I'm assuming the Metroliner coaches did weigh less because they seem to encapsulate less interior room than previous generations of coaches, even if "fluted". This is coming from someone with good memories of pre-Metroliner varnish and found the Metroliner and its drop-down lamps just a little claustrophobic, also today's "Amfleet" shell based on Metroliner design. Or maybe I'm just prejudiced.
Also, am I correct to assume that the 1950s Budd coaches (at that time called "lightweight") were built on the priciple of a rectangle (roof, side, floor, other side), where the Metroliner and its descendant coaches are famously "egg-shaped"? I am disallowing the extra weight from electric works in the cab, since previous Budds had a separate loco: usu. the GG-1.
As to what extent, if any, was the new design for 1960s Metroliner coaches (which I believe Budd also created) advantageous over the 1952 Budd and similar coaches?
-- saved weight, therefore fuel?
-- lowered center-of-gravity, allowing for higher speeds and (perhaps) thinner sides?
-- cheaper to build, allowing for inflation and disallowing R&D costs?
-- I've also heard that the Metroliner project was insisted on by Lyndon Johnson, thinking the new design would excel over the Japaese Tokkaido HST? Is that partially factual or just plain paranoid?
I've already stated my prejudices and may be making wrong assumptions all over the place. But I am anxious to learn more. Hope I've got the ball rolling here . . .
Thanks, al
By the mid 1960's Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell authored legislation for a Northeast Corridor Demonstration project of improvements to passenger train service in that region.
In the 1950's Robert Young (the financier and later railroad tycoon, not the actor) pushed his way into the industry, as it were, in order to impose reforms on railroading and especially the passenger business. He acquired control over C&O and later the New York Central, and installed a youngish Alfred Perlman as CEO, and had grand plans. Robert Young was an industry outsider to a very insider-promoting and operated business -- it is perhaps hard to draw an analogy, but maybe De Lorean making an "ethical sports car" was the automotive equivalent. John De Lorean's fall from grace was a drug arrest for a desparate scheme to raise cash for his car venture; Robert Young took his own life in the late 1950's.
Out of the grand plans to straighten out the passenger train deficit that was dragging down NYC came the idea of "corridors" -- that trains were not going to compete with jets on long trips, but that trains on short enough "hops" would be cost and time competitive with airlines, especially when factoring in door-to-door times. Senator Pell had in mind using a little bit of federal help to grease the skids, and what better corridor than what was then called Megalopolis -- the almost continuous stream of urban centers from Boston through New York, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, and Washington D.C..
The idea was that the then Pennsylvania and New Haven railroads would operate the trains, but the Federal government would provide the R&D money and starter capital grant for a "demonstration project" to kick start a rennaissance of American passenger travel on a corridor. The three elements of the demonstration were 1) a lightweight turbine-powered train for the curving Shore Line to Boston, 2) a high-speed electric MU-car train for the electrified NY-DC run, and 3) a double-decker enclosed auto train for DC to Florida, where customers would ride within their own cars but have walkways to go to a snack car, etc.
The New Haven had already tried the Roger Williams "RDC hot rod" of RDC cars with locomotive-like cab ends, the Pullman-Standard Train-X with a German Maybach-powered Baldwin lightweight locomotive at each end, and the bi-directional ACF Talgo with FM Speed Merchant lightweight Diesel electrics at each end. The TurboTrain was designed by Alan Cripe for Sikorsky Aircraft, with Pullman Standard assembling the cars, and it was an embodiment of an Alan Cripe C&O design for a "motor train" featured in the 1950's Trains Magazine issue "Who Shot the Passenger Train?" The TurboTrain had some similar mechanical features as the Robert Young-inspired Train-X having guided axles and remote roll center four-bar linkage pendulum tilt.
The Pennsy portion of the demonstration led to the Metroliner, while the ride-in-car auto train was never built. My dad's boss at GATX told of a couple co-workers of my dad riding in a car on a freight auto rack as a test and how one of the guys threw up (obviously, the enclosed auto train auto track would have high-speed swing motion trucks). The Auto Train Corporation later implemented a variation of the concept where the passengers would ride in coach seats and the cars would be valet parked in enclosed auto tracks (CN auto end loading box cars). You might think riding in your car while it is on a train is a dumb idea, but I have done it on an Austrian mountain pass ferry, and there were a variety of concepts being kicked around, and my dad has patents consigned to GATX on several of them.
