The older cars are built for the maintenance practices in the 1950s. Building cars today for much easier access and speed as maintenance workers are paid much more. Also access for major overhauls are probably much easier.
My guess is the improvements in the new cars trucks, lighter weight and access to parts. A company that does not renew its its equipment will not stay competitive.
Just by looking at the new cars I can spot some improvements over the old cars and the rebuilt from old cars:
1. Lighting in the new cars is far superior and I am sure the Amtrak workers are going to like that feature vs the dimly lit former cars.
2. Baggage doors are not so large and are broken into two parts. Would be great if opening and closing them was mechanically assisted but even without the assist this is an improvement.
3. Standardized two baggage doors on each side vs one on the shorty Amtrak baggage cars.
I would guess on the following:
1. Air Brake system probably a lot more responsive and less leaky than an older rebuilt braking system.
2. Probably cheaper to build than the other car types given the lack of facilities and perhaps Amtrak made a decision here to build more baggage cars initially to get more car shells produced on the order so that some could be converted in the future when it had more money.
blue streak 1Need for higher speed trucks and detection of hidden frame cracks. Also protecting utilities from higher speed operations. That is to more protected locations. Granted NDT can find some faults but look how difficult it is to test overhauled steam locos. Also tighting up all joints to eliminate rattles can be expensive. We find that overhaulin aging aircraft is more expensive each time and is out ov service for longer times each overhaul. Parts also a problem
I would add the following:
1. Costs of maintenence and replacement of parts no longer produced.
2. Steel does not last forever in a railroad environment (which was mentioned above). Where are all these rebuilt box cars?
3. How does bastardizing multiple builds and generations of coaches meet Amtrak's standardization of spare parts and reducing maintenece costs and training?
4. Who is to say that Amtrak does not have a plan for the cars and will not use all of them........even before we see them sitting in a storage yard unused? Do we have some inside information on that? Or are folks just guessing.
5. What is the weight of one of these new baggage cars compared to one of the old muesum relics still running around the system in operation?
6. What is the top speed capability of one of these new baggage cars compared to the old?
7. What are the past union complaints about the old baggage cars?
Lots of unanswered questions here before we jump to a conclusion that Amtrak can do it better via the method of recycling older cars.
oltmannd So, in your opinion, what makes a 75 year old car unsuitable for current, everyday use?
So, in your opinion, what makes a 75 year old car unsuitable for current, everyday use?
Rebuilding is always possible, most business Renew and improve thier fleets regardless if they are baggage cars, airplanes or rent a cars.
CMStPnPI have no idea what it's usage was in the past but if it has been in almost continous use as most Amtrak Heritage baggage cars have.
20th Century Limited.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
don oltmann is far more knowledgable than I or you. I recall that he has said in the past that rebuilding should be possible. But my question is why we do need any "baggage" cars? Few railroads elsewhere have used them in years. If we actually need baggage cars to run at higher speeds in the NEC (why?), why not convert some old Amfleet I cars that are in storage?
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
So you think rebuilding a 59 year old baggage car is OK. At a certain point most equipment out lives its usefulness and its becomes logical and economical to replace. These new baggage cars are Being built to run at track speed in the NEC.
dakotafredOut of curiosity -- I used to work in them -- I've stuck my head into a lot of Amtrak baggage cars on my trips. They rarely have much of anything in them. I can hardly believe Amtrak couldn't make other arrangements for its handful of checked baggage; it seems OK with rooming crew in revenue sleeper space. Also, this year it has even trimmed sleepers and coaches from its winter consists to save the cost of pulling empty beds and seats around. If that savings is so important, are we to believe it couldn't do without those mostly empty baggage cars? And please don't give me bicycles and skis. If these are a regular item on certain runs, go ahead and run a baggage car. I doubt if that trade ever called for 75 of them (or however many Amtrak bought new).
A refreshing dose of reality. 70 new baggage cars and 10 baggage-dormitories are being delivered. So how old are those 73 "too old to be rebuilt baggage cars"? 75 years old means they would have been built in 1940. Really? Not. They were all built between 1948-1956.
CMStPnP I don't subscribe to the view that you can continuously rebuild forever nor would I want to ride in rail passenger car over 75 years old or have one in my train.
