Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub
QUOTE: Needless to say, this is a serious financial blow for Amtrak. It also highlights the total absurdity of the Bush administration's idea that other private businesses would be glad to jump in and run Amtrak train operations at a lower cost. Who in their right mind would take this kind of risk?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo Possum "We have met the anemone... and he is Russ." Bucky Katt "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in physics
Originally posted by oltmannd Originally posted by donclark [ Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply oltmannd Member sinceJanuary 2001 From: Atlanta 11,971 posts Posted by oltmannd on Wednesday, April 20, 2005 8:22 AM QUOTE: Originally posted by donclark Why? I want to know why brake pads are failing? Haven't we been making brake pads and steel wheel trucks for years? Why are they failing? Who designed this mess? That person should be hung! They are disc brakes. I don't have a problem with the cracks even though high speed disc braking is nothing new - problems occur. For example, the AAR switcher truck is just terrible with cracks - and it's a really old design that still gives decent service today. GG1 truck frames were crack prone as well. You just have to stay on top of the problem. The question I have is how did there get to be 300+ cracked brake rotors out of 1400 before the first one was discovered? Can't really fault Bombardier on having only 80 spares in stock. That should have been plenty under normal conditions. This problem is similar to Ford having to replace all those Firestone tires, only on a smaller scale. I'll guess the fix will be to replace all the cracked ones in kind until all have been changed out. This should give Amtrak and Bombardier a couple of years to do the failure analysis, redesign and testing. Then when the second batch start cracking in a couple of years, the new design will be ready. -Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/) Reply spbed Member sinceDecember 2001 From: Austin TX 4,941 posts Posted by spbed on Wednesday, April 20, 2005 6:14 AM It appears no Acela for some time because they need new brakes & the supplier of the brakes does not have any to give A/trak Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply Modelcar Member sinceFebruary 2002 From: Muncie, Indiana...Orig. from Pennsylvania 13,456 posts Posted by Modelcar on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 10:11 PM ....Surely these brakes in quesion are disk brakes....right....?? Quentin Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 6:43 PM Why? I want to know why brake pads are failing? Haven't we been making brake pads and steel wheel trucks for years? Why are they failing? Who designed this mess? That person should be hung! Reply Edit espeefoamer Member sinceNovember 2003 From: West Coast 4,122 posts Posted by espeefoamer on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 4:47 PM According to the Trains newswire, there is one ACELA trainset operating today. Ride Amtrak. Cats Rule, Dogs Drool. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 2:50 PM It's funny, one of the test trains from ABB was also on tour of Washington Union Station in the mid 90's when they were doing test runs. I did not make it out to see that one. If only they had bought some of those then they wouldn't be in this particular problem now. IMHO Reply Edit oltmannd Member sinceJanuary 2001 From: Atlanta 11,971 posts Posted by oltmannd on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 12:20 PM Paul hit on the key problem with Acela - it was designed to a performance std. rather than try to maximize return on investment. The legislation that authorized the mone for Acela and the NEC upgrade on the north end set the running time from NY to Boston. The Acela trains were then designed to meet the std - lots of HP, tilt, etc. Not that there's anything wrong with HP and tilt, it's just what did we get for what we spent and could we have gotten a lot more with only a small drop in performance. Amtrak went along with all of this. Why? Because it was during the Downs/Warrington years and I don't think either of them really had the proper RR background or political savy to do otherwise. Fixing this problem will take time. Sounds like its the assembly that holds the brake discs that has cracks. I'll bet it's pressed on the axles before the wheels and bearings, so once the root cause of the problem is found and a new design is developed and tested, all the wheel/axle assemblies will have to be changed out. Ugh! They might be able to grind out and weld up the cracks in place and then run slower to reduce braking effort and heat, just to get the seats back in service, but even this will take some to figure out. As for those wonderful AEM7s - they are nearly 100% Swedish in design, a copy of the ASEA Rc4, one of which ran up and down the NEC for a year on test. EMD's only contribution to the design was modifiying the frame and carbody to US standards. The guts were all Swedish. (perhaps some airbrake and cab design work, too) ASEA later merged with Brown Boveri (German) to become ABB. There is