The US DOT acquired a 4-car set of Budd Silverliner MU cars, regeared them for higher speed, and tested them at up to 150 MPH. The Silverliner was the electric MU version of the Budd Pioneer III, which was Budd's answer to the ultra-lightweight train craze of the middle 1950's and which had the inside roller bearing PCC streetcar-like trucks. The Pioneer III prototype was a conventional 85' 4-axle passenger car -- no guided axles or articulation -- and it weighed under 30 tons empty but was said to be too Spartan in amenities and rode badly. The Silverliner MUs were probably up to 55 tons or so.
When it came time to issue the Metroliner contract, too many cooks got their seasoning in. The Gummint wanted to compete on specs with the Japanese as a matter of national prestige (Hear that all you passenger-train advocates working the shame angle on Europe or Japan having better trains? Conditions in the U.S. are different, and the game of escalating specs will lead to something unworkable rather than practical trains for here.) If the Japanese train topped out at 150, this thing had to reach 160, even though it would only operate at 110, and there was a generous spec for acceleration. Using the electric tech of the day, the transformer and motors got heavier for the power, which increased the weight and reguired yet heavier transformer and motors, and so on.
I heard that the Metroliners had something like 2500 HP (it is sometimes hard to rate electrics on account of short-term ratings and an unlimited supply of overhead wire power) and weighted in excess of 85 tons. They were "carbarn queens" and constantly and chronically pulled in and out of service. I read that they were finally patched that they worked more or less, but then Amtrak had them gutted and rebuilt back to the original specs making them unreliable once again.
As far as the sloping sides and narrow windows so hated by many of you but copied on the unpowered Amfleet trailers, the narrow windows had to do with the breakdown of the inner cities where these trains ran in Megalopolis and the young persons who would throw rocks and passing trains. My guess is that the sloping sides were perhaps a minor saving in frontal area and hence aero drag, but the main thing was to make the trains more like a jet airliner to attract passengers. Yeah, yeah, everyone here hates jets, but you have to understand the public was abandoning trains and flocking to jets, and the thought was give the public what they wanted. If you think this was stupid, what about cars nowadays -- they first went to FWD to get rid of the transmission hump so there was room to stretch your right leg when you had it "hooked up" in cruise control, but now every car has a center console blocking your right leg -- the "wrap around" look is a design fad and fashion in cars.
Oh, and the Metroliners rode rough because the Pennsy complained about the Pioneer III insider roller bearing truck and insisted on a conventional drop equalizer swing motion truck. I actually thought the ultra lightweight TurboTrain rode smoother than the Metroliner.
I don't think President Johnson had anything to do with the Metroliner, good or bad, apart from putting pen to paper to sign the bill. Senator Pell was the driving force behind trains, and the rest was design-by-committee at work.
The Metroliner perhaps saved the passenger train by giving people the inspiration that improved passenger trains were possible -- it was a successful demonstration or pilot project in that sense. What probably saved the NEC and saved Amtrak was the AEM-7 based on Swedish tech. Back in the 1960's, it was thought that any high speed train would have to be MU cars in the style of the Shinkansen Bullet Train, but by the 1970s and early 1980s, advances in electric locomotives and in wheel slip control pushed the pendulum back to locomotives. The TGV is electric locomotives at each end, but I believe they have extra traction motors in the end coaches.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Thank you, Paul; you answered all of my questions and then some! Terrific narration of events.
I am somewhat comforted that other fellow fanners also believe that a Metroliner coach seat was not in the realm of comfort and space of the 1952 streamliners. And there were (and are) a heck of a lot of people who didn't care if the train cruised at 85, 90 or 110 mph.
IMHO the Metroliner was the very embodiment of disposable Sixties thinking: that anything new had to be better; and you can't hinder Progress. And now we are stuck with legions of Amfleets cars on trains that aren't even allowed to break 80 mph.
