2012 Budget Request Includes 40 Acela cars

From Amtrak's Facebook page:

WASHINGTON– Amtrak plans to begin procurement in fiscal year 2012 of 40 additional Acela Express coach cars to increase seating capacity on all existing high-speed train sets to meet growing ridership demand. The plan to purchase new high-speed equipment is part of the national passenger railroad’s $2.22 billion funding request submitted to Congress today.

While the Republicans in the House want to cut Amtrak's budget, Amtrak is giving them a higher starting point for the negotiations.

Interesting! I thought Amfleet replacement is first priority now that electrics and sleepers are done with...

Aim high...compromise down to closer to what you actually need instead of from a starting point of what you actually need to an actual of too little to make a difference. Congress isn't exactly filled with accounting whizzes; this tactic has decent success rate for some folks. Since it's a given Amtrak's going to be asked to sacrifice a lot by the current political environment, their best chance at leverage for funding mundane appropriations like this is to make it look like they're compromising a lot more than they actually are.

No assurance they will get 'em, but Acela is clearly the most profitable service (well, let's say make the greatest contribution to fixed costs) that Amtrak operates. Obviously Amtrak has done adequate research (really volks, thay ain't dumb at 60 Mass) and established that they can fill these cars with faces and fannies and at rates that will maximize yield per seat mile.

This will represent additional capacity to a premium service - and will mean nothing to the existing Power Units. While A-III's are needed, 200 of such will simply replace rather than add capacity (hopefully any A-I's retired will be off to Victorville or wherever to bask in the desert sun).

This is part of the President's very ambitious transportation budget proposal. He is asking for $128 billion total in transportation funding, up from $77 billion in FY2010. $556 billion total over 6 years in the new Transportation Authorization. Roads & highways get a big increase, but transit spending goes from $8B to $22B according to the Transport Politic website summary (http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/). Big cuts elsewhere to pay for this to keep the non-defense discretionary level. Of course, there will be a huge fight in the House and Senate over this with many of the newly elected House Republicans going nuts. I don't think anyone knows how this is going to ultimately play out, but if Obama keeps his political weight behind this, don't count out the support of the construction industry and private sector along with the mayors and local politicians that would benefit from the infrastructure bucks to be doled out.

The way Amtrak gets it's funding looks to change by a lot under the President's proposal - which will have implications at many levels.

I would guess this is not part of the 2012 budget request that went to Congress today, but spending that's already been appropriated in 2010 and 2011. Amtrak got $1 billion for capital and debt service in 2010, and will get the same in 2011 under the continuing resolution -- unless, of course, the Republican House succeeds in reducing funding for the second half of the year.

The 2012 budget request released today makes no mention of Acela or any specific Amtrak program. Instead Amtrak operating subsidies and capital expenditures would be eligible to compete for grants under a rail trust fund for "System Preservation and Renewal." (More about that in a separate post later, unless someone else beats me to it.) In 2012, the amount available to Amtrak and other potential competitors would be $4 billion.

-Robb

travelrobb wrote:I would guess this is not part of the 2012 budget request that went to Congress today, but spending that's already been appropriated in 2010 and 2011. Amtrak got $1 billion for capital and debt service in 2010, and will get the same in 2011 under the continuing resolution -- unless, of course, the Republican House succeeds in reducing funding for the second half of the year.

The 2012 budget request released today makes no mention of Acela or any specific Amtrak program. Instead Amtrak operating subsidies and capital expenditures would be eligible to compete for grants under a rail trust fund for "System Preservation and Renewal." (More about that in a separate post later, unless someone else beats me to it.) In 2012, the amount available to Amtrak and other potential competitors would be $4 billion.

No, the request for funds to procure 40 Acela coach cars is part of the Amtrak FY2012 funding request. The Amtrak 22 page press release with specifics is now available at: http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/BlobServe ... Budget.pdf.

Quotes from the release:
"Amtrak plans to begin procurement in fiscal year 2012 of 40 additional Acela Express coach cars to increase seating capacity on all existing high-speed train sets to meet growing ridership demand. The plan to purchase new high-speed equipment is part of the national passenger railroad’s $2.22 billion funding request submitted to Congress today."

"The funding request for FY 2012 includes $1.285 billion for capital investments to maintain and improve tracks, equipment and other infrastructure particularly along the Amtrak owned portions of the heavily traveled Northeast Corridor; $616 million to support the operation of more than 300 daily trains; and $271 million for debt service."

