How Many Cars are at Beech Grove Shop waiting Scrapped and other Place Too and Engines to be Scrapped Too This Year. How much money does amtrak get for a scrapped car. What Steel Mills does Amtrak do busineess with?[?]
Gosh!
I was hoping that the “Heritage Fleet Cars” are not on the scrap list! These cars have significant historical value. I would hope that they would wind up with tour companies, private owners, or museums. Understandably they are expensive to repair.
As for the Amcans, I’ve ridden them many times. When comparing to the riding qualities of the heritage cars, THERE’S NONE! Sounds silly, but I wish Amtrak had kept the heritage cars. They were roomier, rode better, and were built to last.
Is that why they call amtrak amscrap?
Wow Mark…No need to be “abrasive” or smart aleck. Worldview: I’m sure most of us here watch the news and read. Other than the forum…CNN seems to offer a liberal slant on the news…Fox a conservative slant.
That’s good news!
O.K. Good to know as many aren’t likely aware.
Agree 100%. When I repaired bus bodies years back, I “cringed” everytime I was assigned to a repair job involving stainless steel.
The Super Chief, California Zephyr, the Silver Meteor, El Capitan, Southern Crescent…These trains are of no historical significance? Quite a few heritage cars served on these streamliners. I have a picture that I shot when I took a ride on the Silver Meteor in the 80s. There were some odd looking graphics on the coach’s wall. I found out from a historian that I was riding in an ex-Santa Fe coach and when Amtrak rebuilt it, The Indian style graphics were left on the wall.
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QUOTE: 5. The second- and third-hand passenger car market is awash with cars in poor condition. If you want one, they’re pretty cheap. However, if you wan
I wonder if amtrak would like Via renaissance style equipment. I know they can’t afford it likely but I would imagine if they could, it might be something for them to consider. As far as scapping Heritage cars are concerned, they seem kind of obsolete compared to the superliners and the other stuff. That of course is my opinion and not a fact. Does anybody know why Amtrak did not by any LRC cars like Via did for corridor service. Those cars are cool and I been comfortable going over 100 mph enroute to Ottawa from Toronto. Windows are big, the interior is home like and the chairs are very comfortable and offer great leg room. I don’t like the Budd cars to much though but that is another story.
The Night Star cars Via bought hold only about 70% of the occupancy of a standard North American 80 foot long, 10-foot wide single-level passenger railcar. This applies to all types, coaches vs coaches, sleepers vs sleepers, diners, etc . They were built to squeez into the British “loading gauge” (clearances) which are far tighter than North American. Via got a bargain in first cost but added operating and maintenance expenses. What is to the point is the terrific, truly terrific job VIA did on upgrading the 50 year old Canadian Budd equipment, which really provides a very good simulation of what the best of the streanliner era was like all over North America. But in terms of economics, the Superliner is obviously the right choice.
Your 2nd explaination was well put, Mark and I have a better overall understanding. [:D][8D]
One thing though, as Dave Keppler points out, the rebuilt VIA Budd “heritage” coaches are gorgeous. I guess I was hoping that Amtrak would have done the same when David Gunn took over. [;)]
I remember back in the early 80s when Amtrak rebuilt the Heritage cars at Beech Grove. I was fortunate to have ridden them. They were very sweet! Except for the new Superliners, they were better than anything on the rails back then, even the MU Metroliners. But it’s been two decades and these war horses have been through the grinder…
Thanks!
Well the government of Canada can be mondo cheap-skates and don’t often fund anything properly so I would guess that Amtrak could afford to do the rebuilds.
IMHO,
Amtrak could have rebuilt the Heritage cars that it had remaining in the late 90s. Critics would have probably charged that Amtrak was rebuilding 40 to 50 year old equipment. Might have been a money saver though and helped avoid the “fleet crunch” that Amtrak is in now.
It’s all water that’s flowed underneath the bridge, now.
This is from Amtrak’s 2005-2009 plan.
The current Heritage fleet is 25 diners, 23 crew dorms and 12 miscellaneous. (Builders are not listed). The diners, crew cars and 8 of the miscellaneous cars are scheduled to be retired in 2007, to be replaced by new cars using the Viewliner design shell. The heritage fleet has an average age of 49 years.
There is also a reference to Heritage baggage cars, the numbers are not clear, but they are scheduled for rebuild.
As Mark indicated, numbers drive this train.
49 years! Wow! What a testament to "Made in the U.S.A!