Thanks again, al smalling
Great post, Paul!
I'd like to add on a bit.
The Metroliner, as bad as the equipment was, was transformative. By the late 1960s, the conventional fleet of coaches was a rotten, rusting mess. You couldn't count on the trains being clean or the HVAC system working well, or even at all. The early Amtrak "refurbishments" were like putting lipstick on a pig.
The Metroliners were new and, as you pointed out, emulated the icon of the jet age with that airliner shaped body. They looked and felt "modern". I remember, as a young teen,bragging to friends that the Metroliner was "just like a jet."
Warts and all, the Metroliners started winning back business travellers, even in an age where the air shuttles were "walk-on, walk-off". In the Northeast, EVERYBODY knew what a Metroliner was and it kept the notion of intercity rail travel alive in the minds of the public and gave Amtrak an identity. This is no small point.
As unsuccessful as the Metroliner MU equipment was, Amfleet was that successful. Now, the coach traveller could get clean, comfortable surroundings, with seats that worked - with drop-down tables, yet. Amtrak's Mech. Dept got a fleet of cars they had a chance at maintaining - 492 identical cars that generally were laid out for ease of maintenance. And, compared to the Metroliners, they rode great. (adding the tread braking in the mid 80s to keep the wheel profile from developing a "false flange" really improved the high speed ride)
The 6 car AEM7-hauled "Metroliner Service" trains running over the smooth, newly installed concrete ties and rails in the early 80s completed the turn around of public opinion about trains in the northeast. These trains were so successful that Amtrak managed to really start jacking up the fares.
Were the Amfleet cars perfect? No. But, here they are nearly 30 years later, just getting their first real, rebuild -soldiering on. They are certainly good enough to start service on any emerging 90-110 mph corridor.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
I can't speak to any of the technical questions, but as a regular Amtrak customer in the 1970s, I have a couple of observations.
During my school daze I rode overnight in coach on the Coast Starlight between home and a boarding school. That was before Superliners, so I had the joy of riding the inherited streamliner coaches. They were generally quite clean and very comfortable.
In 1976 my mother and I took a trip to the east coast, and we rode the Metroliner from DC to Boston, with stopovers in NYC and Philadelphia. There was much familiar in the Metroliner coaches. The general configuration was the same. The footrests looked and functioned much the same. But the whole train felt cramped. The windows were too small, the armrest in the center felt confining, and the rounded ceiling felt less spacious. My overall impression was that if this was the future of Amtrak, it was going to be an unpleasant one. My first impression of Superliners with their lower ceilings and smaller windows and horrible rest rooms was equally negative.
I'm glad the Metroliners have held up well, and they do look great on the outside. I've since gained some appreciation for the Superliner design (except the toilets!). But I must say nothing I've ridden in on today's Amtrak comes close to matching the comfort of the streamline era (a.k.a Heritage) coaches.
al-in-chgo wrote:now we are stuck with legions of Amfleets cars on trains that aren't even allowed to break 80 mph
there were (and are) a heck of a lot of people who didn't care if the train cruised at 85, 90 or 110 mph
Paul Milenkovic wrote:When it came time to issue the Metroliner contract, too many cooks got their seasoning in. The Gummint wanted to compete on specs with the Japanese as a matter of national prestige (Hear that all you passenger-train advocates working the shame angle on Europe or Japan having better trains? Conditions in the U.S. are different, and the game of escalating specs will lead to something unworkable rather than practical trains for here.)
The Silverliner MUs were probably up to 55 tons or so.
What probably saved the NEC and saved Amtrak was the AEM-7 based on Swedish tech. Back in the 1960's, it was thought that any high speed train would have to be MU cars in the style of the Shinkansen Bullet Train, but by the 1970s and early 1980s, advances in electric locomotives and in wheel slip control pushed the pendulum back to locomotives. The TGV is electric locomotives at each end, but I believe they have extra traction motors in the end coaches
I don't believe you have a point by that mention, other than to verify the position of many rail advocates that the government institutes all sorts of corrupt games to make passenger rail development in the USA unworkable. Glad you agree with us on that score; but it doesn't justify your plane-worship.
