I too have ridden Talgo and like the trains but I have a problem with Talgo and that is their fixed consists. The earliest streamliners were fixed consists as well and that is why they are no longer used. I was rather surprized at Amtrak trying the Talgo's in the first place. The fixed consists disappeared from the RRs for a long period of time until the UA Turbo's came along and in the US they did not last long. There is not a one size fits all for Amtraks next generation of cars but we need to be looking capacity.
The freaight RRs are not going to be happy adding additional passenger trains to certain routes so the bets answer is more cars with higher capacity per car and longer Amtrak trains.
Al - in - Stockton
HarveyK400 wrote: Al,I must repeat in this thread that the "California" car is not the best fit for Midwest Corridor services.The second set of double doors takes up valuable revenue space, 4-8 seats depending on interior respacing.Passenges must file past the conductor and assistant conductor for ticket and identity check for boarding at only two doors on a four car corridor train. Thank goodness suburban trains are exempt from this lunacy.If a secure platform was provided at larger-volume staffed stations, not only would boarding be faster for each passenger, but all four doors on a 4-car Superliner would be available.One most routes, tilt suspension equipment offers a significant benefit for 110 mph, and even for 79 mph operation in some cases.As for a better ride, the California car and Superliner II seem to share the same design, if not identical, trucks. While I have not ridden the California car, it's improbable that the ride would be perceptibly better. I have noticed that the quality of ride often is affected by the passenger load and where one sits. One of the scariest rides I experienced was on an Amtrak Horizon coach whose trucks hunted increasingly violently and possibly dangerously, over 50 mph with similar, if not identical, trucks as the California and Superliner II. The best ride I ever experienced was aboard the X-2000. I was sold on the elastomeric radial suspension more for its elimination of pedestal wear and resulting hunting at higher speeds. Does anyone know why the X-2000's original truck design was abandoned for a European-style coil spring primary suspension version?Harvey
Al,
I must repeat in this thread that the "California" car is not the best fit for Midwest Corridor services.
As for a better ride, the California car and Superliner II seem to share the same design, if not identical, trucks. While I have not ridden the California car, it's improbable that the ride would be perceptibly better. I have noticed that the quality of ride often is affected by the passenger load and where one sits.
One of the scariest rides I experienced was on an Amtrak Horizon coach whose trucks hunted increasingly violently and possibly dangerously, over 50 mph with similar, if not identical, trucks as the California and Superliner II.
The best ride I ever experienced was aboard the X-2000. I was sold on the elastomeric radial suspension more for its elimination of pedestal wear and resulting hunting at higher speeds. Does anyone know why the X-2000's original truck design was abandoned for a European-style coil spring primary suspension version?
Harvey
I've ridden both the California cars and Superliners. Both were decent. Amfleet is decent at 90 mph, too.
I've found the biggest variable is where you sit in the car. In the middle is best, by far. For higher speeds, wheel profile is critical. An Amfleet car with worn wheels will hunt like crazy at speed. Riding in a car with the trucks hunting is like being the speed bag in a boxing gym. Worn trucks are more like you are the body bag.
What Amtrak needs is something simple, cheap and light weight with a decent ride up to 100 mph. That will allow low operating costs and fuel consumption. Talgo might be a good place to start.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
passengerfan wrote: One additional note if other states such as Ohio want HSR let them pay for it just as California is doing. HSR should be a burden on the states that want it not taxpayers across the nation. In fact I still believe that those states that use the Acela trains in the NE corridor should have paid for it not taxpayers across the nation.Al - in - Stockton
One additional note if other states such as Ohio want HSR let them pay for it just as California is doing. HSR should be a burden on the states that want it not taxpayers across the nation. In fact I still believe that those states that use the Acela trains in the NE corridor should have paid for it not taxpayers across the nation.
A sure-fire recipe for sub-optimum network. A whole network is greater than the sum of the parts....