You would have had trouble on the post war IC where a number of their passenger cars weere rebuilds of cars earlier rebuilt by Burnside Shop several times, some dating back quite a ways.
oltmannd Summary here: http://ti.house.gov/prria/ IMHO is it pretty Amtrak friendly. Has some things Boardman has wanted. Is politically palatable for both sides and pushes Amtrak to improve.
Summary here:
http://ti.house.gov/prria/
IMHO is it pretty Amtrak friendly. Has some things Boardman has wanted. Is politically palatable for both sides and pushes Amtrak to improve.
The proposal has some good features. Whether they make it through the legislative meat grinder is problematic.
A business case for procurement, improved accounting transparency, stopping the losses on beverage and food service, and plowing the operating profits of the NEC back in to it are long overdue features.
One of the problems with the previous PRIIA reviews of the long distance trains was the absence independent verification of the benefits, costs, etc. The 2015 Act would fix this problem.
CMStPnP schlimm Others far more knowledgable than either of us onlookers have questioned the baggage (basically non-revenue or tiny revenue) car purchase as well rather than purchasing zero new coaches, which would serve far more LD customers and generate far more revenue. Well they still tote a full sized baggage car on a lot of runs so I would presume they need it. I noticed the Texas Eagle does not tote a full length baggage car though. As for storing checked luggage with passengers. I am not sure in all cases that legally can be done, especially with the recently passed gun carrying law where Amtrak has to carry guns. I think in that legislation it says they have to be physically seperated from the passengers and secured but I am not sure. Also some express shipppers of Amtrak would not want their packages sitting amongst passengers in a rail car. If it was me I would have done coach baggage combines but again, have no idea what they are carrying in the full length baggage cars today.
schlimm Others far more knowledgable than either of us onlookers have questioned the baggage (basically non-revenue or tiny revenue) car purchase as well rather than purchasing zero new coaches, which would serve far more LD customers and generate far more revenue.
Well they still tote a full sized baggage car on a lot of runs so I would presume they need it. I noticed the Texas Eagle does not tote a full length baggage car though.
As for storing checked luggage with passengers. I am not sure in all cases that legally can be done, especially with the recently passed gun carrying law where Amtrak has to carry guns. I think in that legislation it says they have to be physically seperated from the passengers and secured but I am not sure. Also some express shipppers of Amtrak would not want their packages sitting amongst passengers in a rail car.
If it was me I would have done coach baggage combines but again, have no idea what they are carrying in the full length baggage cars today.
Johnny
schlimmOthers far more knowledgable than either of us onlookers have questioned the baggage (basically non-revenue or tiny revenue) car purchase as well rather than purchasing zero new coaches, which would serve far more LD customers and generate far more revenue.
oltmanndSo, you don't think much of Wick Moorman's Sandy Creek?
I have no idea what it's usage was in the past but if it has been in almost continous use as most Amtrak Heritage baggage cars have. I would keep a very watchful eye on it. A sister car Hickory Creek was rehabbed from the Circus Train which IMO is a relatively light user as those trains are not moving every day or several times a day.
So, you don't think much of Wick Moorman's Sandy Creek?
As of February 10th, per TreasuryDirect.gov, total federal debt was $18.1 trillion. The public debt was $13 trillion, and the intergovernmental debt, i.e. debt held by a variety of government agencies, i.e. Social Security, Medicare, etc., was $5.1 trillion.
According to The Financial Report of the U.S. Government for the Fiscal Year2013, which is issued by the U.S. Treasury Department and audited by the GAO, the U.S. had assets of $2,968.3 billion and liabilities of $19,877.6 billion. The debt to asset ratio was 670 per cent.
The median debt to asset ratios for the Class 1s at the end of 2014 was 28.24 per cent.
The public debt was 72 per cent of total debt. A U.S. default on it probably would roll world financial markets. On the other hand, failure to service the intergovernmental debt could be offset by reducing entitlement benefits, i.e. Social Security, Medicare, etc.
Foreign sources held 47 per cent of the public debt as of the end of November 2014 as per the U.S. Treasury’s Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities. China held 20.4 per cent and Japan held 20.3 per cent.
At the end of 2014 the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, was $17.7 trillion. The public debt was 74 per cent of GDP; the total federal debt was 102 per cent of GDP.
At the end of 2014 state and local government debt was approximately $3 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve’s Level Table 104.
The combined federal, state, and local debt totaled $21.2 trillion, which put government debt at 119 per of GDP.