Plane-worship? Whatever gave anyone the idea that I had anything for the airline industry or for air transportation? No one who has taken more than two trips anywhere on a jet is under any delusions regarding air travel being "fun" or "exciting." I think there are those in the ranks of foamers who think there is something "fun" or "exciting" about train travel. Commuting to work on C&NW gallery cars along with frequent weekend trips between Chicago and Detroit on Amtrak during a period the family was moving disabused me of that notion.
But some of the carping about how airplanes are "cattle cars" and that all of the train designs since the 1950's streamliners have been substandard, listen folks, I have ridden the Tokyo-Osaka Shinkansen line, and you are in the same 5-across high-density seating configuration as a DC-9 airliner, and you get all of the same pressure ear popping too on that ride on account of the mountain tunnels, and if we get trains back as a cost-saving energy-saving time-saving mode of transportation when the oil runs out, the experience will be more like current-day jet airliners than the Guilded Age private car experience some people think the government should throw money at to provide.
Talking about "corrupt games" that make "passenger rail . . . unworkable" is ignoring Napoleon's dictum "Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence."
So it really isn't locomotives versus EMUs.
My father worked for GATX (you know, the private tank-car company) back in the day when they wanted a piece of what was going to be the passenger train rennaisance on account of highway and airport congestion, and he told many a tale of government procurement and specsmanship.
He designed a power coupling for a roller test stand to go into the Pueblo Colorado facility -- essentially a Super Sized automotive CV joint so that the rollers could shake to simulate bumps in the track. That too was a spin-off of the 1960's Claiborne Pell initiative. The idea was to put high speed rail and understanding of what it takes to get a smooth safe ride at 150 MPH+ on a scientific basis. Part of what made the power coupling such a design challenge was that the facility was supposed to be universal, for low-speed freight locomotives through to high-speed passenger EMUs. The design spec was to allow for 40 tons per axle, 25 percent adhesion (actually with AC traction they do better nowadays), and 300 MPH. Poppa thought this was insane -- a freight loco might go up to 40 tons axle load, 25 percent adhesion when starting a train, and some future passenger EMU might run at 300 MPH, but you would never run 40 ton axle loads on a train that fast, and in that day it was believed that you had to spec for 5 percent adhesion at that speed unless you wanted to risk a wheel slip at those speeds that could weld the train to the rails.
The thinking in the industry back in the day was that 150 MPH trains had to be EMU -- for reasons of dead weight required in the locomotive, for low axle loading to avoid pounding the tracks to ribbons, on account that it was believed that adhesion tapered off that much with speed. The Japanese were influenced by that thinking hence the Bullet Train was EMU. The U.S. industry throught along those lines -- I know that because Poppa told me so and he attended all of the conferences and met with all the DOT officials. The French were doing their high-speed tests with electric locomotives and small numbers of cars, and people on this side of the pond (and in Japan) thought those tests to be stunts like Robert Young's jet-powered RDC trial rather than the final version of a high-speed train. So the Europeans eschewed EMUs and went with electrical locomotives or electric power cars with some powered axles under the coaches -- there were advances in wheel slip control since that time, but it doesn't change what the design engineers were thinking when they came up with the Metroliner.
As far as the Metroliner, the original test train of geared-up Silverliners would have worked just fine for the 110 MPH service that they were able to institute, and the Silverliners didn't have the curved sides people hate, but they had small windows because our cities were polarized into Them and Us, rich and poor, inner city and suburb, and a lot of young people liked to throw rocks at trains. The Metroliner was partly victim to the game of national prestige and specsmenship -- it wasn't restricted to railroading, it was pervasive in military procurement and led to the Apollo Moon program.
As to alleging government conspiracies against trains, when my Poppa was designing what were supposed to be the next generation of trains, me and my school buds were 12-year-old NARP members, sending our lawn mowing and paper route money in to Anthony Haswell. When you are 12, you believe in a cause, and the 60s have just ended, you talk "trains rule, planes drool." But when one is a child, one thinks like a child, one acts like a child, one advocates for passenger trains as a child, but when one is an adult who has been at it for 38 years and has the hindsight of the Amtrak experience, access to transportation statistics, and has experienced travel on all the different modes, one comes into the fullness of the experience that there are no government conspiracies, and relying on government to solve the transportation crisis will result in a llot of design-by-committee and suboptimal outcomes.