no EMD affiliation. -Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/) Reply spbed Member sinceDecember 2001 From: Austin TX 4,941 posts Posted by spbed on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 6:15 AM Today's newspapers says A/trak WILL NOT run the 1 train they ran yesterday until further notice Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply daveklepper Member sinceJune 2002 20,049 posts Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 1:44 AM Essentially, I agree, The NSta-SSta connector should have been built with the Big Dig. Metro North's curvey right-of-way should have been straightened at the time parallel I-95 was constructed, as part of the same project. A high-speed line circumventing New York and its suburbs would probably use the Maybrook line because the area around it has not been built up much and alignment improvements are possible. On the Maybrook side, I don't know which route to use, but there are several possibilities. The West Shore is out, probably too congrested, both with existing freight traffic and with built up areas around it. But there are the old Lehigh and New England and Lehigh and Hudson River routes, going to the CNJ-Reading route rejopining the corridor at North Phila. If engineered as as a new high-speed line it would more than make up in speed what it looses in greater mileage. There may be better possibillies and some may not used the existing bridge or its location. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Monday, April 18, 2005 11:49 PM Davekelpper, Good points but every thing I've read on those AEM-7 s is that they follow a Swedish design. They can be built anywhere as long as the builder can follow plans. My point was that the Acela project was designed and built in the US by groups that had no experience designing the types of systems used. They had to learn everything. It became a porkbarrel project. They could have taken a design proven somewhere else at their expence off the shelf and plugged it in to fitt the bill. They could have designed two new designs in the time it has taken to fix this flawed one. They esentially have. One that works and one that didn't. They just have been built on the same frame. If new systems have "teething periods" why not chose a design that has aready made it though that on someone elses dime. (I have a 5 month old that was up at 3 last night. I know all about teething periods.) I have a hard time understanding your Poughkeespie Bridge point. Last I looked that was far north of the city and goes over the Hudson River leading to the west bank. Now the train is in the Catskills how will it get to NYC from there? Do you advocate avoiding NYC suburbs at the expence of not stopping there at all? I do believe about half the people on the train have that as their destination or starting point. The rest of this post is a rant that makes little sence. Read on if you want. It is ironic that the reason that the trains are so popular in this NEC area over others is the same reason they are so slow. Population density. You actually (gasp) do not need a car if you live in these areas.The people lived here before the trains came, unlike some areas out west. It is also ironic that in the recent period that they were knocking old buildings down with abandon, the 1960's, the railroads were not doing so hot. For examples of this look at New Haven. Where are the old buildings. They ran out of money to build the new buildings after they knocked the old ones down. Good thing people who could at this time were moving to the suburbs. They cities were trying to become like the suburbs. The interstate highways were being built at this time under the ruse of being for military use because the government can't build roads like this. I can't remember the last time I saw a military convoy that needed 8 lanes across. These roads were built parallel to the rail routes and claimed though eminent domain laws the highway ROW. The railroads can't do this now for various reasons (cost, politics, disruption). Reply Edit METRO Member sinceOctober 2003 From: Milwaukee & Toronto 929 posts Posted by METRO on Monday, April 18, 2005 10:47 PM You know Paul brings up an interesting point, the Canadians really do seem to know their stuff (GO Transit need I say more) but when Bombardier (a Canadian frim) had to start from scratch (with a very very few TGV ideas) they really had thier work cut out for them. Most new systems have teething problems, TGV, ICE and the Shinkansen all had theirs, it's really not a big deal. The Acela will be back, sooner than we think I'd bet. Also if trends are to be followed, the second generation of the Acela will have ironed out many of the problems of the first and truly be a mature system. ~METRO Reply RudyRockvilleMD Member sinceSeptember 2001 From: US 1,015 posts Posted by RudyRockvilleMD on Monday, April 18, 2005 9:29 PM According to the Fox 5 Ten PM News, Monday April 19, Amtrak has pulled ALL Acela Express Train Service until the cause(s) of the cracks in the brakes can be found. Reply daveklepper Member sinceJune 2002 20,049 posts Posted by daveklepper on Monday, April 18, 2005 2:26 PM 1. Almost all AEM-7's were built in the USA by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors. The design belongs to the Swedish affiliate of General Motors, which like EMD is also in the railroad business. EMD, as you know, is know a separate company. I do not know if the Swedish Company is still affiliated either with GM or EMD. 2. Doing any curve straightening on the Corridor would cost Billions, because almost the entire line runs through built-up areas where there are important buildings, important to the economies of the areas, that prevent curve realignment. 