Suppose GA and NC want to connect Charlotte to Atlanta, but the numbers don't work unless SC antes up. Anderson (Clemson), Spartansburg and Greensburg aren't chump change. So, it doesn't get done and money goes to doing the next thing on GA and NC's list, let's say Atlanta to Macon and Charlotte to Asheville, for example.
Even if GA and NC did Charlotte to Atlanta and didn't stop in SC (which makes even less sense the including stops, anyway), SC would still reap a benefit they didn't pay for - reduced highway congestion on I-85.
CA is an exeption to the rule (perhaps FL and TX, too) as the interstate possibilities are much smaller than the intrastate.
With an 80/20 funding capital formula and perhaps some seed money to start operations, it would be much simpler to get states to work together. Nearly all of the interstate highway network got built "voluntarily" with 90/10 or 80/20 funding. The only circumstance I know where a state had to be cajolled into doing their part was I-95 thru GA. (Anyone who knows about rural GA sherriff depts and state polotics can tell you why!)
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
daveklepper wrote: Accepted. Some of the other comments were very good and to the point. Without being political, again, but living in Jerusalem with some Arab friends as immediate neighbors, I think I can promise over the long term that Mideast oil is not going to get any less expensive. Not soon and not long-term. So some of the long-term plans might actually get past environmental impact statements and NIMBY protests endangered specie protests and whatever else, and make it to reality.And I do see tracks in the streets in parts of Jerusalem. We are actually getting a light rail system. I've even seen the shop complex and some rolling stock. Who would have thought it possible?Here is one prediction: In 20 or 25 years the Northeast Corridor infrastructure will be considered by a wide section of the entire USA population to be inadequate for its multiple tasks, and the old White Train New York and New England corridor through Wilamantic will be revitalized as a high-speed route bypassing Providence and New London, there will be a bypass around New York and its intensive commuter operations and slow speed operation west of New Haven, possibly using the Maybrook Line and the Poughkeepsie Bridge, and definitely using the Bound Brook - West Trenton Cursader/Wall Street Reading line to Philadelphia. Baltimore - Washington will be four tracks. If Amtrak is forced to give up long distance operations, unlikely, and I hope this doesn't happen, the slack might be taken up by a consortium of hotel and tourist operators who may run a regularly scheduled passenger service aimed primarily a tourism. This would be a loss to much of the traveling public, however, particularly the handicapped who cannot fly.
Accepted. Some of the other comments were very good and to the point. Without being political, again, but living in Jerusalem with some Arab friends as immediate neighbors, I think I can promise over the long term that Mideast oil is not going to get any less expensive. Not soon and not long-term. So some of the long-term plans might actually get past environmental impact statements and NIMBY protests endangered specie protests and whatever else, and make it to reality.
And I do see tracks in the streets in parts of Jerusalem. We are actually getting a light rail system. I've even seen the shop complex and some rolling stock. Who would have thought it possible?
Here is one prediction: In 20 or 25 years the Northeast Corridor infrastructure will be considered by a wide section of the entire USA population to be inadequate for its multiple tasks, and the old White Train New York and New England corridor through Wilamantic will be revitalized as a high-speed route bypassing Providence and New London, there will be a bypass around New York and its intensive commuter operations and slow speed operation west of New Haven, possibly using the Maybrook Line and the Poughkeepsie Bridge, and definitely using the Bound Brook - West Trenton Cursader/Wall Street Reading line to Philadelphia. Baltimore - Washington will be four tracks.
If Amtrak is forced to give up long distance operations, unlikely, and I hope this doesn't happen, the slack might be taken up by a consortium of hotel and tourist operators who may run a regularly scheduled passenger service aimed primarily a tourism. This would be a loss to much of the traveling public, however, particularly the handicapped who cannot fly.
I have been around along time and ridden the finest trains in the land before Amtrak and Via Rail.
I have also ridden everything Amtrak has to offer except Acela, and everything Via offers except for the new cars they got from Britain originally built for Chunnel service.
I see our California trains running with the highest passenger counts in Amtraks history and for the first time in years see a bright future for the national passenger carrier and no where is it more evident than in this state.