Another great post, Paul!
Having been "loaned" to the government for a few years to manage a very expensive railway program, I gained deep exposure to how the government works, and it's depressing. The goals handed down to the program manager are inherently contradictory and cannot be resolved, such as "get the best project for the money" but "make sure group X, which is well known as a builder of junk, is employed to build the project, because we need their votes, or we need this to demonstrate our committment to Goal Y which is totally unrelated but so what." The civil service, regulatory, and procurement systems are easily gamed by the venal and clever for their own gain, and the owners -- the public -- fall into two groups, those who are carefree about what's going on, or avidly trying to corrupt the project for their own gain, in effect, trying to steal money from the other owners. The ratio of people I met in government who are actually trying to work for benefit of the public instead of for their paycheck or constructing a sinecure, is maybe 1 in 10. However, and this is a point few understand, I don't think that ratio is any different than in private business. The difference is that in private business the owners don't put up with that forever; they are usually in consensus about their goals (making money) and usually reasonably willing to respect each other's private property, whereas in government the owners are rarely in consensus and have many bizarre ideological goals, and are often trying quite hard to impoverish and destroy the other owners.
This is sheer truth! It's astonishing that most critics and self-appointed sages of passenger rail cannot see this inconsistency in their position. For illustration, I bought a copy of Stephen Goddard's "Getting There" a few years ago, and almost threw it away after reading in one passage his grousing that passenger rail had declined because it was cheap and utilitarian and in another passage that it declined because railroads spent too much money on it.
RWM
Paul Milenkovic wrote:Plane-worship? Whatever gave anyone the idea that I had anything for the airline industry or for air transportation?
I think there are those in the ranks of foamers who think there is something "fun" or "exciting" about train travel. Commuting to work on C&NW gallery cars along with frequent weekend trips between Chicago and Detroit on Amtrak during a period the family was moving disabused me of that notion
some of the carping about how airplanes are "cattle cars" and that all of the train designs since the 1950's streamliners have been substandard, listen folks, I have ridden the Tokyo-Osaka Shinkansen line, and you are in the same 5-across high-density seating configuration as a DC-9 airliner, and you get all of the same pressure ear popping too on that ride on account of the mountain tunnels, and if we get trains back as a cost-saving energy-saving time-saving mode of transportation when the oil runs out, the experience will be more like current-day jet airliners than the Guilded Age private car experience some people think the government should throw money at to provide
My father worked for GATX (you know, the private tank-car company) back in the day when they wanted a piece of what was going to be the passenger train rennaisance on account of highway and airport congestion, and he told many a tale of government procurement and specsmanship.He designed a power coupling for a roller test stand to go into the Pueblo Colorado facility -- essentially a Super Sized automotive CV joint so that the rollers could shake to simulate bumps in the track. That too was a spin-off of the 1960's Claiborne Pell initiative. The idea was to put high speed rail and understanding of what it takes to get a smooth safe ride at 150 MPH+ on a scientific basis. Part of what made the power coupling such a design challenge was that the facility was supposed to be universal, for low-speed freight locomotives through to high-speed passenger EMUs. The design spec was to allow for 40 tons per axle, 25 percent adhesion (actually with AC traction they do better nowadays), and 300 MPH. Poppa thought this was insane -- a freight loco might go up to 40 tons axle load, 25 percent adhesion when starting a train, and some future passenger EMU might run at 300 MPH, but you would never run 40 ton axle loads on a train that fast, and in that day it was believed that you had to spec for 5 percent adhesion at that speed unless you wanted to risk a wheel slip at those speeds that could weld the train to the rails.The thinking in the industry back in the day was that 150 MPH trains had to be EMU -- for reasons of dead weight required in the locomotive, for low axle loading to avoid pounding the tracks to ribbons, on account that it was believed that adhesion tapered off that much with speed. The Japanese were influenced by that thinking hence the Bullet Train was EMU. The U.S. industry throught along those lines -- I know that because Poppa told me so and he attended all of the conferences and met with all the DOT officials. The French were doing their high-speed tests with electric locomotives and small numbers of cars, and people on this side of the pond (and in Japan) thought those tests to be stunts like Robert Young's jet-powered RDC trial rather than the final version of a high-speed train. So the Europeans eschewed EMUs and went with electrical locomotives or electric power cars with some powered axles under the coaches -- there were advances in wheel slip control since that time, but it doesn't change what the design engineers were thinking when they came up with the Metroliner.
