OvermodOh, and a prediction: the best name for the 'second generation' trains and hence the service ought to be 'Acelia' ...
Sounds like an ointment does it not?
charlie hebdoYou and Joe can call them stupid suckers if you wish. The numbers are there.
They're assuredly not 'suckers' -- this is America, and no one forced them to ride regional. The argument, as far as it goes, is that they aren't getting full value for all the additional they're paying. (Doesn't matter if I think it's insufficient, either; just that it could be a much better perceived bang for the buck were that buck to go into real amenities.)
charlie hebdoThe advantage of the new equipment is 25% greater capacity as well as more comfort.
There are likely plenty more advantages than those. I'm glad we're getting the new trains now that the deal's been done, and I frankly hope they succeed so wildly as to drive priorities to increase their functional speed between destination pairs.
I suspect a 'dirty little secret' is that some great part of allocation of funds to these trains was driven by political considerations, and there's no practical way the full amount, perhaps even a significant fraction of it, would have been provided either for 125mph alternative or for 'luxurizing' some of the existing 125mph-capable stock. So this was never really the 'either-or' that Joe was working from.
zardoz 243129 P.T.Barnum had a name for folks who think like you. That wasn't very nice.
243129 P.T.Barnum had a name for folks who think like you.
That wasn't very nice.
Tell that to P.T. Barnum
We live in a 'marketing age' - marketing is selling sizzle. If the customers are satisfied with the sizzle that they have purchased, they will likely return to buy more. If they aren't statisfied with the sizzle, they most likely won't return.
P. T. Barnum was a marketer.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
243129P.T.Barnum had a name for folks who think like you.
All I know from personal experience is that folks I spoke with who had ridden both thought the Acela ride was better. They were aware of the small increase in speed but once they could afford it, they were willing to pay the premium and not use the NEC Regional trains. You and Joe can call them stupid suckers if you wish. The numbers are there.
The advantage of the new equipment is 25% greater capacity as well as more comfort.
An amusing thing here is that each of you is castigating the other for something you yourself espoused earlier, in a way.
Let me start by saying that, in my opinion, the Acela is a 'better' business-class experience than good regional equipment, but nowhere near 'better' enough to justify the price difference. My experience with people who have taken the Acela service is that they're basing most of their decision to pay extra on the perception of high-speed service, not business-class higher amenities. And that is where the P.T.Barnum aspect really comes in: if the speed difference is actually as piddling as statistics make it appear, much if not most of the extra 'agio' to ride Acela is in the sizzle, not the steak.
Meanwhile, Joe's point right from his first letter was that, instead of providing rocket-fast true high-speed capability (on a railroad largely incapable of providing the opportunity to use that capability) Amtrak would have spent the Avelia Liberty money much more tellingly on much more luxurious equipment operating at no more than 125mph peak speed. Which is precisely the argument charlie hebdo is now making for the actual 'competitive advantage' of the current Acela trains, defective though the real added luxuries on those trains are.
I for one would be highly interested to see the effect of reasonable 125mph equipment even with 'legacy' levels of parlor-car amenity and service on NEC operation. These wouldn't throw nearly as much of a prospective wrench into congested service in the areas where that's a factor, and would provide some multiple of the attractiveness of the current services to compete tellingly with most of the competition for the 'extra fare' so many are evidently willing to pay.
I freely admit I'm not one with distinctive competence in 'knowing' what modern folks value most in railroad transit. The best meal I've had on a train involved an "Am-and-cheese" sandwich ... freshly deli-made out of New York, and packed with thick layers of good meat and cheese ... and an individual can of Coke with a large cup of that pebbled ice that works so well with fountain drinks, taken back to one of those legacy 'parlor cars' with individual chairs that you could swing for the best view. (This goes with the best meal on an airplane being on Continental during the era they served high-quality deli sandwiches as the in-flight meal...)
Nowadays one of the main amenities would be free wireless broadband, something that is just not there on Acela any more than on 'other' Amtrak trains that purport to have it. Now, this is not a particularly difficult thing to understand, especially since it has to be 'free' to users as well as offering any amenity programming Amtrak wants to offer -- an Internet feed to a moving train full of people all of whom want 6Mb/s datarate is an interesting technical problem even if you charge a premium for it, and there is comparatively little required 'return' bandwidth for, say, uploading or posting images. My suspicion is that the trick won't work at all until there is a separate primary link for each car, and perhaps multiples modulo x number of passengers; compare this with what a bus (or shorter 'Triebwagen' implementation) would require. All the textured composite and pleather in Spain won't make up for the absence of usable connectivity ... and outlets at every seat, good app support, etc. etc. etc.
And that's before we get into perceived amenities connected with food service. Which are much more a 'thing' justifying higher fares than either increased speed or other aspects related to high-speed train construction that could not have been applied equally or more inexpensively to lower-speed or even regional-speed shells.