The actual federal deficit in 2013 was $680 billion as per the CBO’s Summary Table 1. It was projected to continuing falling to $539 billion in 2016 but to rise thereafter to $581 billion in 2017 and $1.074 trillion by 2024.
The deficit in 2013, according to the CBO, was 4.1 per cent of GDP. It projects a decline to 2.6 per cent in 2018; therafter CBO estimates the deficit will climb to 3.0 per cent of GDP in 2019 and remain at or near that level through 2024.
U.S. debt is a serious issue. How the country will manage it is debated vigorously. But Amtrak’s annual deficits are just a blip in the deficit and debt pictures.
In 2014 Amtrak’s net operating loss was $1,023 million, which was down from $1,309 million in 2010.
According to the IRS Table 1.1, for 2011, which is the latest complete IRS statistical data, there were 91.7 million tax filers in 2011 with taxable income. Using the average rate of growth in filers with taxable income from 2009 to 2011, the estimated number of filers in 2014 with taxable income would be approximately 99.2 million. Their average portion of Amtrak’s 2014 deficit would be approximately $10.31 per taxpayer.
Personal income taxes are not the only source of revenue for the U.S. If the other sources were taken into consideration, the average Amtrak deficit per taxpayer would shrink more although by how much is unknown.
Out of curiosity -- I used to work in them -- I've stuck my head into a lot of Amtrak baggage cars on my trips. They rarely have much of anything in them. I can hardly believe Amtrak couldn't make other arrangements for its handful of checked baggage; it seems OK with rooming crew in revenue sleeper space.
Also, this year it has even trimmed sleepers and coaches from its winter consists to save the cost of pulling empty beds and seats around. If that savings is so important, are we to believe it couldn't do without those mostly empty baggage cars?
And please don't give me bicycles and skis. If these are a regular item on certain runs, go ahead and run a baggage car. I doubt if that trade ever called for 75 of them (or however many Amtrak bought new). Remains are better left to the airlines, who have practiced on live passengers.
(Yeah, I'm bitter; I had to fly last week.)
CMStPnPOn the baggage car purchases. Thats been covered for a while. Amtrak is attempting to standardize as much as possible to keep costs down. Useful life of most passenger equipment is 40-50 years, especially at the upper speed limits. I don't subscribe to the view that you can continuously rebuild forever nor would I want to ride in rail passenger car over 75 years old or have one in my train. So on that basis it makes sense to me why they bought new baggage cars.
Others far more knowledgable than either of us onlookers have questioned the baggage (basically non-revenue or tiny revenue) car purchase as well rather than purchasing zero new coaches, which would serve far more LD customers and generate far more revenue.
Well your also talking two entirely different business approaches here. Military's purchase strategy is to leap ahead and a good portion of the time that takes you to the bleeding edge of technology. It's a deliberate strategy on the military's part to maintain a definitive technological edge.
Amtraks strategy is and always has been incrementalism with purchasing. Not to necessarily leap ahead but to go with what is proven so you don't get your head chopped off if it doesn't work. Hence, not a lot of innovation or trend setting areas at Amtrak and you have to generally drag them kicking and screaming to new business methods. It can be frustrating but thats their approach. In regards to LD vs HSR trains. Amtrak is quasi-governmental corporation has to keep at least one foot in the political realm. Cancel all the LD trains and you cancel a large bastion of support for Amtrak. Your going to force a regional system where say voters in Idaho refuse to pay for Amtrak because the Empire Builder was cancelled. Would you vote for Amtrak if there were no trains within the state borders of Illinois?
On the baggage car purchases. Thats been covered for a while. Amtrak is attempting to standardize as much as possible to keep costs down. Useful life of most passenger equipment is 40-50 years, especially at the upper speed limits. I don't subscribe to the view that you can continuously rebuild forever nor would I want to ride in rail passenger car over 75 years old or have one in my train. So on that basis it makes sense to me why they bought new baggage cars.
Paul MilenkovicMy understanding is that in having asked that actions should have been taken to rescue their daughter Kayla Mueller, her family may have had a different take on the Marine Corps V-22 Osprey aircraft being a wasteful expenditure for a transportation mode. Ms. Mueller's situation was complicated, but you could also say that the justification for the V-22 is also more complicated than a simple, blanket dismissal that it is "unwanted", "wasteful", and the money "better spent on Amtrak", were there even a choice.