3. The worst section from a speed stanpoint is that operated by Metro North between New Rochelle and New Haven. Track centers are closer than usual, preventing tilting performance of Acela trainsets on curves. Curves and many interlockings give major speed restrictions. 4. My hope is that Amtrak will get decent funding, like two billion a year, so things can be put into shape throughout the system. For the future, I hope that the New England States get together to insist on funding with Federal participation for: a. North Station - South Station rail connector b. A new high speed freight and passenger electrified railway, possibly using the Poughkeespie River Bridge, that bypasses New York City suburban congestion, between New Haven or Milford and Trenton or North Philadelphia, so a decent competition to airlines can be given between Boston and Washington. This can give NS direct access to New England. At the present time only CP gives CSX any real competition there. Reply Paul Milenkovic Member sinceJuly 2004 2,741 posts Posted by Paul Milenkovic on Monday, April 18, 2005 1:04 PM I guess that answers the "man on the Moon" question. NASA has a little problem with cracks in the foam on the tank, and they are grounded for two years. Amtrak has a problem and they are back (with a trial run) after two days. If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks? Reply spbed Member sinceDecember 2001 From: Austin TX 4,941 posts Posted by spbed on Monday, April 18, 2005 6:21 AM The news is reporting that 1 Acela will be running today making 1 R/T Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply Paul Milenkovic Member sinceJuly 2004 2,741 posts Posted by Paul Milenkovic on Sunday, April 17, 2005 8:32 PM The Acela indeed uses the same engineering talent that put a man on the Moon -- Canadian! The story goes that the Canadians were building a high Mach-number interceptor called the Avro Arrow, they pulled the plug on that project, and the engineers all went South of the Border to design the Apollo Command module. The problem is in fact that the Acela is approached just like landing a man on the Moon -- an expensive, custom, one-of design, and if it breaks, you radio instructions on how to rig the air purifier with duct tape, and one of the astronauts lands with a urinary infection (I am told nothing can make you sicker than one of those) because he thought he had to hold it to conserve power on the urinal heater to make it back instead of burn up on reentry (lets compare Apollo 13 with the worst Amtrak travel horror story). Rail transportation is not suceeding, but is space transportation in such great shape (all of the travails with Shuttle)? Before we get into conspiracy theories for either of those modes of transportation, lets look at fundamentals. What does the Acela really do that the Metroliners (years since they were MU cars, and the original MU cars were car-barn queens) cannot do? I guess a Metroliner (AEM-7 pulling Amfleet cars) takes 3 hours and the Acela (pair of Alsthom power cars pulling/pushing reworked LRC cars) takes 2 hours 45 minutes. Funny thing, both trains have in excess of 100 MPH running, but you are talking about 70 MPH vs 78 MPH average speed. Instead of getting the Acela trains sets, could Amtrak have looked at the causes of slow running and spent the money on that, or are the approach routes to NY, Philly, etc so restricted by route decisions made two centuries ago that you can't get those trains to run a little quicker over the slow sections? Part of the cachet of Acela is the interiors wired for laptop computers -- could they have run some Amfleet cars through Beech Grove to do the same thing? The story is that for the original Northeast Corridor "demonstration", the DOT tested a set of up-geared Budd Silverliner MU cars and set a speed record of 160 MPH with them, but when the Metroliner MU's were built, they came up with a new design that needed much more horsepower because they wanted it to accelerate quicker, and the HP added weight which need yet more HP, and they came up with these heavy, rough riding MU cars which kept breaking down from electrical problems -- they were never fixed, instead, the AEM-7 electric locomotive saved the say. If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks? Reply spbed Member sinceDecember 2001 From: Austin TX 4,941 posts Posted by spbed on Sunday, April 17, 2005 8:24 AM That is a great question you can that also why we cannot engineer ourselves into self sufficency on oil. QUOTE: Originally posted by Modelcar ...Where are the engineering capibilities like those who put men on the moon when applied to enineering new products for land based transportation...Surely we can do better. But then there seem to be too many around who really don't want rail transportation to succeed in this country. Why....That's a mystery to me and has been for years. Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply Modelcar Member sinceFebruary 2002 From: Muncie, Indiana...Orig. from Pennsylvania 13,456 posts Posted by Modelcar on Sunday, April 17, 2005 8:21 AM ...Where are the engineering capibilities like those who put men on the moon when applied to engineering new products for land based transportation...Surely we can do better. But then there seem to be too many around who really don't want rail transportation to succeed in this country. Why....That's a mystery to me and has been for years. Quentin Reply spbed Member sinceDecember 2001 From: Austin TX 4,941 posts Posted by spbed on Sunday, April 17, 2005 7:40 AM CNN says no service until at least Wednesday Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, April 17, 2005 1:05 AM Hmph. Would you rather have Amcrack run the acelas anyways while they tried to crack the problems of fixing small issues in the brakes? Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, April 16, 2005 10:49 PM If I remember correctly Amtrak brought over 3 or 4 different exisiting high-speed train sets from europe a few years ago when they were gearing up to start the service in the US. They made a big show of it. I went to see one when it came to DC Union Station. One car was set up to tilt and you could walk through the rest of the train. I think it was one of the German ICE trains. In Japan they have had this type of train since the 1960's and europe since the 70's. The powers that be are so bass ackwards they decided that it would be a good idea to reject all of these proven designs and start from scratch. So they started from the begining and built all new unproven designs. Then while they wasted time doing this they upgraded and wired much of the track in the NEC. When the new train set was done and ready to test at the test ground in Colorado. They found all kinds of problems like uneven wheel wear. Each time they found a problem they slapped a redesign bandage or a restriction on it. These trains were flawed from the begining. Amtrak was just being forced to build it here for job and political reasons although the trains these high speed ones would replace were headed by the most powerful engines owned by Amtrak, those slabsided Swedi***oasters. Those weren't made or designed in the US. So there is a precident for going outside and in this case they should have. It would have saved money, time and greif. After many restrictions and too much time passed at the Colorado test grounds and in rebuild / redesigns they finally brought the trains to the NEC to test. They found that the tilt mechanisim made the cars overhang onto parallel tracks. So unless they wanted to temp fate the trains most high tech expensive feature is moot. Now it is just extra weight keeping the car on the track and much money lost. OOPS. Come on, was nobody thinking about this. Good thing this isn't rocket science. There is only on section in Rhode Island where the train can reach full speed anyway. There were trains in the steam era that were able to keep close shedule to this service and that was over 50 years ago. This whole thing is sad and it is just another excuse to pull the plug on Amtrak. In California we have close to $3.00 gas now. It will be $5 and then $10 soon. Train travel is looking better and better. Too bad it will all be gone when we all break down and want to use it again. It is probably easier to keep track of the citizens if they stay in one place anyhow. After September 11 all the jet planes were forbidden to fly and one of the open alternatives was the train. If (or I maybe should say when) this type of thing happens again it may be that one more option is closed. Amtrak was set up to fail in this venture and it is really a crime. The timing could not have been better planned. The supposed flagship and savior of american rail travel is shown to have serious flaws at a time when they are questioning continuing the service. This area the train travels in is the most profitable one for passenger service. It is the only area that people travel on it with a fequency like that of the "good old days". This one area of strength was promised a silver bullet and given a mylar band-aid. Reply Edit spbed Member sinceDecember 2001 From: Austin TX 4,941 posts Posted by spbed on Saturday, April 16, 2005 8:09 AM The papers this AM said the cracks are a millimeter long Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, April 16, 2005 7:15 AM According to the AP news story today, the cracks are in the steel spokes of the disc brake rotors. Repair time could be weeks to as long as a couple of months. Reply Edit 12 Join our Community! Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account. Login » Register » Search the Community Newsletter Sign-Up By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our privacy policy More great sites from Kalmbach Media Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy
Originally posted by donclark [ Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply oltmannd Member sinceJanuary 2001 From: Atlanta 11,971 posts Posted by oltmannd on Wednesday, April 20, 2005 8:22 AM QUOTE: Originally posted by donclark Why? I want to know why brake pads are failing? Haven't we been making brake pads and steel wheel trucks for years? Why are they failing? Who designed this mess? That person should be hung! They are disc brakes. I don't have a problem with the cracks even though high speed disc braking is nothing new - problems occur. For example, the AAR switcher truck is just terrible with cracks - and it's a really old design that still gives decent service today. GG1 truck frames were crack prone as well. You just have to stay on top of the problem. The question I have is how did there get to be 300+ cracked brake rotors out of 1400 before the first one was discovered? Can't really fault Bombardier on having only 80 spares in stock. That should have been plenty under normal conditions. This problem is similar to Ford having to replace all those Firestone tires, only on a smaller scale. I'll guess the fix will be to replace all the cracked ones in kind until all have been changed out. This should give Amtrak and Bombardier a couple of years to do the failure analysis, redesign and testing. Then when the second batch start cracking in a couple of years, the new design will be ready. -Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/) Reply spbed Member sinceDecember 2001 From: Austin TX 4,941 posts Posted by spbed on Wednesday, April 20, 2005 6:14 AM It appears no Acela for some time because they need new brakes & the supplier of the brakes does not have any to give A/trak Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply Modelcar Member sinceFebruary 2002 From: Muncie, Indiana...Orig. from Pennsylvania 13,456 posts Posted by Modelcar on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 10:11 PM ....Surely these brakes in quesion are disk brakes....right....?? Quentin Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 6:43 PM Why? I want to know why brake pads are failing? Haven't we been making brake pads and steel wheel trucks for years? Why are they failing? Who designed this mess? That person should be hung! Reply Edit espeefoamer Member sinceNovember 2003 From: West Coast 4,122 posts Posted by espeefoamer on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 4:47 PM According to the Trains newswire, there is one ACELA trainset operating today. Ride Amtrak. Cats Rule, Dogs Drool. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 2:50 PM It's funny, one of the test trains from ABB was also on tour of Washington Union Station in the mid 90's when they were doing test runs. I did not make it out to see that one. If only they had bought some of those then they wouldn't be in this particular problem now. IMHO Reply Edit oltmannd Member sinceJanuary 2001 From: Atlanta 11,971 posts Posted by oltmannd on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 12:20 PM Paul hit on the key problem with Acela - it was designed to a performance std. rather than try to maximize return on investment. The legislation that authorized the mone for Acela and the NEC upgrade on the north end set the running time from NY to Boston. The Acela trains were then designed to meet the std - lots of HP, tilt, etc. Not that there's anything wrong with HP and tilt, it's just what did we get for what we spent and could we have gotten a lot more with only a small drop in performance. Amtrak went along with all of this. Why? Because it was during the Downs/Warrington years and I don't think either of them really had the proper RR background or political savy to do otherwise. Fixing this problem will take time. Sounds like its the assembly that holds the brake discs that has cracks. I'll bet it's pressed on the axles before the wheels and bearings, so once the root cause of the problem is found and a new design is developed and tested, all the wheel/axle assemblies will have to be changed out. Ugh! They might be able to grind out and weld up the cracks in place and then run slower to reduce braking effort and heat, just to get the seats back in service, but even this will take some to figure out. As for those wonderful AEM7s - they are nearly 100% Swedish in design, a copy of the ASEA Rc4, one of which ran up and down the NEC for a year on test. EMD's only contribution to the design was modifiying the frame and carbody to US standards. The guts were all Swedish. (perhaps some airbrake and cab design work, too) ASEA later merged with Brown Boveri (German) to become ABB. There is no EMD affiliation. -Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/) Reply spbed Member sinceDecember 2001 From: Austin TX 4,941 posts Posted by spbed on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 6:15 AM Today's newspapers says A/trak WILL NOT run the 1 train they ran yesterday until further notice Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply daveklepper Member sinceJune 2002 20,049 posts Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 1:44 AM Essentially, I agree, The NSta-SSta connector should have been built with the Big Dig. Metro North's curvey right-of-way should have been straightened at the