As far as the Metroliner, the original test train of geared-up Silverliners would have worked just fine for the 110 MPH service that they were able to institute, and the Silverliners didn't have the curved sides people hate, but they had small windows because our cities were polarized into Them and Us, rich and poor, inner city and suburb, and a lot of young people liked to throw rocks at trains. The Metroliner was partly victim to the game of national prestige and specsmenship -- it wasn't restricted to railroading, it was pervasive in military procurement and led to the Apollo Moon program
JT22CW wrote:Ain't it funny how in the USA, the aviation and automotive modes of transportation do not suffer equally from "design by committee" as badly as the passenger rail mode? when this is not evident elsewhere in the (advanced industrialized) world in regards to passenger rail? Please explain that.
I don't know how we could measure that claim objectively, but in my subjective experience, working side by side with policy makers, planners, and engineers in those modes for the last few years on a variety of national, regional, and foreign projects and plans, I think if anything they're even more "designed by committee" than passenger rail. They do have a lot more money thrown at them, though, and money papers over a lot of sins.
The only biases I have observed in government -- and this is from working for an officer who reported directly to the secretary of transportation -- are biases toward personal self-aggrandizement, personal career advancement, and personal accumulation of power, and when those tasks were complete, helping your buddies along too. Government isn't capable of having a bias much less a conspiracy; that would require consensus and planning!
Mr. Toy wrote: I can't speak to any of the technical questions, but as a regular Amtrak customer in the 1970s, I have a couple of observations. During my school daze I rode overnight in coach on the Coast Starlight between home and a boarding school. That was before Superliners, so I had the joy of riding the inherited streamliner coaches. They were generally quite clean and very comfortable. In 1976 my mother and I took a trip to the east coast, and we rode the Metroliner from DC to Boston, with stopovers in NYC and Philadelphia. There was much familiar in the Metroliner coaches. The general configuration was the same. The footrests looked and functioned much the same. But the whole train felt cramped. The windows were too small, the armrest in the center felt confining, and the rounded ceiling felt less spacious. My overall impression was that if this was the future of Amtrak, it was going to be an unpleasant one. My first impression of Superliners with their lower ceilings and smaller windows and horrible rest rooms was equally negative. I'm glad the Metroliners have held up well, and they do look great on the outside. I've since gained some appreciation for the Superliner design (except the toilets!). But I must say nothing I've ridden in on today's Amtrak comes close to matching the comfort of the streamline era (a.k.a Heritage) coaches.
Last year we saw the NB Silver Meteor just as it was getting close to dark in Folkston, GA. Obviously the rolling stock was chosen (or preserved) with care and precision: even the baggage car was fluted, as were the dining car and of course the Highliner sleepers. The manicotti-like coaches trailing behind looked as though they had come out of another era--not necessarily the best era relative to passenger equipment design.
Having had some travel in both the pre- and post-Amtrak eras, I can tell you which type of coach is more amenable to getting up and moving around, staying seated and comfortable, and trying to sleep -- the post-WW II generation, not the Metroliner-style coaches. Seventies Amtrak emulated that design in their Metroliner shells-turned-Amfleet, but I certainly haven't noticed the egg-shaped shape to have had influence beyond that. This may be getting OT, but for a coach to be inhabitable is, to me, much more important than how it shines. The Metro-wannabes are at best functional day coaches; but long-time travelers must miss the stretch-out daynighter coaches that the western lines used to use! - a. s.
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