Here’s a lousy article about locomotives for Chicago - St.L.
Totally whiffed on trying to tell the technical side of the story at all - Nose suspended traction motors vs. frame mounted and the effect on track maintenance costs. The challenge for “EMD” will be telling that story to those w/o a technical background.
But the story isn’t aimed at railfans or railroaders. It is aimed at investors and stockholders. The mechanics of the problem mean nothing. Chance ofl losing or making money is what matters to the readers…
You seem to disparage the notion that a business should earn a profit.
Amtrak is a commercial enterprise that competes with commercial airlines and commercial bus companies for passengers.
Profit motivated businesses create the wealth base from which taxes to support government activities are drawn. If profits are eliminated, who do you think would pay the taxes that governments use to amongst other things under write Amtrak?
I don’t disparage a business making a profit…My point was that the article did not have minutia and get bogged down in mechanics and details because the readers of the publication are money men, number crunchers, more interested in the financial details and fears than the nuts and bolts. God! Where do you get the idea I am opposed to business and profits!!!
You constantly talk about business people being overly focused on the bottom line. It is often times subtle but that is the message I get. Sorry if I got the wrong message.
Yes, I suppose I do. But that’s because I feel too often the bottom line takes precidence over quality, quantity, integrity and safety. Investors often look for 80% of $100 return rather than 50% or 60% of $200. This cheapens and maybe even makes unsafe a product or service, will cause low morale which causes more problems and loss of quality and quantity of a product or service, and, for greed and expediency the investor gets $80 instead of $100 or $120 profit. This continues until the product is useless or is so poor it loses market share or has to be abandoned entirely. They actually shoot themselves in the foot by being so greedy and short sighted. They care not of the product or service but only profit to be made. Once the profit is not there, as caused by thier actions, they close shop and move on, often leaving customers in the lerch. Aside from all that, I belived transportation has to be an investment in all business and economies in that it helps move people and goods and creates economies. There are times when this can be private enterprise and other times government enterprise for the good of private interests. I you stop maintaing a highway or airport or railroad, the ability to move people and goods diminishes until the manufactureing or whatever moves to where there is transportation services which are maintained to usable levels.
The article is about the politics of Amtrak and whether it will buy locomotives from GE or whether Siemens and Caterpillar will get the contract.
The whole story is pitched as “It is worth it to pay more for a locomotive that can go faster?”
That’s not the point, here.
What doesn’t get explained is there is a trade off on initial cost vs. on going track maintenance for the “110 mph” vs “125 mph” designs. This is briefly alluded to but never explained. In fact, it appears that many of the key decision makers in the story don’t seem to know or understand - making statements like “we don’t need a 125 mph locomotive”.
No, they don’t need a 125 mph locomotive and they don’t need the cheapest locomotive they can buy, either. They need the locomotive that provides the best overall value.
Exactly, Oltmannd. We, as fanatics, would love the nuts and bolts. Professional railroaders at all levels either need to know the nuts and bolts or already know. But investors only want to know whether or not they will make money. This article is to get the latter to pay attention and think in their terms and portfolios. The smarter, more long term investor, I am sure would look further into the mechanics. The short term investor, or one only interested on the return on investment will bail out or not go there.
Investors want to know whether they can money. Only a fool invests to lose money. But they also need to know what supports an investment, i.e. product line, service line, organization, management, etc.
Warren Buffett is arguably the most successful investor in the United States. He got there by having a reasonable understanding of the business and its key products. He looks, as do most investors, whether the company has a sustainable competitive advantage. Successful investors; that includes me, only invest in companies that they have good knowledge of. That includes what they make. If they don’t understand the engineering, they consult engineers who do. Unsuccessful investors just want to know whether they can make some short term profit. More often than not they lose.
Right, Sam…but not all investsors are as smart nor thinking long term as Buffet or you. We have too many looking for doubling their money in as short a time as possible and don’t want to wait for the technology to kick in or a project to be finished. Our gas price situation is a good example. A thunderstorm in the Gulf Mexico or a tanker in need of repair in the Red Sea can increase the price of a barrel of oil because the speculators or investors (I prefer “gamblers”) want to create a fear of shortage and drive the costs up. Other investors will eliminate products, services, or operations to gain a penny. We are at their mercy. Long term investing in products, services, people, and the future of the company and our country is what grew this country and made it strong. Instant investors have brought us down. Compare the Warren Buffetts and Sam1 investors with the broader picture, or at least the picture we are presented with, of invstors. We don’t find capitalists and manufacturing moguls but just a group of quick buckers who care not for anything but increasing their pot at the expense of the rest of the investment and business community and the Country.
There are things said on this forum that are deemed “off topic” by our esteemed moderators. The behavior of commodity speculators seeking a quick buck from gasoline prices may be one such topic.
Or is it? The price of oil and how financial markets set the price of oil has immediate and direct effect on all modes of transportation and especially railroad passenger trains. Certain misconceptions regarding the purpose and functioning of financial markets along with the participants in those markets beg for a response.
What does having a trading-exchange market for oil “do”? Does it make the turbine blades in a jet engine spin? Does trading speculation make the pistons in a Diesel engine reciprocate. Why, in fact, such markets and such trading very much does such things.
Many large users of petroleum fuels conduct “hedge” transactions on financial markets to effectively “lock in” stable prices. That Southwest Airlines has done OK financially in recent years is attributed to doing just that, of conducting financial transactions to stabilize the price of their jet fuel. So in trying to smooth the price of fuel, Southwest is engaged in “anti-speculation.” Instead of trying to make a quick buck off swings in the price of oil, they are trying to avoid seeing their bucks head skyward on swings in the price of oil.