time parallel I-95 was constructed, as part of the same project. A high-speed line circumventing New York and its suburbs would probably use the Maybrook line because the area around it has not been built up much and alignment improvements are possible. On the Maybrook side, I don't know which route to use, but there are several possibilities. The West Shore is out, probably too congrested, both with existing freight traffic and with built up areas around it. But there are the old Lehigh and New England and Lehigh and Hudson River routes, going to the CNJ-Reading route rejopining the corridor at North Phila. If engineered as as a new high-speed line it would more than make up in speed what it looses in greater mileage. There may be better possibillies and some may not used the existing bridge or its location. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Monday, April 18, 2005 11:49 PM Davekelpper, Good points but every thing I've read on those AEM-7 s is that they follow a Swedish design. They can be built anywhere as long as the builder can follow plans. My point was that the Acela project was designed and built in the US by groups that had no experience designing the types of systems used. They had to learn everything. It became a porkbarrel project. They could have taken a design proven somewhere else at their expence off the shelf and plugged it in to fitt the bill. They could have designed two new designs in the time it has taken to fix this flawed one. They esentially have. One that works and one that didn't. They just have been built on the same frame. If new systems have "teething periods" why not chose a design that has aready made it though that on someone elses dime. (I have a 5 month old that was up at 3 last night. I know all about teething periods.) I have a hard time understanding your Poughkeespie Bridge point. Last I looked that was far north of the city and goes over the Hudson River leading to the west bank. Now the train is in the Catskills how will it get to NYC from there? Do you advocate avoiding NYC suburbs at the expence of not stopping there at all? I do believe about half the people on the train have that as their destination or starting point. The rest of this post is a rant that makes little sence. Read on if you want. It is ironic that the reason that the trains are so popular in this NEC area over others is the same reason they are so slow. Population density. You actually (gasp) do not need a car if you live in these areas.The people lived here before the trains came, unlike some areas out west. It is also ironic that in the recent period that they were knocking old buildings down with abandon, the 1960's, the railroads were not doing so hot. For examples of this look at New Haven. Where are the old buildings. They ran out of money to build the new buildings after they knocked the old ones down. Good thing people who could at this time were moving to the suburbs. They cities were trying to become like the suburbs. The interstate highways were being built at this time under the ruse of being for military use because the government can't build roads like this. I can't remember the last time I saw a military convoy that needed 8 lanes across. These roads were built parallel to the rail routes and claimed though eminent domain laws the highway ROW. The railroads can't do this now for various reasons (cost, politics, disruption). Reply Edit METRO Member sinceOctober 2003 From: Milwaukee & Toronto 929 posts Posted by METRO on Monday, April 18, 2005 10:47 PM You know Paul brings up an interesting point, the Canadians really do seem to know their stuff (GO Transit need I say more) but when Bombardier (a Canadian frim) had to start from scratch (with a very very few TGV ideas) they really had thier work cut out for them. Most new systems have teething problems, TGV, ICE and the Shinkansen all had theirs, it's really not a big deal. The Acela will be back, sooner than we think I'd bet. Also if trends are to be followed, the second generation of the Acela will have ironed out many of the problems of the first and truly be a mature system. ~METRO Reply RudyRockvilleMD Member sinceSeptember 2001 From: US 1,015 posts Posted by RudyRockvilleMD on Monday, April 18, 2005 9:29 PM According to the Fox 5 Ten PM News, Monday April 19, Amtrak has pulled ALL Acela Express Train Service until the cause(s) of the cracks in the brakes can be found. Reply daveklepper Member sinceJune 2002 20,049 posts Posted by daveklepper on Monday, April 18, 2005 2:26 PM 1. Almost all AEM-7's were built in the USA by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors. The design belongs to the Swedish affiliate of General Motors, which like EMD is also in the railroad business. EMD, as you know, is know a separate company. I do not know if the Swedish Company is still affiliated either with GM or EMD. 2. Doing any curve straightening on the Corridor would cost Billions, because almost the entire line runs through built-up areas where there are important buildings, important to the economies of the areas, that prevent curve realignment. 