Branches of the military did not want the Osprey. It was available, in any case, to rescue her, if anyone knew where she was being held. Thus your point about Ms Mueller is a red herring and/or quite tangential. My point in using the Osprey as one example (there are many others one coud raise) is not that two wrongs make a right, but to put the relatively small, status quo amount Amtrak gets in context: $1+ bil. vs $54 bil. when we have posters who obfuscate by saying we cannot "waste money on Amtrak when we have deficit spending" etc. I am a major critic of mismanagement at Amtrak,with such inane choices as to purchase anachronistic new baggage cars or spend a penny on equipment for LD services. But it seems that most posters do not want any modern rail passenger service in the US, such as HSR and others, when the passenger forum is clearly stated to be for that purpose: "The place to discuss Amtrak, the future of passenger rail, and high speed proposals."
schlimm Yes. My error. Coffee in hand, I meant to say the reverse. The deficit has been cut greatly and the debt as a percentage of GNP is lower than in years. An example of outrageous spending on one project is the unwanted V-22 Osprey: "By 2008, $27 billion had been spent on the program and another $27.2 billion was required to complete planned production numbers, with maintenance costs very high." That one wasteful spending project alone could have covered Amtrak's current budgeted amount (that some find so excessive) for many years.
Yes. My error. Coffee in hand, I meant to say the reverse. The deficit has been cut greatly and the debt as a percentage of GNP is lower than in years.
An example of outrageous spending on one project is the unwanted V-22 Osprey: "By 2008, $27 billion had been spent on the program and another $27.2 billion was required to complete planned production numbers, with maintenance costs very high."
That one wasteful spending project alone could have covered Amtrak's current budgeted amount (that some find so excessive) for many years.
Well I don't want to go too far off topic but as a FYI, I agree on the Osprey was before it's time but, IMO........thats the Marines and their toys and how they do business. Check out the new proposed Army Helo, better capabilities than the Osprey, less moving parts, cheaper to build. Now one may ask why the Army is paying for designs independent of the Marines and I think that is a good question as well. Point is though, they corrected most of the issues with the Osprey and they have a follow-on platform now that is cheaper to build.
Another ironic item is the Osprey saved lives in Afghanistan and Iraq as it could cover a lot larger area and faster than any other VTOL transport aircraft on a tank of fuel without having to land. So not too shabby there. The utimate compliment to the Osprey is the Army is going to largely copy it's design with a proposed future replacement for the Blackhawk but make it cheaper to build by reducing the moving parts.
A lot of these program costs also have DoD R&D rolled into them. A good portion of that R&D makes it into the civilian sector and it benefits our economy within civilian applictions. So not a complete waste of money.
blue streak 1 oltmannd Hey states! You want it? Step up! We the people of these United States do not need one state against another. Do not Balkanize us. The worse Balkanization in the US was the Civil war. Believe that some items are for the US. Communications, transportation, commerce, defense, dealing with other countrys, equal protection in all states, etc.
oltmannd Hey states! You want it? Step up!
Hey states! You want it? Step up!
I agree. But, the reality here is new stuff is going to have to start with the states. The Feds won't open the spending spigot even a crack until the state(s) ante up.
Amtrak could drive the change. But, we all know the status quo is a challenge for them.
So, that's how it is even if it isn't how we'd like it.
Paul MilenkovicWhat I am proposing is that once and for all, we who advocate for Amtrak and for High Speed Rail and for increased Federal contribution to Amtrak, that we should do this on the merits of what Amtrak or HSR would bring back to society.
+1
I believe that most of us think there are benefits to passenger rail.
"It's not as big a waste as XYZ" is not a benefit.
"The Jones accross the pond have them and I'm jealous" is not a benefit.
My understanding is that in having asked that actions should have been taken to rescue their daughter Kayla Mueller, her family may have had a different take on the Marine Corps V-22 Osprey aircraft being a wasteful expenditure for a transportation mode.
Ms. Mueller's situation was complicated, but you could also say that the justification for the V-22 is also more complicated than a simple, blanket dismissal that it is "unwanted", "wasteful", and the money "better spent on Amtrak", were there even a choice.
My understanding is also that Ms. Mueller was a civilian aid worker. So as to whether there is a question whether our country should be involved in military interventions in every corner of the world, are people also raising the question whether our people, as civilians and purely to offer people experiencing the worst sort of privation, put themselves at risk by going to every corner of the world? Where as an American citizen you are at risk being taken hostage simply for being an American?