Honestly if Amtrak gets the funds I recommend they invest in LRC for corridor service and more Viewliner /Superliner for other services. How are they for motive power? I am wondering if they should sell off their P32-8 in favour of extra P-42 and F59s
I’ve heard of a privitly owned passenger car being added to the end of Amtrak train ( One of the silver services) at Richmond, VA going to Florida.
How much and what does it take to have a privitly owned passenger car added on to an Amtrak train?
This is What Amtrak Needs to Buy.
They need: 40 Viewliner Diners, 150 Viewliner Coach, 40 Viewliner Lounge Cars, 25 more Viewliner Sleeping Car too. Put Full Dining Car on Train 40 & 41 again and 50 & 51 too and Put another sleeping car on 40&41 and 50 & 51.
Amtrak needs a new order of Superliner Cars about 400 New Superliner Cars too Replace them Superliner Cars from the 1979 & 1980’s car order. Bring back Trains 35 & 36 and 25 & 26. Amtrak Needs to put Pacific Surfliner Cars on These Trains The Illini Chicago to Carbondale, the PereMarquette Chicago to Grand Rapids, The Wolverine and Blue Water Trains, and the Chicago to St. Louis Trains. Them Cars would look Great on all them Trains Surfliner Cars.
That my Plan for Amtrak.[:D][8D]
A few random comments – this is an interesting thread!
On the Canadian (VIA’s incredible train): indeed, the Canadian Federal government can be penny-pinching at times. However, at times they can be quite realistic. Rebuilding the Canadian’s train sets cost a mint – but was seen as a good investment in terms of national identity and tourism; in my humble opinion, that’s one place the guys from Ottawa got it right (I don’t always agree with them… !)
On Heritage fleet equipment: as Mark so accurately put it, most of it is pretty plain vanilla. Most of the usable specialised equipment is in the private car pool, where it still exists. Maintaining and rebuilding the Heritage fleet isn’t just simply a matter of refurbishing interiors and so on, however. Although railroad equipment is built to last – really last! – anything made of metal eventually comes to the end of its safe usable life, and when that happens, you have to replace it (this is not a matter of rust: its called metal fatigue, and results in microscopic cracks in highly stressed areas. These microscopic cracks can turn into major disasters unpredictably, very fast, if they aren’t caught when they are tiny. We are all familiar with the problems from broken rails; a very similar thing). In many of the Heritage cars, it would be my suspicion (I don’t know this for a fact – maybe someone does) that this is beginning to be a problem, particularly in truck frames and underframes and draft gears. Now your talking money…
Conrailman,
That’s a 10-4!
Back in the late 1980s, the Ringling Brothers, Barnum, and Bailey Circus train was involved in a horrific wreck here in Florida. Made the news world wide. At least one circus performer was killled. The passenger cars on the train were a mixture of the heavyweight and “heritage” streamliner cars. After the investigation, the cause was contrubuted to “metal fatigue” from one of the passenger car’s axles. (please correct me if I’m wrong).
Peace!
I WI***HAT I HAD THE MONEY TO BUY A BUDD CAR. AS I WAS GROWING UP IN THE 50’S AND 60’S I WENT TO THE BUDD CO. HERE IN PHILADELPIA AND SAW A NUMBER OF CARS BEING BUILD. A BUDDY OF MINE’S FATHER WORK THERE. I SAW THE FIRST AMFLEET CAR COME OUT OF THE SHOP. I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE A 10-6 SLEEPER.
The Illinois Transit Assembly Corp, in Madison, IL has about 200 Junk Pass. Cars sitting there theyare just rusting away. Why don’t they Scrapped them 200old Junk Cars??
What are your opinions on Amtrak with Via style LRC. I think they would get a wonderful response for corridor use.
I have read about the new Renaissance cars in Canada… They were built for high speed rail use at night for the Chunnel… However, the British rightly decided they didn’t need a night train to Paris any longer… with TGV equipment running on the line today… Canada is upgrading its fleet of cars east of Windsor, but they should also replace the old ancient cars on the Canadian too…
Frankly, Amtrak should purchase either Talgos or Acela equipment for the corridors around Chicago and the NEC… Whenever Amtrak does get the funding to build HSR across America, they will equipment capable of being useful…the ancient equipment Amtrak runs today can’t bank thru curves like the new state of the art equipment…
Plus, these new state of the art cars aren’t any more expensive than the old ancient junk Amtrak runs today…