3. The worst section from a speed stanpoint is that operated by Metro North between New Rochelle and New Haven. Track centers are closer than usual, preventing tilting performance of Acela trainsets on curves. Curves and many interlockings give major speed restrictions. 4. My hope is that Amtrak will get decent funding, like two billion a year, so things can be put into shape throughout the system. For the future, I hope that the New England States get together to insist on funding with Federal participation for: a. North Station - South Station rail connector b. A new high speed freight and passenger electrified railway, possibly using the Poughkeespie River Bridge, that bypasses New York City suburban congestion, between New Haven or Milford and Trenton or North Philadelphia, so a decent competition to airlines can be given between Boston and Washington. This can give NS direct access to New England. At the present time only CP gives CSX any real competition there. Reply Paul Milenkovic Member sinceJuly 2004 2,741 posts Posted by Paul Milenkovic on Monday, April 18, 2005 1:04 PM I guess that answers the "man on the Moon" question. NASA has a little problem with cracks in the foam on the tank, and they are grounded for two years. Amtrak has a problem and they are back (with a trial run) after two days. If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks? Reply spbed Member sinceDecember 2001 From: Austin TX 4,941 posts Posted by spbed on Monday, April 18, 2005 6:21 AM The news is reporting that 1 Acela will be running today making 1 R/T Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply Paul Milenkovic Member sinceJuly 2004 2,741 posts Posted by Paul Milenkovic on Sunday, April 17, 2005 8:32 PM The Acela indeed uses the same engineering talent that put a man on the Moon -- Canadian! The story goes that the Canadians were building a high Mach-number interceptor called the Avro Arrow, they pulled the plug on that project, and the engineers all went South of the Border to design the Apollo Command module. The problem is in fact that the Acela is approached just like landing a man on the Moon -- an expensive, custom, one-of design, and if it breaks, you radio instructions on how to rig the air purifier with duct tape, and one of the astronauts lands with a urinary infection (I am told nothing can make you sicker than one of those) because he thought he had to hold it to conserve power on the urinal heater to make it back instead of burn up on reentry (lets compare Apollo 13 with the worst Amtrak travel horror story). Rail transportation is not suceeding, but is space transportation in such great shape (all of the travails with Shuttle)? Before we get into conspiracy theories for either of those modes of transportation, lets look at fundamentals. What does the Acela really do that the Metroliners (years since they were MU cars, and the original MU cars were car-barn queens) cannot do? I guess a Metroliner (AEM-7 pulling Amfleet cars) takes 3 hours and the Acela (pair of Alsthom power cars pulling/pushing reworked LRC cars) takes 2 hours 45 minutes. Funny thing, both trains have in excess of 100 MPH running, but you are talking about 70 MPH vs 78 MPH average speed. Instead of getting the Acela trains sets, could Amtrak have looked at the causes of slow running and spent the money on that, or are the approach routes to NY, Philly, etc so restricted by route decisions made two centuries ago that you can't get those trains to run a little quicker over the slow sections? Part of the cachet of Acela is the interiors wired for laptop computers -- could they have run some Amfleet cars through Beech Grove to do the same thing? The story is that for the original Northeast Corridor "demonstration", the DOT tested a set of up-geared Budd Silverliner MU cars and set a speed record of 160 MPH with them, but when the Metroliner MU's were built, they came up with a new design that needed much more horsepower because they wanted it to accelerate quicker, and the HP added weight which need yet more HP, and they came up with these heavy, rough riding MU cars which kept breaking down from electrical problems -- they were never fixed, instead, the AEM-7 electric locomotive saved the say. If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks? Reply spbed Member sinceDecember 2001 From: Austin TX 4,941 posts Posted by spbed on Sunday, April 17, 2005 8:24 AM That is a great question you can that also why we cannot engineer ourselves into self sufficency on oil. QUOTE: Originally posted by Modelcar ...Where are the engineering capibilities like those who put men on the moon when applied to enineering new products for land based transportation...Surely we can do better. But then there seem to be too many around who really don't want rail transportation to succeed in this country. Why....That's a mystery to me and has been for years. Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply Modelcar Member sinceFebruary 2002 From: Muncie, Indiana...Orig. from Pennsylvania 13,456 posts Posted by Modelcar on Sunday, April 17, 2005 8:21 AM ...Where are the engineering capibilities like those who put men on the moon when applied to engineering new products for land based transportation...Surely we can do better. But then there seem to be too many around who really don't want rail transportation to succeed in this country. Why....That's a mystery to me and has been for years. Quentin Reply spbed Member sinceDecember 2001 From: Austin TX 4,941 posts Posted by spbed on Sunday, April 17, 2005 7:40 AM CNN says no service until at least Wednesday Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, April 17, 2005 1:05 AM Hmph. Would you rather have Amcrack run the acelas anyways while they tried to crack the problems of fixing small issues in the brakes? Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, April 16, 2005 10:49 PM If I remember correctly Amtrak brought over 3 or 4 different exisiting high-speed train sets from europe a few years ago when they were gearing up to start the service in the US. They made a big show of it. I went to see one when it came to DC Union Station. One car was set up to tilt and you could walk through the rest of the train. I think it was one of the German ICE trains. In Japan they have had this type of train since the 1960's and europe since the 70's. The powers that be are so bass ackwards they decided that it would be a good idea to reject all of these proven designs and start from scratch. So they started from the begining and built all new unproven designs. Then while they wasted time doing this they upgraded and wired much of the track in the NEC. When the new train set was done and ready to test at the test ground in Colorado. They found all kinds of problems like uneven wheel wear. Each time they found a problem they slapped a redesign bandage or a restriction on it. These trains were flawed from the begining. Amtrak was just being forced to build it here for job and political reasons although the trains these high speed ones would replace were headed by the most powerful engines owned by Amtrak, those slabsided Swedi***oasters. Those weren't made or designed in the US. So there is a precident for going outside and in this case they should have. It would have saved money, time and greif. After many restrictions and too much time passed at the Colorado test grounds and in rebuild / redesigns they finally brought the trains to the NEC to test. They found that the tilt mechanisim made the cars overhang onto parallel tracks. So unless they wanted to temp fate the trains most high tech expensive feature is moot. Now it is just extra weight keeping the car on the track and much money lost. OOPS. Come on, was nobody thinking about this. Good thing this isn't rocket science. There is only on section in Rhode Island where the train can reach full speed anyway. There were trains in the steam era that were able to keep close shedule to this service and that was over 50 years ago. This whole thing is sad and it is just another excuse to pull the plug on Amtrak. In California we have close to $3.00 gas now. It will be $5 and then $10 soon. Train travel is looking better and better. Too bad it will all be gone when we all break down and want to use it again. It is probably easier to keep track of the citizens if they stay in one place anyhow. After September 11 all the jet planes were forbidden to fly and one of the open alternatives was the train. If (or I maybe should say when) this type of thing happens again it may be that one more option is closed. Amtrak was set up to fail in this venture and it is really a crime. The timing could not have been better planned. The supposed flagship and savior of american rail travel is shown to have serious flaws at a time when they are questioning continuing the service. This area the train travels in is the most profitable one for passenger service. It is the only area that people travel on it with a fequency like that of the "good old days". This one area of strength was promised a silver bullet and given a mylar band-aid. Reply Edit spbed Member sinceDecember 2001 From: Austin TX 4,941 posts Posted by spbed on Saturday, April 16, 2005 8:09 AM The papers this AM said the cracks are a millimeter long Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, April 16, 2005 7:15 AM According to the AP news story today, the cracks are in the steel spokes of the disc brake rotors. Repair time could be weeks to as long as a couple of months. Reply Edit 12 Join our Community! Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account. Login » Register » Search the Community Newsletter Sign-Up By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our privacy policy More great sites from Kalmbach Media Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy
QUOTE: Originally posted by donclark Why? I want to know why brake pads are failing? Haven't we been making brake pads and steel wheel trucks for years? Why are they failing? Who designed this mess? That person should be hung!
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Quentin
QUOTE: Originally posted by Modelcar ...Where are the engineering capibilities like those who put men on the moon when applied to enineering new products for land based transportation...Surely we can do better. But then there seem to be too many around who really don't want rail transportation to succeed in this country. Why....That's a mystery to me and has been for years.
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