"Amtrak is also seeking $50 million to start design and preliminary engineering work on the Gateway Project to build two new tunnels into Manhattan and expand capacity at New York Penn Station as the cornerstone of its vision for a 220 mph (341 kph) high-speed rail system capable of handling expected ridership growth for the next 100 years."

There are some ambitious plans discussed in the letter to Biden and Speaker Boehner.

Its about time for this request in my opinion.... although it should have happened about 5 years earlier so they would already be expanded NOW when they are needed... I think I would have also asked for about 20 more trainsets so I could expand service offerings to better compete or even exceed airline offerings... as there are many of us that opt no longer fly between NYC and BOS at all... We'll see what happens....

Well, next think you know, we'll see a request in a year or two for 12 more power cars and voila, we'll have 6 more trainsets and some spares.

Seriously, I like this proposal, but I'll be surprised if they end up with more then 20 cars.

And while a good idea, it does generate a number of other minor operational issues for Amtrak.

Actually the plan is to convert 15 HHP-8 to Acela power cars and purchase 70 cars in future to make 7 more Acela's

Will they be the same design , or a new but compatiable design ??? Perhaps these could be the new mkIV amfleet

If the deal goes on, I'd prefer that only Bombardier is chosen for the Acela add-on order as cars from another builder may not be fully compatible to the original design. It would have to be done at Plattsburgh (the Barre, VT plant that did the original Acela coaches closed in late 2002 when delivery was completed).

R36 Combine Coach wrote:If the deal goes on, I'd prefer that only Bombardier is chosen for the Acela add-on order as cars from another builder may not be fully compatible to the original design. It would have to be done at Plattsburgh (the Barre, VT plant that did the original Acela coaches closed in late 2002 when delivery was completed).

Why can't a new design be 100% compatible with an older design ? There is no technical reason one vendor can't design a compatible solution for another vendors product (think auto parts) We are supposed to have the worlds best engineers

[drift] this is the real problem with most gov't spending, total lack of accountability to the vendors. It's considered OK to spend a billion dollars making a product that doesn't work as long as the client footing the bill is the gov't. The worst part is the government does nothing to stop this practice, its ok to say to the gov't " oh well we tried really hard".... "thanks for your business". Working in construction I can tell you errors and omissions happen all the time on state/federal projects, usually the winning contractor is the one who identifies the most errors and omissions. The government would save billions if it just held its vendors accountable and made them responsible for the F ups [/drift]

R36 Combine Coach wrote:If the deal goes on, I'd prefer that only Bombardier is chosen for the Acela add-on order as cars from another builder may not be fully compatible to the original design. It would have to be done at Plattsburgh (the Barre, VT plant that did the original Acela coaches closed in late 2002 when delivery was completed).

Would Bombardier be willing to build only 40 coach cars for a new order? That is a small production run order, if they have to build tooling and set up a manufacturing line from scratch. OTOH, perhaps Amtrak would not have put in a funding request to procure 40 new Acela coach cars if they did not talk to Bombardier to confirm that Bombardier would be willing to bid on the order.

As for using the HHP-8's for new Acela train sets, don't the HHP-8's have a reputation for maintenance problems? If they were to pair up 7 sets of HHP-8, Amtrak would not need 70 coach cars. If they were to match the proposed extended consist, Amtrak would have to order 6 coach cars + 1 café car + 1 first class car per set or 56 total. But, if this were to be a follow-on order for the 40 coach cars, by the time Amtrak could do this, the HHP-8s would be pushing, what, 15 years old?

afiggatt wrote:

R36 Combine Coach wrote:If the deal goes on, I'd prefer that only Bombardier is chosen for the Acela add-on order as cars from another builder may not be fully compatible to the original design. It would have to be done at Plattsburgh (the Barre, VT plant that did the original Acela coaches closed in late 2002 when delivery was completed).

Would Bombardier be willing to build only 40 coach cars for a new order? That is a small production run order, if they have to build tooling and set up a manufacturing line from scratch. OTOH, perhaps Amtrak would not have put in a funding request to procure 40 new Acela coach cars if they did not talk to Bombardier to confirm that Bombardier would be willing to bid on the order.

As for using the HHP-8's for new Acela train sets, don't the HHP-8's have a reputation for maintenance problems? If they were to pair up 7 sets of HHP-8, Amtrak would not need 70 coach cars. If they were to match the proposed extended consist, Amtrak would have to order 6 coach cars + 1 café car + 1 first class car per set or 56 total. But, if this were to be a follow-on order for the 40 coach cars, by the time Amtrak could do this, the HHP-8s would be pushing, what, 15 years old?

The 40 coach cars are to add 2 cars per existing trainset. Anything else is either a joke or unfounded speculation.