i recently read the latest issue of trains … how to fix amtrak… i have also just read a british magazine that featured an article about the VIRGIN 220 D M U sets these units are powered with a motor under each coach they run at 125 mph and have a range of 1350 miles could these trains some how be used to run medium haul ( 1000 miles to 1200 miles ) at a higher speed than the present amtrak trains run at… use them in a hub and spoke style of operation just like the commuter airlines do
Not a bad idea - but subject to many of the same issues current Amtrak trains face.
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Conflicts with freight traffic
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Subject to the speed capacity of the track (the line closest to me is only 40mph)
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Inflexible, unless they’re capable of towing a trailer.
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Competition from air and highway
That said, it certainly deserves consideration, even for some current Amtrak services.
Would the line(s) have to be electrified?
The Virgin DMU vehicles are not FRA compliant – they do not meet U.S. safety standards for carbody strength. They would have to be 100% re-engineered, and that would take a lot of money. It’s the Acela problem all over again, was anyone paying attention to that fiasco?
Most railway passenger vehicles in Europe do not meet U.S. safety standards. This does not mean that European railways are unsafe, in fact they are equivalent to U.S. railways when it comes to the risk of injury to passengers: both are extremely low. But European railways and U.S. railways acquire this similar level of safety through entirely different pathways, and one cannot just mix and match equipment and methods however one wants, and still reach the same safety result. To stick a Virgin DMU vehicle into a U.S. environment would be like taking a zebra and putting it into a herd of Angus cattle in Nebraska and expecting it to thrive just like the cow, or taking the Angus cow and putting it into the African savannah and expecting it to thrive.
The market conditions in the U.S. for a passenger-car builder are extremely poor. Amtrak and several commuter agencies spoke at a talk earlier this week precisely to that point, and confirmed that point. The market is too small, too fragmented, and too feast-or-famine in terms of orders to make it viable.
RWM
Yes good idea but, like mentioned above, the FRA is too restrictive to use similar DMU’s. FRA demands them to be too heavy for economic use. There has been some severe hi-speed accidents in Britain where modern types of DME/EME have coped well, older types not so well. But I think the FRA is concerned about a collision with a heavy freight train.
The RDC, aka Budd car was a DMU.
I would not think flexability would be an issue as I find Amtrak not very flexable in the first place.
That might be a good idea. But you must think Amtrak can’t afford to upgrade it’s current equipment, let alone buy new. However if Mr. Obama and Biden decide to restructuer Amtrak Then I think we could realalisticly look at the possability of using some of these D M U sets in regular service. Also like Larry said will the current rails hold up to 125mph. trains? Just some things to think about.
…I believe the very important bit of info in the last several posts is: Amtrak equipment must meet specs. to survive accidents involving much heavier frieght equipment.
All they have to do is get out the old budd plans and update the RDC to be handicap accesible. problem solved. to get anything done in the U.S. unfortunatly take years of study, millions of dollars in “research” and alot of debating.
I don’t think the Budd RDC could even come close to passing the current FRA specs for new equipment.
First line of defense between the Budd and anything hit was the engineer’s knees… that is why we had the Roger Willimas version of the budd car. (or if you were with the CNJ, the Budd Cah)
You heard it here first, people! Zebras are coming to Nebraska!
Before you start putting hi-speed trains or any type of “new” Amtrak trains out there, shouldn’t you start with the standard basement or footings - ie. trackage and crossings? (This is saying that there is even enough $$$ to start messing in this closet)
Sounds to me like it would be putting a high performance race car on a crowded city street. Let’s put our horse behind the cart before we start building the new, hi-speed Amtrak.
Cliche overload! [:P] You did want the horse ahead of the cart, right?
Somewhere someone is hearing hoofbeats and looking for zebras instead of horses.
RWM
The current Amtrak P42s, Amfleet cars, and Viewliners used in the eastern US are capable of doing 90 (and routinely do). The Superliners can go at least 70 (possibly higher) and the Cascades Talgos can probably go 100 or more.
It’s the track that restricts their speed…
And none of the European DMUs/EMUs would meet the current FRA standards. They wouldn’t stand up to a collision with a regular American train. Just look at what happened to the (FRA certified but still relatively light) Metrolink F59 in the Chatsworth, CA, wreck - the UP SD70s just ripped it apart. Think of the consequenses if it had hit a light DMU instead of an EMD F59! In Europe, there’s few freight trains to hit - mostly other light DMU/EMUs or lighter locomotive-hauled trains. Plus, the European rail system is a lot safer; equipped with ATC and other methods to prevent wrecks.
That brings up another question: Once all the rail lines with passenger trains in the US are equipped with ATC (I forget when the deadline is, but it’s just a few years), do you think the FRA would be more willing to allow more lighter trains like the Cascades Talgos and the Acela?
The issue of Amtrak goes way beyond the “fix” in the expansion or improvement of supporting of infrastructure and beyond more efficient equipment. Amtrak as an extension of government was created as a piece of legislation to halt the abandonment of certain rail services as much as Conrail was.
