20 years later

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243129

So says the guy who names himself after a mass murder.

 

HUH?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo

[243129]

charlie hebdo

As I stated before in an analogy, your experience as a train driver is like my claiming expertise about the mechanics and engineering and metallurgy of the car I drive.

I claim expertise in performance and operation. The product is not feasibile on the NEC.

You probably deemed the Edsel a viable product.

 

[243129]

charlie hebdo

And quoting the monster responsible for the deaths of millions of Chinese as some sort of expert reveals how bizarre your Weltanschauung truly is.

So says the guy who names himself after a mass murder.

[charlie hebdo]

As I stated before in an analogy,  your experience as a train  driver is like my claiming expertise about the mechanics and engineering and metallurgy of the car I drive. 

And quoting the monster responsible for the deaths of  millions of Chinese as some sort of expert reveals how bizarre your Weltanschauung truly is. 

[daveklepper]

During the period that the Turbotrains ran on the NEC NY - Boston, I rode them a number of times and appreciated them.  Siting behind the  engineer in the  pod at the front of the train was a treat.  The fastest I saw on the speedometer was only 110 mph.  I do not recall anything faster.

If the (currently?) unusable high-speed capabilities of the Acela replacements means use of equipment and technology already in production elsewhere, this high speed capability may not mean sizeable cost increases over 160mph or 125mph equipment.

[rdamon]

Overmod

To my knowledge not even one F-20 was ever sold.

The only one of 3 left is hanging from the roof in a museum in LA. I liked the commercials with Chuck Yeager and the Tigershark for AC Delco.

[243129]

charlie hebdo

United Aircraft became United Technologies. One and the same.  And since you are neither a mechanical nor electrical engineer, your opinion is limited. 

 

My "opinion is limited"?  How can you make that assessment  when you have absolutely no experience in railroad operations?

[charlie hebdo]

United Aircraft became United Technologies. One and the same.  And since you are neither a mechanical nor electrical engineer, your opinion is limited. 

[243129]

charlie hebdo

And bullying when folks don't bow down to your expertise.

Where do I 'bully'?

charlie hebdo

United Tech trains: they may well have been junk, but just because you ran some does not make you an expert.

They were United Aircraft trains and they were junk and I was an expert in operating them. As Chairman Mao said: "All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience." Which is something you do not have.

[243129]

daveklepper

As farz as I remember, there was no Marshal Plan for Japan.   Just Europe.

 

You are correct there was no "Marshal Plan"[sic] for Japan. It was posted earlier in the  thread that SCAP oversaw the occupation and reconstruction of Japan.

[Backshop]

I know what a Northrup F5 was, I just didn't know what Grumman had to do with it.  It was developed from the T38 Talon two seat jet trainer.  The F20 never sold because General Dynamics had just come out with the F16, a much better plane that was relatively cheap and had interoperability with the major western air forces.

[Overmod]

charlie hebdo

I think it was the "freedom" fighter,  sold to less developed nations. It was developed by Northrop,  which much later merged with Grumman to form Northrop Grumman.

Actually, upon reflection, I was thinking more of the F-20 (Tigershark), which was kind of like an advanced-technology version of the F5.

These were very small and light aircraft, very nimble, relatively inexpensive to purchase and to maintain.  Improvements in "miniaturization" in electronics worked to the advantage of the concept, and Northrop Grumman thought, with a great deal of justification in my opinion, that there would be a hearty market around the world for a tough, fully advanced fighter aircraft that didn't require an enormous amount of capital to buy and an enormous staff to keep flying.

To my knowledge not even one F-20 was ever sold.

[Overmod]

charlie hebdo

Overmod: Like Joe,  you don't have any actual data to show that loose car train sets plus requisite engines would be significantly cheaper on any relevant statistic,  such as seat-mile.

I'm putting it together.  It may take a while to generate actual cost data for the Liberty trains, and while I will provide what I find for the pure European and Asian alternatives, it remains to be seen what the 'allocated' cost of 'buy American' versions will actually be.