I wonder if good "vetting, training, and oversight" could develop a cohort of Amtrak attendants for the second-generation Acelia trains, with thorough focus on real customer service (including inflappability and professional demeanor during the most trying combinations of circumstantial problems) -- and then use this as a cadre to work on LD train service...
If you actually read with comprehension what others wrote about this instead of repeating your opinion over and over you might just understand that John Q Public chooses Acela for reasons beyond speed or timings. They are neither stupid nor suckers, as you believe. But in your tiny world, any opinion that differs from yours must be attacked in a Trumpian fashion.
charlie hebdo 243129 charlie hebdo People like the Acela I and pay for it instead of more traditional NEC Regional, even though the speed and time benefits are marginally small. P.T.Barnum had a name for folks who think like you. Sure go ahead and insult folks when you don't even understand things. Typical NH through Conrail rude attitude.
243129 charlie hebdo People like the Acela I and pay for it instead of more traditional NEC Regional, even though the speed and time benefits are marginally small. P.T.Barnum had a name for folks who think like you.
charlie hebdo People like the Acela I and pay for it instead of more traditional NEC Regional, even though the speed and time benefits are marginally small.
P.T.Barnum had a name for folks who think like you.
Sure go ahead and insult folks when you don't even understand things. Typical NH through Conrail rude attitude.
No insult intended, just stating a fact.
file:///C:/Users/Joe/Pictures/HSR%20not%20feasible.pdf
243129This from February 26, 2017. C:\Users\Joe\Pictures\IMG_20190613_0001.jpg
C:\Users\Joe\Pictures\IMG_20190613_0001.jpg
Sorry - we cannot access your computer.
This from February 26, 2017.
charlie hebdoPeople like the Acela I and pay for it instead of more traditional NEC Regional, even though the speed and time benefits are marginally small.
charlie hebdo But you probably prefer GG1s, P70s and Clockers of days gone by.
Why not? The trains of today do no better.
I don't think either of you realize that people are willing to spend more for that service because of the comfort, not the speed. Those people who do are neither naïve nor ignorant about that, no matter what Joe believes. He apparently hates the Triebwagen concept.
Remember too that I'm almost cackling with joy that Amtrak is buying these things and they will constitute a large incentive to spend even more on improving track work to run them in even limited areas ... likely over 160mph through Princeton Junction now that the crossovers are out ... I'll be watching, and when I get the chance riding; I only hope they are as well-built and reliable as the SC-44s and ACS-64s have been.
From a marketing standpoint it's going to be interesting how Amtrak addresses the relative paucity of actual high speed running these trains do. They certainly have little trouble keeping the public thinking of the Acela service as high speed worth a premium price -- and I'm not going to spend much time spilling the beans to say it's not...
(Especially now that the money's safely spent, the lovely trains are a'building, and the die has been cast to have true HSR grade equipment actually running at last...)
Oh, and a prediction: the best name for the 'second generation' trains and hence the service ought to be 'Acelia' ...
People like the Acela I and pay for it instead of more traditional NEC Regional, even though the speed and time benefits are marginally small. So it makes sense to replace them with similar but better equipment that has greater capacity, even without going to double-decker cars.
charlie hebdoYou imply developing a new RoW with fewer curves, modern track, signals and catenary. I believe that was already proposed by the pertinent agency, even the precise route.
Actually still a range of routes ... he doesn't seem to want to say, but google "NECIP" for all the information a discussion like this probably needs.
(The discussion of BO-2 is a little poignant, because it almost certainly involved first going from Cedar Hill over the Poughkeepsie Bridge -- speed-competitive even with the 10mph restriction across that substantial-length structure -- and then down the 'alphabet route', many track miles of which no longer exist. I have to wonder what the current alternatives to that service, either via the Lehigh Line or some other 'functional alternative' like a great way 'round involving Selkirk, might be -- the sad truth being that we'll never again see through freight either via the Corridor or the Pennsylvania state service to Harrisburg, or the well-engineered low-grade cutoffs that used parts of them).
It seems to me, though, that the important gist of his argument regarding the Acela II has always been that designing equipment to run on such improved facilities is premature, and we should look instead at improving what we have, incrementally if necessary following the true German development model, to get to where a reasonable percentage of the NEC route mileage allows sustained 125mph speed ... and design the replacement equipment for that peak speed, which not incidentally is tremendously less, much of it already costed-down via PRIIA and other development efforts, and reasonably buff-and-draft compliant, than true modern HSR designs that have to depend on CEM and clever engineering like the intercar connections on Talgo trains to 'make' their higher peak speed in any practical way. While I can't point to any version of a study in NECIP that prioritizes this specifically as a near-term priority, much of the current work (such as Gateway, Portal Bridge, and the continuing rollout of constant-tension catenary) has this as a reasonable effect if not a major primary purpose.
