Certainly true in the standard heavyweight era but many streamline baggage and combination cars were 82-85’.
And many RPO, RWExp, and Mail Storage cars.
Not a huge deal to convert either a Horizon or Amfleet car to a baggage car. Would have to be creative about door in Amfleet.
Well, I’m a thousand miles from my tech manuals and I don’t feel like bothering one of the other D.Carletons. So, when I went to work today, I made a quick survey of some of the stuff we have in the fleet. It’s all Budd built from the 1950s including a long-distance coach, sleepers converted into coaches, a dome car, a full length dome car, dining car, etc. All of them have the standard three inch thick floor… with one exception: The baggage car floor is five inches thick throughout the length and width of the car. This is to compensate for the beating they would take from baggage, express, coffins, freight and whatever else the railroads would throw at them. Furthermore, perpendicular to the doors are extra heavy bracing on the walls and roof to compensate for the larger opening. (I didn’t climb up there to measure, too busy.) I don’t recall seeing such on a converted coach.
Our local FRA inspector was around today and I asked him about such a conversion and he said it would need approval and a waiver from the FRA prior to implementation. Again, I don’t know what Amtrak did prior to their rebuilding. Going through such engineering and approval process would negate any savings rather than build anew. Then again it is hoped that CAF USA/NRPC took this into account or they will
Makes sense. Floor isn’t really structural. It sits on the cross-bearers. The walls on both sides of the doors and where the walls attach to the roof members would need beefing up. Neither are a huge deal after the interior is out of the car.
Not a huge deal either. Pretty much show them the results of the finite element analysis you did for the design. I’m pretty sure we did this with the GP40s we stretched into GP40PHs for NJT a couple of decades ago. We did it for the anti-climber we added to the rear, at the least.
Is Amtrak transporting express, coffins, freight along with suitcases? So the heavier floor is unnecessary.
When driving a forklift onto the baggage car, yes, the heavier floor is necessary. And I have had experience with all of the above. The coffin story would be quite funny… if not for the coffin.
Sure, to distribute the load out over the cars’s structure. What’s under the floor is the same…
Not my question. Are forklifts being used on Amtrak baggage cars now? What is being transported that would require a forklift? Amtrak’s mission does not include freight or express. You saw the inside of the baggage car on an LD train and there were not even a few suitcases (steamer trunks have been extinct for 50 years or so).
And, considering that no baggage is to weigh more than fifty pounds (years ago, 250 pounds was the weight limit; Amtrak employs weaklings), what reason is there for such a heavy floor?
So, here’s my speculation of why new baggage cars instead of conversion. It’s equipment, so the Mechanical Department held sway.
The existing baggage cars and diners had to go or go through a top-to-bottom rebuilding. The trucks are a good design, but ancient. Parts are tough, but not impossible. Steel castings last forever. They are the odd-balls of the fleet. There’s probably some fatigue and other structural issues rearing their heads with greater frequency. Lots of custom repair work. They are a huge pain in the neck. All could be addressed with a solid, capital rebuilding, though.
Amfleet, Heritage and Superliner are just fine as is. No big issues with parts or structure. We like them.
So, I COULD convert existing equipment to baggage service and get new coaches, except…
This means a program I have to schedule - using manpower and facilities I really don’t have. Bear and Beech Grove don’t have a lot of slack - particularly man-power. So, hiring, training, putting work space, tooling in place.
AND, I have to take coaches out of service to do the conversion, which means I can’t even get started until the new stuff starts to show up. That means two more years of duct tape and bailing wire.
I could contract the work out…perhaps… but still have the time lag and now union headaches on “who owns the work” and the added headache of contract administration.
So, that’s my guess. That it would have been hard for Mechanical still doesn’t justify it in my opinion…
IMHO paint schemes, templates, stick on paint jobs are not what is important. Mechanical persons working for CAF need to de bug these new cars !. Amtrak and CAF certainly do not want another major problem like what happened to the Horizon cars in very cold winter weather freezing up.
The structre of these cars certainly apears to be more robust than any rebuild of present coaches would be… Amtrak should build for any future use that may happen as retro fit is very expensive… I can see the possibility that modular containers may be in the future for use in new baggage cars. One especially possible item might be for spare dinning car supplies and maybe even frozen foods be carried.in the new baggage cars.
Note: On some legs of my just coompleted trip I coould not believe the amount of checked baggage.
Likely not a design issue. Likely lack of maintenance and/or poor repair/mod work.
Structure? They’re basically Viewliners. Same as existing. The interiors and under car stuff can be different, though.
Don: In this case it was a design issue. For several years after they were delivered the water systems all froze up. I believe one year many were sent to NOL to thaw out and rerote the ater lines. Anyone with more details ?
That could be… I was remembering trouble in the past several years that was due to poor maintenance.
Amtrak carries LTL express shipments including palletized loads via the baggage car. Check out their rates they are pretty cheap compared to UPS or Fed Ex. They also carry human remains but to be honest most human remains are flown these days.
I think it is something like $50 for each 100 lbs. Each box is limited to 50 lbs and each shipment 500 lbs but you can have as many shipments as you want. Amtrak will palletize the load for you and shrink wrap it as well. They only hold the shipment for 48 hours at the destination but you can gain additional time by having the sending station delay the shipment not all stations will do this. I believe it is $3 a box (50 lbs) per day for storage if you exceed the deadline for pickup.
Actually, no, there are differences; the plot gets thicker… or thinner in this case.
After making sure everything was properly blue flagged I crawled under some of our equipment today. Just about all of the cars, baggage, diner, rebuilt sleepers, have a center sill that is 15" high and 20" wide. Not so for our former Union Pacific coach which has a center sill only 8" high and 12" wide. At least a half dozen of these series of coaches were repurposed into baggage cars and expected to handle the same loads as a purpose built baggage car. I am beginning to appreciate the heartburn caused by this move.
I have no idea what the center sill dimensions are for an Amfleet or Horizon/Comet car.
The death of Amtrak Express has been greatly exaggerated: http://www.amtrak.com/express-shipping
There may be a problem with the new Viewliners. Rumors which are always very suspect abound on other sites that there are major problems. There has been no movement towards testing or more built. Maybe a frame problem ? IMHO it appears that maybe Amtrak should put out some kind of announcement about their status.
Maybe Trains should investigate ? ?