If the common-sense costing is in fact as radically different as I think it is, it shouldn't be that difficult to show it in figures too.

[charlie hebdo]

I think it was the "freedom" fighter,  sold to less developed nations. It was developed by Northrop,  which much later merged with Grumman to form Northrop Grumman. 

[Backshop]

What's a Grumman F5?

[charlie hebdo]

243129

 

 

charlie hebdo

As usual, your responses lack any data or even a citation with data to back up your opinion, which differs from what the sources mentioned say. Your other demeaning reply is not worth a response.

 

 

As usual? Shall I post all the questions that you have run from? When confronted for proof of your allegations you flee.

Data you say?  Common sense and economics are my "data". The same end being achieved for less money.

 

 

"Common sense" is not data or empirical.  There are no econometrics in your posts. You make assertions without any evidence. Pure opinion.  And bullying when folks don't bow down to  your expertise.  As to the United Tech trains: they may well have been junk,  but just because you ran some does not make you an expert.  I have driven cars for 56 years,  but that doesn't make me an expert on automotive engineering.  

[charlie hebdo]

Overmod: Like Joe,  you don't have any actual data to show that loose car train sets plus requisite engines would be significantly cheaper on any relevant statistic,  such as seat-mile. 

[daveklepper]

As farz as I remember, there was no Marshal Plan for Japan.   Just Europe.

[JOHN PRIVARA]

RE: Japan were bombed in to rubble in WW II and the Marshall Plan and SCAP rebuilt their infrastructures with an eye on the future

It should be noted tho, that Japan built their HSR long after the war on completely new alignments, and standard gauge. And, while European railroads were rebuilt after being bombed the existing alignments were rebuilt. The first "modern" European HSR (Paris - Leon) was done with a mix of old and new alignments, but the real speed was on the new track. Which is also true on the rest of the French HSR lines. You leave a city on an 1880 alignment at (say) 60-80 mph, but as soon as you're out of the suburbs the train is on the new 1990's+ alignments.

I don't see that happening in the US tho (with government loot anyway). Regardless of what one thinks of either party, the US government is too crippled to do anything except keeping the current looting-scams funded (military, police-state, roads, transit, and airports). And those scammers aren't going to give-up any loot for HSR (I know I wouldn't). If HSR is going to be funding by the US government, it will have to be with a brand new group of scammers (somewhat how transit accomplished their scam over the last 30 years).

[Overmod]

charlie hebdo

With all due respect, you are missing the point. The trainsets hold 25% more people comfortably than the Acelas in the same platform space, even more than Regional equipment.

Keep in mind that there were two general statistics about these trains when they were 'approved for production': the seating capacity for a given 'trainset' as-built was something around 30% greater than for the original (and frankly limited) capacity of the same set of Acela equipment, and it was supposed to be possible to 'add' three cars to the nine-car sets without having to replace the rest of the train -- this obviously giving "25% greater capacity" for a modified new trainset over whatever it replaced... bjturon, in particular, has distinctive competence about this, and hopefully he'll start reading and comment.

One more time, it's not about being a little faster. It's about a desired comfort level that millions have been willing to pay for over the past decades.

Which is precisely his point, and has been right from the original letter that started all this 'controversy'.

It's very obvious that achieving 'the desired comfort level that millions have been willing to pay for' is easier to accomplish in less-complex equipment with all the expensive engineering considerations needed to reach practical high speed.  It's also obvious that a properly-designed 125mph shell with any version of the actually-useful customer-valued capability or amenities designed into the Avelia Liberty would involve less cost; in fact, I suspect some of the 'cost dividend' of less-expensive structure could be 'reinvested' into things like true high-bandwidth WiFi for all riders, or better seating, to give far better band for the buck than 220mph trains that will spend almost their whole lives under half that speed...

