Interesting video from Alstom and note they can have additional cars added.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH-3FsmU6KQ&feature=youtu.be
Amtrak release. One item trains will not be EMUs but power cars at each end just like present Acela-1s. One still seems to show that each car will share a wheelset on each end to the next car.
Alstom release/
There were some complaints with Alstom’s new math. The best can figure is each train set will carry 33% more passengers but with 28 new train sets verses present 20 train sets that will be 40 % increase in total train sets. Will that give Amtrak approximately 80% total new seats ?
Nice to see that all the characters from the old iPod commercials have new employment.
Not so nice to see that by the time these trains are in service they’ll still be running over the old Portal Bridge, and through the old Hudson tunnels…
I like the white leather(?) seats. Oh yeah, they’ll stay clean for 5 minutes.
I have white and black leather seats in my one truck. Even trying to keep them clean - it’s a losing battle unless, you know, you don’t sit on them.
But all the people seem to be pastey white…
Train of the damned.
So these things are going to tilt?
Will the tilt work out better than the last time, where they had to restrict it on account of the “loading gauge”?
Twenty years ago at a shindig in Fort Lauderdale we celebrated the announcements of the American Flyer for the northeast and the Florida Overland eXpress (FOX). The former was later rebranded Acela and was built in tandem with the writing of the Tier 2 crash standards which was akin to nailing jello to a tree and we all know how that turned out. Meanwhile we are watching Brightline being built for south and central Florida. Funny what can happen in two decades.
These new trains look pretty ‘sexy’ but no where is there any mention of the time line to when they will be in regular service. You can bet Alstom will want to be paid some of that $2.4 billion, prety quickly…
Question #2: Will all those ‘needed’ improvements to the NEC physical plant, and ROW be ready so these new trains will be able to preform at their maximum limits of their specifications, on their first day, on the job?
Should be interesting…[:-^]
Paul: I may be wrong, but didn’t your Dad have an involvement with the United Technology’s Turbo Trains? Didn’t they tilt?
I look forward to hearing Prof. Milenkovic’s stories … but Cripe’s TurboTrain used passive, or pendulum, tilt, not the active or proportional systems that are now characterized by the name. If I remember correctly, Prof. Milenkovic has a special interest and competence in the kind of mechanical linkage that was used to permit the train to tilt, guide, and steer simultaneously with only single axles between cars – it’s far from simple and highly interesting.
Boy these are Butt Ugly. The Bulldog nose has to go.
I’m sure it will go fast.[:)]
Talgo, a major player in tilting-train technology, also uses a passive tilt system (related to Cripe’s?), and extols its virtues (lighter, no energy consumptionn , less complicated mechanisms to go wrong).
And, I too would love to hear more of the good professor’s stories – familial, historic, and otherwise – about the TurboTrain!
The issue wasn’t the tilt that was the problem it was that the cars were too wide to use the tilt on the restricted loading gauge of the former NH Metro North territory. To be able to use the tilt on the new train sets the cars will need to be narrower or big $ spend to open up the loading gauge, moving wayside structures, changing track centers etc.
This myth was debunked years ago. It’s just not true.
I hope they don’t retire the Acela I’s, they would be a welcome sight on the Keystone line.