In my Railway Age mag I noticed that Amtrak is in the early stages of procuring trainsets capable of 220 mph for the NEC. I have been wondering what it would be like to model something like that running at 220 smph on my layout. I don’t think my layout could handle it at this point. Which brought home the notion of what the prototypes do to make changes to make it possible. For example I don’t think 36" radii and #4 turnouts will work. And can you imagine a derail at 220 smph?! Things could get broken.
I hope to be able to run in a reasonably accurate fashion a trainset like that someday, I think it would be fun/challenging.
Yup. And if you insist on running a high speed train, get hold of an old Athearn Hustler. As I recall, they were capable of up to 400 scale miles an hour. To put that in perspective, 400 scale miles/hour in HO scale is 4.6 actual miles/hour (a fast walk).
Had one as a kid. It took at least six cars to slow it down enough to keep from flying off an 18" curve. Even then, the inside wheels would come off the track (shades of “Unstoppable”), which would break electrical contact. When the wheels came down, it would take off (even with 6 cars) like a top fuel dragster.
“Despite billions of dollars in investment, the Acela Express’s fastest operational travel time between New York City and Washington, D.C. was 2 hours and 45 minutes as of 2012, a full 15 minutes slower than the Penn Central Railroad was operating scheduled Metroliner train service on the New York to Washington route in 1969.”
Unless you want to model the TGV through the French Countryside, stick with diesels and steam. Or Athearn Hustlers.
The Truth-O-Meter assessment that the Penn Central Metroliner ran a faster schedule than today’s Acela Express is completely false. The real truth is in the details of the schedule… shame on the writer of that Wikipedia article for propagating an bias agenda.
It is true that one Metroliner round trip did make the New York to Washington trip a full 15-minutes faster than the current fastest Acela schedule. The Metroliner’s fastest running time was indeed 2 hours 30 minutes BUT it did so with either none or one intermediate stop at Baltimore. Acela’s fastest trip is 2 hours 45 minutes with five intermediate stops (Newark plus Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, and either Metropark or BWI Airport).
In reality, the Acela is faster than Penn Central Metroliner: The other Metroliner departures made five intermediate stops at Newark, Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore for a total trip time of 2 hours 59 minutes. This schedule is 14 minutes longer than Acela’s current fastest schedule of 2 hours 45 minutes making the same number of intermediate st
It is my hope that Amtrak actually procures the trainsets and runs at 220mph in the NEC. BTW, we do run an Acela every now and then, but the Bachmann just can’t make the smph it should. I think we need something that is competitive(globally) high speed rail as a country. What China has been doing with their’s is incredible.
I really want Amtrak to be wildly successful, not just exist.
Hope you get your wish, Richard. In the meantime, I guess I’ll enjoy life in the early 40s…and in the “slow” lane. Ahhhhhhh…Steam and early diesel. [:P]
It’s not just the trains. The real problem in the NEC is the track. New trains would be subject to the same speed limits as the current ones, which are dictated by track conditions and some old bridges. Besides that, the stations are too close together to really take advantage of opening up the throttle.