The only common-sense 'difference' that matters here is that much of the engineering used to develop the American single-level technology was leveraged off previous work and production, meaning (as, famously, for things like the Avro Arrow or the Grumman F-5) you can get something better-performing but ultimately 'cheaper' when the expensive parts of the engineering have been done in other contexts.  Not sure even so that the cost of the much superior Avelia Liberty trainsets is sufficiently 'low' to overcome Joe's fundamental contention that a cheaper trainset with the capacity and amenities installed in the Liberty trains would represent better 'bang for the buck'... 

Do you have links to the data sheets that show the new trainsets cost significantly more per passenger seat mile than new loose-car equipment + new engines and then compare that data on a revenue per seat mile basis?

First, it doesn't require Kelly-Johnson-level knowledge to see that a structure with optimized suspension, composite construction, CEM, etc. for high speed is both more expensive and more finicky to maintain than the 'equivalent' for lower speed.  Even with Government money, perceptions, and perhaps politically-motivated inefficiencies (as for the CAF plant here and its ridiculous overruns) adding to the real-world design-build for the less expensive comparable capacity.  I'm tempted to say by analogy that any airframe involving honeycomb fabrication in titanium will be more expensive per seat-mile than something with the same cabin volume and seat tracking built with, say, common methods of aluminum or even steel fabrication.  Much of the overall technology and fabrication difference is comparable in order of magnitude, even with modern computer-assisted design and testing capacity. 

Second, it'll be difficult to separate out 'revenue per seat mile' when a primary assumption likely assumes higher practical operating speed, and hence revenue turns, for the higher-speed equipment.  Since the likely 'engines' for initial NEC service could easily be ACS-64s -- new or 'used'; it doesn't matter for a sustained 125mph speed) the difference comes down to the consists.  And there, by direct assumption the 'new' conventional trains have the same amenities, and the same seat tracking, and the same passenger capacity, as the high-speed trains would, with far less complex shell construction, truck technology, or tilt-mechanism structure and capabilities.

 

Joe did not say that the 'conventional' equipment had to be PRIIA-compliant (although that might be a useful starting point in design or overall feasibility cost-analysis) and even if I think that a Government-funded (read: Amtrak-funded) lower-speed alternative to the Liberties would almost certainly be Procrusteanly shoehorned into the existing PRIIA work product, there's no particular requirement that the PRIIA work constitutes anything to be used dismissively or pejoratively in the sense of this actual discussion.  Certainly the 'materials and methods' developed from PRIIA, and at least some of the lessons learned, would be directly applicable to the right kind of 'new' Acela replacement.

 

I do tend to agree that emphasis on 'loose car' is something of a distraction here; the potential cost savings of designing a 125mph "nine-car trainset" that is semipermanently coupled using the permissible separation of some of the physical services or amenities within the consist instead of 'duplicating' everything per car would be substantial.  This won't be the kind of consist with articulated trucks between the cars, or worse the kind of passive and underdamped single-axle suspension in the TurboTrains, that makes for obligate shop time either to maintain or change cars in a given trainset.  On the other hand, it should be considerably easier to design 125mph equipment to facilitate minimum 'time out of service' (and hence less impact on ROI thanks to shorter maintenance turn) than what would be required to 'turn' an equivalent fault in one of the Avelia Liberty sets.

 

I should probably mention here that the original 'duplex' version of these trains would be of necessity at least semipermanently, and probably essentially permanently coupled: they are ELF design and are very restricted in where amenities could be installed either structurally or spatially within the overall shell.  (In part this is why the American-spec trains are single level; there's very little way a duplex shell would pass the required buff test, even if common energy-management optimization could be made between adjacent cars to 'pass the test' with careful rigging of the test conditions).  So if you wanted the effective larger capacity of the duplex train, you'd need to adopt the 'trainset' construction even if cost were little object.

 

Of course, the whole argument is effectively moot, and has been, essentially, since the contracts were 'let' for the fast equipment.  It's done, and more importantly all the expen$ive technology has been cost-allocated and paid for.  Now that construction is proceeding along, it's no longer possible even to 'dumb down' the Avelia Liberty design to get some putative advantages for, let's say, less amazing top-speed capability... even if we wanted to.