California voters will be asked in November to approve a 9 billion HSR proposal that should have been built twenty years ago. Although I personally don't care for the proposed system something is better than nothing. Early polls show that it should pass by 60-65% of the voters.
When I think of the numbers of options that will become available for rail passenger service in the west alone I look in my little crystal ball and see an expanded network in twenty years ago that was never invisioned. I see a train running from Houston through Dallas to Denver and beyond to Seattle via Wyoming and southern Montana. The Desert Wind and Pioneer will once again operate as will a service across southern Montana and North Dakota. El Paso will have trains service to Albuquerque and Denver.
Not all of this equipment in the west will be Superliners but much will be single level.
In the East I see a service between Chicago and Florida that will compete with schedules before Amtrak. I believe it is only a matter of time before midwest HSR becomes reality.
Sure there is a lull in gas prices at the moment but it is inevitable that the only direction gas is going is up.
Amtrak probably needs an additional 100 Superliners, 60 California Cars, and probably 200 single level cars for use outside the NE corridor. At todays prices that roughly translates to 500 million dollars. But the more we procastinate they are only going to get more expensive. If anything I would probably increase the California Car part as all of the western trains and the proposed Chicago - Florida trains could use these as there interiors can easily be reconfigured for long distance services and cheaper than Superliners I might add. In fact the California Cars have become favorites of mine as they have a very comfortable ride and with two doors on each side provide faster ingress and egress than Superliners.
The GAO report of a couple of years ago suggested that if the LD trains were essential, they might be cheaper to run as end to end day trains with riders opting for hotels overnight. Or, perhaps the sleepers and diners would be operated by private firms. Either would accomodate the can't/won't fly crowd.
The reaction from NARP and others was swift and predictable, however, it did force Amtrak into thinking about sleeper and diner costs and led to the current rollout of diner/lounge combos.
If Amtrak were on the ball and implemented this BEFORE the GAO report, then maybe the GAO report would never have happened. Doesn't speak well for inovation at Amtrak.....
...and maybe, some of Amtrak's LD trains, particularly those in the east, would be better if they were back - to - back day trains. How about splitting the Crescent at Atlanta and City of NOL at Memphis? How about a daily Cardinal, split at Cincinnati?
daveklepper wrote:Be nice. I asked you not to be political. Give everyone the benefit of the doubt.
Sorry, I was trying to be ironical, and I did put in a smiley emoticon.
Patrick Boylan
Free yacht rides, 27' sailboat, zip code 19114 Delaware River, get great Delair bridge photos from the river. Send me a private message
Amtrak, with more-or-less the existing route map has survived more or less intact, unchanged, and largely unmotivated over the past couple of decades.
So, a new prez and congress will likely have little impact on the lines on the map.
What, I think, you will see is a push to get some money to fund short/medium corridors. Some of that is already visible in this year's legislation.
The political "cost" for any new funding will be a push to make Amtrak more productive with what they already have. There have been lots of flawed plans pushed out over the past decade or so. Chop up Amtrak, Privatize Portions, Minimum loss per Passenger, etc., but this time, I think something may come out of it. My guess is an attempt to build some sort of profit motive into the Amtrak subsidy game and/or a sacrifice of the biggest "dog" train.
You can see Amtrak positioning themselve for this. Kummant only ever talks corridors and their growth potential. Now, can he fix some of the leaks in the boat enough to get the investment?
Dave:
If it was a private enterprise I would agree, but the higher up the government food chain you go, the more inertia you encounter.
By the time they get done with the 10 year studies to determine feasability, environmental impact, how much they should grow and where, and hold the 200 public input meetings in all the effected communities, the opportunity will have passed.
daveklepper wrote: And people do learn. Bush did not attempt to veto the expanded Amtrak appropriation, despite his earlier poistion.
And people do learn. Bush did not attempt to veto the expanded Amtrak appropriation, despite his earlier poistion.
Do you mean he waffled? That man changes his mind about just about everything. Wouldn't it be nice if he'd make a decision and just stick to it even if enormous public opinion said to change? :)
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