The embiblical cord of a federal passenger railroad system is antithetical politically to a significant, if not overwhelming majority of the political, capitalist population. It’s advantages are spoken of as “taking cars off the roads” which certainly warms the hearts of Detroit automakers. It would have been as if the rapid fall of the interurban industry had spawned a federal entity called Intertrak or in our own time, saved Detroit by supplanting Detroit, and manufactured cars.
In psychology this situation that has gone on for decades is called a "double bind."You have choice A or choice B and neither works.You need to cut the cord psychologically.
Have the railroads operate the service and supplement the deficit as the Highway Trust Fund supports “automakers.”. Period, end of sentence.
Yes, its a shell game, but so is the present arrangement as well. A spoonful of sugar helps the castor oil go down. In a capitalist economy the mixed metaphor of Amtrak is a round peg in a square hole.
Actually it’s the Method of Operation that restricts their speed. Most of the track used by Amtrak in the U.S. at present is either maintained to FRA Class V or is readily capable of Class V. The curves are another matter, of course, but the fundamental problem is that outside of the Northeast Corridor there are almost no lines in the U.S. with a Method of Operation that meets the FRA regulations for 80 mph or faster operation.
The F59 is engineered to identical standards for crashworthiness as any freight locomotive. Many outside of the railroad think that because it is lighter it somehow is less crashworthy. The F59 in the Chatsworth collision was not ripped apart but in fact did quite well.
I would like to see statistics documenting that the European rail system “is a lot safer.”
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That brings up another question: Once all the rail lines with passenger trains in the US are equipped with ATC (I forget when the deadline is, but it’s just a few years), do you think the FRA would be more willing to allow m
If liability was severed, there might be some interest.
RWM
Duh! [:I] Got so excited that I got to post in the real world, forgot to proof.
And I was excited about the zebras!
I agree. That would be a critical assumption for this concept to work.Government, in of itself, uses this “loop hole” very effectively
“I would like to see statistics documenting that the European rail system “is a lot safer.””
I thought international comparison stats would be easy to find, but can’t find any. However, if you compare fatalities per passenger mile the US comes off significantly worse than Britain, and some other European countries are probably better still.
By my calculations (and excluding motorists/trespassers etc.) in the period 1999-2008 accidents to passenger trains resulted in 55 deaths in the USA - (Bourbonnais, Crescent City, Placentia, Glendale, Chicago, Chatsworth), and 59 deaths in the UK (Ladbroke Grove, Hatfield, Selby, Potters Bar, Ufton Nervet, Grayrigg). The US figure is probably higher, as I’ve likely missed some out, but I think the UK figure is correct. According to Wikipedia there were 46.76 billion passenger-kilometres in the UK in 2006, compared to 22.5 billion passenger-km in the USA. By this token, there was one fatality (including traincrew) per 4.09 billion passenger-km in the USA, and one per 7.93 billion passenger-km in the UK. These are obviously very rough and ready figures, but the relationship is clear.
I don’t know the reasons for this, but I would speculate that it may be down to the relative lack of freight trains and grade crossings in the UK, together with better signalling (?).
Keith
A fine response; but I’d like to add a couple fine points.
For Illinois, 110-mph service finally may become a reality in the next couple years. P42’s, Horizon, and Amfleet are all capable of running this fast. Illinois has long stretches of tangent between Chicago and Saint Louis; but trains would need to slow to 90 for the occassional curve. More curves and crossings are encountered between Chicago and south of Joliet, around Macoupin, and between north of Alton and Saint Louis. New tilting trains would allow 90 mph for most of the latter zones and eliminate the speed reduction for the occassional 1-degree curve.
As for stations, there is no denying that stops take time. A six-car train with a P42 can accelerate to 110 and brake to a stop in about five miles. A minute is saved for every 5 miles that can be run at 110 instead of 79. Some savings can be achieved even with relatively frequent intercity stops, such as Kenosha-Racine. A Talgo of similar capacity should do at least as well.
The problem of platform height not matching car floor height is not a serious safety hazard; but even a passenger not in a wheelchair may want crew assistance, and Midwest trains have fewer crew than cars.
Station stop dwell time for boarding and alighting passengers is exacerbated by allocating one or more car for a particular station. Instead, boarding ideally should be distributed evenly to use all available doors. This would be possible with computer-generated car and seat assignments. 200 commuters can board a 6-car Metra in less than a minute; but I’ve caught #304 at Springfield, IL when it took 8 minutes to load 100 passengers. It takes 35 miles at 110 just to make up the difference in boarding time. Streamlining boarding can gain a bigger payback than curve reduction and increasing speed.
At this time, the greater boarding delay problem arises from requirements for checking tickets and photo ID’s before
Method of Operation? I have never heard of this, although I would be interested to hear more. Please elaborate.
I had seen just a couple overhead news photos of the F59 (most I saw were focused on the coaches) so my knowledge of the aftermath is limited. Reading the many threads here about the wreck, I gathered that since the SD70s pushed the Metrolink train from the point of impact, and the crew of the UP train survived while the Metrolink engineer did not, the weight of the locomotives had something to do with it.
In writing that the “European rail system is a lot safer” I had meant that there seems to be a lot less incidents resulting in loss of life or major derailments there. Maybe it’s because many of the US wrecks are freight trains