 

And, by extension, I think it's likely even now that 'expanding capability 25%' by adding the three cars when the time comes will be more cost-effective than specifying, designing, and building the equivalent 'aggregate capacity' of the full-effective-equivalent 125mph alternative.  I don't have stats to 'prove' that, but by the time any production cost overruns or running respec changes are made in the original trainset production, I'd have most of the meaningful information that would really be needed to confirm that.  So we get our 220mph train ... let's start crossing our fingers it won't have inadequacies on rougher track in its 125mph lifetime that make us regret its prioritization.

[243129]

charlie hebdo

As usual, your responses lack any data or even a citation with data to back up your opinion, which differs from what the sources mentioned say. Your other demeaning reply is not worth a response.

As usual? Shall I post all the questions that you have run from? When confronted for proof of your allegations you flee.

Data you say?  Common sense and economics are my "data". The same end being achieved for less money.

[243129]

charlie hebdo

With all due respect, you are missing the point. The trainsets hold 25% more people comfortably than the Acelas in the same platform space, even more than Regional equipment.

ACELA/HST's are unitized trainsets. Regionals are not.

charlie hebdo

One more time, it's not about being a little faster.

I agree. So why do we spend all this money on useless unitized trains?

[charlie hebdo]

243129

 

 

charlie hebdo

 

 

243129

charlie hebdo It's about a desired comfort level that millions have been willing to pay for over the past decades.

More Business Class style cars with the same bells and whistles  as the trainsets at considerably less cost for those who wish to be pampered.

 

 

Again, it is what the hard data shows. If you have data that disputes it, show us the numbers.

 

 

 

 

More Business Class style cars with the same bells and whistles  as the trainsets at less cost for those who wish to be pampered and more importantly LESS COST TO THE TAXPAYERS!

 

As usual, your responses lack any data or even a citation with data to back up your opinion, which differs from what the sources mentioned say. Your other demeaning reply is not worth a response.

[243129]

charlie hebdo

 

 

243129

 

 

 

 

Paul Malenkovic might have some real background on those units, as his father had some involvement as I recall his saying some time back..

 

I have 'real' background on these units I operated them between Grand Central and Boston. Junk.

[243129]

charlie hebdo

 

 

243129

charlie hebdo It's about a desired comfort level that millions have been willing to pay for over the past decades.

More Business Class style cars with the same bells and whistles  as the trainsets at considerably less cost for those who wish to be pampered.

 

 

Again, it is what the hard data shows. If you have data that disputes it, show us the numbers.

 

More Business Class style cars with the same bells and whistles  as the trainsets at less cost for those who wish to be pampered and more importantly LESS COST TO THE TAXPAYERS!

[243129]

charlie hebdo

 

 

243129

 

charlie hebdo: The trainsets hold 25% more people comfortably than the Acelas in the same platform space, even more than Regional equipment.

Explain how the trainsets hold more people than the Regionals.

 

 

It's what several articles, the manufacturer and Amtrak have said. If you dispute that information, let's see the evidence, not just your assertion.

 

ACELA/HSR trains are unitized Regionals are not. Comprenez vous?

[charlie hebdo]

243129

 

Paul Malenkovic might have some real background on those units, as his father had some involvement as I recall his saying some time back..

[charlie hebdo]

243129

charlie hebdo It's about a desired comfort level that millions have been willing to pay for over the past decades.

More Business Class style cars with the same bells and whistles  as the trainsets at considerably less cost for those who wish to be pampered.

Again, it is what the hard data shows. If you have data that disputes it, show us the numbers.

[charlie hebdo]

243129

243129 wrote the following post 18 days ago:

charlie hebdo The trainsets hold 25% more people comfortably than the Acelas in the same platform space, even more than Regional equipment.

Explain how the trainsets hold more people than the Regionals.

It's what several articles, the manufacturer and Amtrak have said. If you dispute that information, let's see the evidence, not just your assertion.

[243129]

Candidates for the junk pile.