For every buyer in a market there needs to be a seller. For every "sensible,
Again I reiterate: my remarks were to the point of the intial post…but Paul, you make another point. which you seem to contradict in your closing argument concerning petroleum commodities market affecting Amtrak. Yes, Amtrak, BNSF, NS, and Southwest and major trucking companies all have long term price fixed (adjusted?) contracts for gas. But I don’t and nor does most of us. So a change in gas price at the pump will mean taking the train to work instead of driving, not goint on a day trip or vacation trip or having to choose Amtrak or Southwest. Even choosing how to send a book or LP or whatever to a friend has a price predicated on the cost of fuel. The gambling on the point of the commodities market which is emotional and knee jerking rather than studied and understood for the long term causes the volitility of the cost of fuel at the pump and in the decsion process of getting to work or taking a day off to sightsee or visit.
Here.
"The Diesel locomotives used on passenger trains in the United States are slightly modified versions of the same locomotives used for freight service. Some freight trains such as Intermodal trains bringing container loads of imported goods to your local stores, those trains run at speeds approaching those of conventional passenger trains, but freight trains generally run slower than passenger trains.
Europe, England, East Asia, and other parts of the world run passenger trains at higher speeds than currently used in the U.S. We in the U.S. would like to run passenger trains faster for the obvious benefits of faster train travel. To reduce the pounding that wears out the track, the locomotives on those faster passenger trains have less weight on each of the wheels – U.S. freight locomotives place a lot of weight on each of the wheels to get good traction to pull heavy freight trains, but passenger trains are much lighter in weight.
These other parts of the world use a different arrangement for the electric motor driving the wheels, either in a straight electric getting power from an overhead wire or third rail or in a Diesel locomotive where an onboard Diesel-generator supplies electric power. There, the electric motor powers the wheels through a flexible drive train, much like the frontwheel drive mechanism on your automobile that employs “half shafts” and “CV joints”, items that you otherwise don’t pay much attention to until your car is high mileage and these components need repair.
This flexible drive train has a number of different names (quill drive, Cardan-shaft drive). The conventional “nose-suspended” electric motor used in U.S. locomotives, rests part of the weight of the electric motor directly on the wheels
Yes, I hate the high and variable price of gas and fuel as much as the next guy.
If you think the trading on commodities market by the major market makers, both by buyers and sellers, is “emotional and knee jerking”, I think you have a serious misunderstanding of how financial markets work, who trades in them, and how they make decisions.
I do believe petroleum is a most emotionally impacted commodity which this market affects the price more than the value of the product. Price increases for a gallon of gas that will clean my engine or give me significantly more gas mileage or some kind of improvement in the product or its performance is real. Commodities gambling only serves the commodities broker and the market and not the public and hardly the proccessor. That’s what bothers me about the market. The price is dependent on an individuals fear or perception rather than actual cost of the product.
As for “Is this “inside baseball”? Is this too complicated for investors or even the public to understand?” It might be either. One of the delicate skillls of a journalist is to determine who is going to read his article, so how detailed does it have to be? Technically detailed in Progressive Railroading, mixed in Trains Magazine, and more investor or financially oriented in Wall Street Journal or investment business publications. It is knowing how much to put in to explain what the reader/audience wants to or has to know or be inticed to seek more information…
Probably. I was thinking of something like:
"The difference is in how the electric motors that drive the wheels are installed in the locomotive. The 110 mph design has the motors mounted directly on the axles, like a locomotive on a freight train, which can cause a lot of damage to the track at high speeds. The 125 mph design has the motor spring-mounted in in a way that greatly reduces damage to the track, like a European high speed train.
The spring-mounted design is more expensive to build but can save money on track maintenance."
That would have been enough. Instead, the article got all tangled up in running times for 125 vs. 110 mph service - which is a “red herring”.
Don,
My take on the article was that it was a 100% political article. Basic premise is GE has produced 110 MPH locos. The Illinois track is 110 MPH. Cat (EMD) has a design for a 125 MPH loco. Should the committee recommend/require 125 MPH loco “standard” if we have only 110 MPH track?
The reason one might want a 125 MPH loco, even to run on 110 MPH track, lower track maintenance cost was completely ignored to concentrate on which politicians were lining up behind which design, that is to say behind GE or Cat which seems to come down to where the plants that would build it are, that is, which pol could pound his chest to claim credit for the jobs.
To me this reinforces the notion that ATK is a jobs program not a transportation provider.
Mac
They’re not even good at that. I think they are a “subsidy begging” company.
Wow did I let the article mislead myself. several points for us to ponder for the 125 MPH units.
Probably AC traction motors to reduce motor weight.
showing a definite reduction of track wear would extend times between track surfacing which would cause passenger trains to go slow thru the surfacing area until the tonnage requirement is met.
UP will probably have a final limit of 110 MPH.
What could happen is that the Michigan / AMTRAK owned row from Detriot might allow 125 between grade crossings if track geometry will allow. Sort of like ACCELA now. Either subtrack that few minutes from schedule time or use it to make up any delays when needed?
These units would be a great help whenever there is a CAT failure on the NEC and diesel locos need to be substituted. NEC fluidity is very important. As an aside the maintenance of ROW on NEC would be reduced.
THIS brings up a question. What kind of motor set ups are on ACCELA, HHP-8s, AEM-7s.??