I think that a case very similar to that 'against' LD trains can be made for the 220mph second spine: its actual benefits over even the consistent-125-mph alternative are relatively small and related to a restricted cohort of likely-rich people who find use in the high peak speeds. While of course I'd like to see a good 220mph service established, I don't see any administration, even one helmed by the likes of AOC, actually allocating the capital to get the thing completed and then properly run and maintained. And I'm in accord with Joe that the 'opportunity cost' represented by that part of the Acela IIs that implements higher-than-125mph speed capability will be wasted over what's likely the design lifetime of the new equipment -- that money being better spent in consistent improvement to 125mph standards on what might be a substantial part of the Corridor much earlier than even the rosiest NECIP budgets.
Even old-fashioned position lights and NORAC work with 125mph traffic ... they did for years. CBTC would make mixing high-speed with lower-speed or stopping traffic almost a cinch while maintaining any practical margin of safety rationally desirable. I don't remember the issues involved with actually opening up a large part of the New-Haven-to-Boston center-to-center distance to permit actual use of the active-tilt, but the requirement for negative cant deficiency might be 'enough' less for 125mph peak to permit less expensive track shifting and regrading using modern equipment like R-cranes and TLMs.
Good luck with that. Fixing the antique North River tunnels is taking forever. The NEC is very congested. The Acela IIs have higher capacity than the older equipment. That will help. But you probably prefer GG1s, P70s and Clockers of days gone by.
charlie hebdoYou imply developing a new RoW with fewer curves, modern track, signals and catenary. I believe that was already proposed by the pertinent agency, even the precise route. However, funding and securing the land in such a congested region will be tough.
"funding and securing the land in such a congested region will be tough."
No it will be cost prohibitive.
Folks want good dependable transportation.Amtrak can wrest the 500 mile and under market from airlines.
Monies ticketed for high speed rail can be used to upgrade present service and equipment for the heavily populated NEC.
243129 BaltACD And the means to finance??? Even bakers dough required flour and yeast among other things. Your 'solution' doesn't even get in the oven to be half baked. Just to be clear tell me what you read as my 'solution'.
BaltACD And the means to finance??? Even bakers dough required flour and yeast among other things. Your 'solution' doesn't even get in the oven to be half baked.
Just to be clear tell me what you read as my 'solution'.
You imply developing a new RoW with fewer curves, modern track, signals and catenary. I believe that was already proposed by the pertinent agency, even the precise route. However, funding and securing the land in such a congested region will be tough.
BaltACDAnd the means to finance??? Even bakers dough required flour and yeast among other things. Your 'solution' doesn't even get in the oven to be half baked.
243129 BaltACD Your solution? The 'solution'/conclusion is contained within.
BaltACD Your solution?
Your solution?
The 'solution'/conclusion is contained within.
And the means to finance??? Even bakers dough required flour and yeast among other things. Your 'solution' doesn't even get in the oven to be half baked.
This from a 2013 missive.
"Here is an example of where Amtrak is today. The New Haven had a freight train 1st Advanced BO-1, the "Jet", which guaranteed delivery from Boston to Chicago in 24 hours. Forty five years later Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited takes almost 22 hours from Boston to Chicago. The Merchants Limited circa 1963, with a fifteen minute switch from electric to diesel locomotive power at New Haven would cover the distance from New York to Boston in 3 hours and 55 minutes. The Acela Express, in the same time slot and far from it's proposed goal of 3 hours, covers the distance in 3 hours and 40 minutes.49 years have passed and countless millions (perhaps billions) spent in track improvements and wire installation and the resulting time cut from the schedule is zero minutes! Is this considered progress? I have seen the high speed trains come and go. The New Haven's two forays into HST's proved to be futile on the existing roadbed just as Amtrak's is today. Europe and Japan were bombed in to rubble in WW II and the Marshall Plan and SCAP rebuilt their infrastructures with an eye on the future. The railroads were built as straight as the geography allowed. The NEC infrastructure dates from the 1800's taking a circuitous route between industries. Outdated Interstate system is responsible for passenger increase not Amtrak's business acumen.Folks want good dependable transportation.Amtrak can wrest the 500 mile and under market from airlines.FY 2012 Regional up 6.6% Acela up 0.5% 2nd best year ever1969 Metroliner 2'30” NYP – WAS2013 Acela 2'45” 5 stops2013Regional 3' 0” 10 stops1963 Merchants Limited w/15 minute engine change @ NH 3'55” NY – BOS2013 Acela w/ no stop or engine change @ NH 3'40” NYP - BOS"
Very fitting that the 'pointless arrow' is used in the ad....
I never knew Amtrak kept using it for so long!
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
243129 Never happened. Why?
Never happened. Why?
Well, it WAS a vision, and it's STILL the 21st century, so methinks they have another 81 years to make this come true......
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