It is also claimed by her hostage takers that Ms. Mueller perished in a Coalition bombing raid against the hostage takers. But again, the situation is complicated. Were this to not have happened, this group has a record of taking the lives of the hostages they have taken.
The family had asked the Administration to trade their daughter for a prisoner held by the U.S., and the response was "we don't do such trades", although we indeed did such a trade for an American soldier held in Afghanistan, but again, the situation involving Sgt Bergdahl was also . . . complicated.
The family was also holding out hope for a rescue attempt. That too is complicated. If I had a son or a daughter held overseas, I would want them to be rescued, but I also know that someone else's son or daughter in the United States Army, Marines, Navy, or Air Force may perish in the rescue operations, and that seems like an awful trade.
What do our trading partners do, you know, the ones with the shiny new high-speed trains that Rick Harnish is upset that we in the US don't have. By and large they make deals with the hostage takers, either trading people held in prison for terrorist acts (i.e. committing acts of murder on their territory) or pay cash ransoms. Maybe we should pay off the hostage takers and not take such a muscular-beligerent-no-deals approach, and we would not need the Osprey?
Well, a rescue attempt was either not made, or if it was made, our people broke down the wrong door and didn't effect a rescue, or something was tried and no one talked about it for the obvious reasons of protecting the lives of our men and women in uniform.
What does the Osprey have to do with any of this? It is an aircraft of unique capabilities -- it can take off and land like a helicopter, so it can deliver a large number of Marines to just about anywhere and return them safely. It also has the speed and more importantly the range of a more conventional fixed-wing aircraft. The failed rescue attempt of our diplomatic people taken hostage by a faction in Iran resulted in loss of life of our service people in a night-time desert refueling, largely because the limited range of helicopters and motivating the development, procurement and operation of the Osprey.
In engineering, there are always design tradeoffs. The Osprey has this capability, that we didn't have before, of placing a large number of Marines on the ground almost anywhere in the world, at a great distance from where we have a forward base or a Navy "assault ship" or aircraft carrier, both of which cost a great deal of money that could fund Amtrak. On the other hand, helicopters are expensive, maintenance-intensive, and fragile enough, and the history of VTOL aircraft from the predecessors of the Harrier to the current Marine F-35B establish that making an airplane into a helicopter multiplies these costs. It is not like Boeing Helicopter or whatever defense contractor sat down and said, "we scammed them on the Chinook, let's use our experience with dual-rotor helicopters to really take them for a ride on the Osprey!" The Osprey is the cost and the trouble that it is because what it does is the solution to a very challenging engineering problem.
What I am proposing is that once and for all, we who advocate for Amtrak and for High Speed Rail and for increased Federal contribution to Amtrak, that we should do this on the merits of what Amtrak or HSR would bring back to society. And we should stop picking on military programs that exist for reasons that we are not generally encouraged to discuss on this forum. And if we think those programs are unneeded or wasteful, we should debate those questions on a political, foreign policy, or military Web forum.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
schlimmWhere was all the Chicken Little and doomsday whining from the right when Reagan and the Bushes were running it up with inflated defense budgets and unfunded pointless wars?
Red herring. Yes, it's true they ran a lot of deficit spending and ran up the debt.
But, that doesn't make it okay to continue the same bad behavior. All the more reason to work harder to fix the debt.
Is it really reasonable to greatly expand passenger rail spending when the rest of the budget is getting squeezed? Is this a top priority for most people?
schlimmBy any measure, the debt has been cut greatly. The deficit is a lower percentage of GNP than in years.
The first sentance is TOTALY UNTRUE. The debt, the total of annual deficits and surplusses, is growing year by year and the current President has run several of the largest annual deficits in history.
Think of the debt as a lake and the deficit the annual inflow to the lake. As the annual deficit is a measure of this year's contribution to the lake. If we ever had a surplus, that would tend to drain the lake.
Mac
By any measure, the debt has been cut greatly. The deficit is a lower percentage of GNP than in years. The dollar and US economy are stronger than any other in the world. Where was all the Chicken Little and doomsday whining from the right when Reagan and the Bushes were running it up with inflated defense budgets and unfunded pointless wars? Seems to me that for a large number of posters on the passenger forum, their only interest, if any, is in preserving nostalgia, not expanding Amtrak, much less creating a modern passenger rail system.
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