Ca - Amtrak joint HSR procurement ended

Trains Magazine Passenger
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After California HSR and Amtrak officials met with train manufacturers it was determined that there were too many differences for their equipment needs to co-operate in procuring the HSR trains they need. An important point is Amtrak is solicitation bids for 28 sets next month. Several posters may have some ideas but:

  1. Need to tilt on NEC not needed in California ?

  2. Different HP needs ?

  3. Different seating conditions ?

  4. Capacity of a train ? California might want to have different train capacities ?

  5. Different service requirements ?

  6. Cross section and height differences ? Amtrak is much more constrained especially width due to New Rochelle - New Haven track centers . That means a completely different shell.

  7. Amtrak needs to operate under 3 different power sources ? Single source for California means no special 25 / 60 Hz transformers. 60 Hz transformers much smaller and cheaper and can be center tapped if desire is to operate some areas at 12.5 Kv instead at 25 Kv…

  8. Signaling system may be different due to need to operate 220 MPH in California ?

  9. Possible different crash worthiness ?

  10. California not ready to bid for trains as final specs not ready ? Platform heights and distance from track may not be determined yet ?

Other items are requested which will be added to this original post

http://www.smdailyjournal.com/articles/lnews/2014-06-21/california-amtrak-end-joint-high-speed-train-bid/1776425125343.html

http://www.philly.com/phill

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Most of the Cal HSR is to be on dedicated track, so lighter weight is possible, i.e., rest of the world standards for crash worthiness?

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It will be interesting then to see how the crash worthiness is handled from Riverside - LAX and San Jose - San Francisco ?? Also common station platforms and terminal tracks ?

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Have added point 9 & 10

The below link says Amtrak is soliciting bids for 28 train sets next month. Guess one problem was California not ready ?

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/homepage/20140621_Amtrak_and_California_end_plans_for_buying_new_trains_jointly.html

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The joint RFP put out by Amtrak and CHSRA was seeking a same trainset platform that would be in 2 different configurations. The Amtrak trainsets would have transformers capable of operating at the 3 power configurations on the NEC, the CA version would only need to work with 60 Hz/25 kV. The CA version might have slightly wider car bodies while the NEC version of course would have to meet the clearance requirements of the NEC.

So the concept was not that the NEC and CA HSR trainsets would be identical, but would share the same platform in different configurations for power, signals, seating, and so on. Because Amtrak wanted to get its 28 trainsets before CHSRA needed to get their US production trainsets, the idea appeared to be that a vendor could complete the production run for Amtrak in circa FY2021 and then switch over to building a different version for CHSRA.

The waiver requests submitted to the FRA by both Amtrak and CHSRA to allow them to order 2 prototypes eash that would built overseas laid a lot of this out. Their waiver requests are on the FRA website eLibrary section. The platform height for the CA HSR system will be the same as the NEC high level platforms, BTW, because that has been stated in the CHSRA specs for some time.

However,

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FYI, the RFP page for the joint HSR trainset procurement is still available (as of June 21 2014) on the CHSRA website at http://www.hsr.ca.gov/About/Doing_Business_with_HSR/RFP_X_034_14024_tier3_next_gen_trainsets.html.

There are many, many document and spec files on there.

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The NEC is esentially flat, while the CAHSR was going to go over Tehachapi on a shorter but steeper grade than the existing freight line. I’m guessing the engine design needed more traction.