ACELA SERVICE CANCEELED

[spbed]

The news is reporting that 1 Acela will be running today making 1 R/T

[Paul Milenkovic]

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.

[daveklepper]

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.

[RudyRockvilleMD]

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.

[METRO]

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

[Anonymous]

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).

[daveklepper]

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.

[spbed]

Today's newspapers says A/trak WILL NOT run the 1 train they ran yesterday until further notice

[oltmannd]

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.

[Anonymous]

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

[espeefoamer]

According to the Trains newswire, there is one ACELA trainset operating today.

[Anonymous]

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!

[Modelcar]

....Surely these brakes in quesion are disk brakes....right....??

[spbed]

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

[oltmannd]

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.

[spbed]

Do you know who has to pay for the new brakes the maker or A/trak? [:(][:(]

Originally posted by oltmannd

Originally posted by donclark
[

Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR  Austin TX Sub

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