/S-II.

The NGEC amounts to an iteration on the Surfliner/California Car. The design specification is available online. There's also this conference paper on how the specifications were developed. I have difficulty believing that five respected car builders all bid on a fundamentally flawed specification. It's always going to be up to the builder to take a design and execute it, whether that design is in-house or from another firm. I think I recounted a few posts up how Tokyu almost came to grief adapting Comeng's C1 design for the LIRR. No one's ever suggested that the C1 design was anything other than sound.

[David Benton]

In turn, the NGCE bilevel was an updating of a design whose lineage goes all the way back to the Hi-Level:

• Budd Hi-Level
• Pullman-Standard Superliner I
• Bombardier Superliner II
• Morrison-Knudsen California Car
• Alstom Surfliner

Over 60 years of purpose-built long-distance bilevel railcars capable of 90+ mph operation. Of the five designs, all save one (Hi-Level) involved significant government intervention in the design. Of the four with government involvement, only one, the California Car, had quality control problems, and they were fixed soon after delivery. Each of these designs has a likely service life of 40+ years. Maybe Nippon Sharyo just screwed the pooch.

I don't know that I agree with that. If NGEC were so similar, you wouldn't have had the crush test failure. It would've been a cake walk.

And let's be honest, the SL 1 and 2 coaches were darn similar to Hi-Level with some improvements.

Each of these designs represents an iterative improvement on the one before, with the possible exception of the S-I/S-II. There's a pretty good article in the August 1982 issue of Trains on the design of the Superliner and how it differed from the Hi-Level. The Superliners are taller and heavier. They have HEP instead of steam + diesel generators. The sleeper is a totally new design, as there was never a Hi-Level sleeper. That's a big deal for several reasons, not the least of which is the addition of showers and the related plumbing. Different trucks. Note also in this case one firm, Louis T. Klauder & Associates, worked with Amtrak on the design, which was then bid out. Similar to the Hi-Level? Sure, but probably as different from it as the Surfliner/California Car were from the the S-I/S-II.

The NGEC amounts to an iteration on the Surfliner/California Car. The design specification is available online. There's also this conference paper on how the specifications were developed. I have difficulty believing that five respected car builders all bid on a fundamentally flawed specification. It's always going to be up to the builder to take a design and execute it, whether that design is in-house or from another firm. I think I recounted a few posts up how Tokyu almost came to grief adapting Comeng's C1 design for the LIRR. No one's ever suggested that the C1 design was anything other than sound.

Hmmm, wonder how they managed to plumb the upper level toilets in the Superliner? What would the floor thickness be?

[Ryand-Smith]

Odd question but in THEORY could one company license out the California Car design and use it as a 1-1 replacement for say the Superliners?

[MBTA3247]

No. You would lose some capacity vs a Superliner due to the extra set of doors and stairs. I'd be surprised, though, if it required a major redesign of the carbody to remove those.

[dowlingm]

As I noted at the now, and appropriately, closed topic relating to the bi-level cars, here are 20 Siemens Viaggio cars built to US specifications, that I think will be looking for a new home:

Now if the fleet of Viaggios need be augmented by twenty more (and the Chargers by ten), I can let you in a secret where they can be found ready to go (hint: 26.73N, 80.058W).

And which high level platforms will they be serving?

[Gilbert B Norman]

Mr. Dowling, the cars sitting at 26.73N, 80.06W (you know who owns 'em) are based on the Viaggio design that Siemens has sold to several European State railway systems, namely Austrian and Czech RailJet and Euro City in Germany and Austria. Continental Europe doesn't know what a high level platform is (haven't been in the UK since '86 - can't recall), and I think it doubtful if the structure in the noted cars was "reversed engineered" to eliminate the need for traps. So it should be a relatively esty "fix" to cut into non-structural ("sheet") metal and add them.

This of course is unlike the Acela cars where it has been reported here would be structurally compromised if traps were fabricated into their shells, rendering them useless to be converted into standard Coaches.

[Gilbert B Norman]

Possibly this material should be confined to the Worldwide Forum, but since we have had much discussion here regarding need for FRA crash rigidity standards, those who hold the standards be relaxed might want to review this and think twice:

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-n ... t-Pictures" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Fair Use:

Emergency services rushed to the scene after a passenger train crashed into a freight train just outside the town of Meerbusch, near Dusseldorf Germany.

Dozens of emergency vehicles arrived on the scene of the terrifying collision.

Firefighters have shared shocking images of the crash on Twitter.

Pictures from the scene show the passenger train upright, but with its locomotive nearly entirely flattened against the rear of the freight wagon.

The front carriage of the National Express train is also buckled in half with its wheels derailed in images shared by the fire department

"Pictures, and video, are worth a thousand words".

While the incident had no loss of life any only five injuries there were 150 passengers trapped and had to be extricated by emergency responders.

What if there had been fire?

[Drtrack]

Does any one wish to quote the FRA Reg. That limits certain passenger car trucks to 79 mph? There isn’t one. So all this discussion of allowable speeds really only applies to Tier 2 equipment.

[Nasadowsk]

Possibly this material should be confined to the Worldwide Forum, but since we have had much discussion here regarding need for FRA crash rigidity standards, those who hold the standards be relaxed might want to review this and think twice:

Given that your fair use quote claimed the locomotive on an MU was crushed, I question the '150 trapped' comments, too. Especially saying that the early reports said there were 150 total on board.

In any case, the front end did it's job, the carbody in the first car...well, Bombardier has some explaining to do to the Germans now, I suspect. Even with EN standards, that kind of buckling shouldn't have happened.

[Tadman]

The cited issues are sad issues, but let's use some perspective. There are less train-on-train deaths in all the Amtrak years than there are grade crossing deaths every year. Why on earth the feds keep beating one dead horse as if it were the number one killer of man is bloody beyond me. It's a rounding error compared to cigarettes, car crashes, grade crossing, guns, drug use...

But hey, $15b is nothing if you're spending others' money.