Amfleet Refresh

Looks like a cross between a racecar’s seat and a dentist’s chair. That said, I’m amazed at how modern Amtrak has been able to make these cars appear.

Two questions:
-Any suggestion that the A-IIs, Horizons, or S-I/IIs will get a similar refresh?
-Did Amtrak improve or remodel the bathrooms?

Horizons wouldn't need to be updated unless the Midwest Bi-level dumpster fire can't make a quick substitution to Siemens single-levels, and they're simply stuck with current fleet for >5 years because they have to go back to the design drawing board to net something ADA/PRIAA-kosher. If something/anything comes of the salvage deal the H's will get bumped from service in a few years and not be worth spending the refresh money on. Though I'm sure they have plotted out their contingencies and would be willing to shuffle money to update the H interiors if their planned retirement got dragged way further out by the timetable for the new cars.

Am2's are slated to be first in retirement sequence for the East Coast mega-order because they're comparatively much more worn out than the Am1's, so they'll be replaced at the very start of that 600-car cumulative order. Not as many years the livery will need to hold up, so also less economical to spend on today. The Am1's running on state-sponsored routes (Empire, Keystone, etc.) are last in-sequence 400+ cars into the order, which is why this brand new Am1 livery is going to have to last a minimum 7-9 years even if they issued the RFP for new coaches tomorrow. I guess they could consider their contingencies for the Am2's as well if the replacement sequence had to get reshuffled to NE Regional coaches first so bumped Am1's could get scrambled to Chicago hub to cover a >3-year delay in the Midwest/bi dumpster fire fix...but the prevailing hope is those initial LD-configuration East Coast units won't be more than 4 years away from pilot units going into revenue service.


The Superliners would have to be in for some sort of refresh since the Midwest/bi dumpster fire sets back the S1's planned replacement by several years. It's going to be at least 2025 and the S1's 50th birthday before there's any replacements there. I don't know when the Supers were last redone, but they're almost certainly on a different refresh cycle altogether than the flats so regardless of what year AMTK brass have them pegged for new interiors it's probably offset by several years from any touch-up work on the Amfleets and doesn't allot any funds on the current 2-4 fiscal year budgeting window. Common sense to offset the Supers and Am1's from each other by a few years when each make has roughly similar number of straight-coach config units that would need mass updates in a compressed time span.

mtuandrew wrote: question:
-Any suggestion that the A-IIs, Horizons, or S-I/IIs will get a similar refresh?

There was much speculation that the Horizons would get refreshed (or more) after being displaced from the Midwestern corridors by the bi-levels on order. But with the Nippon-Sharyo bi-level debacle, everything will be rescheduled and rethought. So who knows? I haven't even seen any confirmed resolution to the Stimulus-funded equipment debacle yet.

OFF TOPIC but did we all notice how the big infrastructure upgrades blew past the fearsome Stimulus deadline of September 30 and ... crickets ...

The Cascades will kick in on December 18, which was not the deadline, but at least it is an announced date.

Still, unless I missed something, no word about the St Louis-CHI upgrades, or Detroit-CHI, or Raleigh-Charlotte, or NYC-Schenectady, or New Haven-Springfield.

Well, at least New Haven-Hartford-Springfield project has announced a new deadline target for itself, May of next year. LOL.

Woody wrote:qStill, unless I missed something, no word about the St Louis-CHI upgrades, or Detroit-CHI, or Raleigh-Charlotte, or NYC-Schenectady, or New Haven-Springfield.

Most of the work needed for adding two more Piedmont trains per day (one additional round trip) is complete. They’re still waiting on finishing the new Raleigh train station and the new maintenance yard in Charlotte, both of which are well underway. https://www.ncdot.gov/projects/pip/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; the new Raleigh train station is projected to open in January 2018, and the new Charlotte train facility (Phase 1A) is projected to open in February 2018.

electricron wrote:

Woody wrote:Still, unless I missed something, no word about the St Louis-CHI upgrades, or Detroit-CHI, or Raleigh-Charlotte, or NYC-Schenectady, or New Haven-Springfield.

Most of the work needed for adding two more Piedmont trains per day (one additional round trip) is complete. They’re still waiting on finishing the new Raleigh train station and the new maintenance yard in Charlotte, both of which are well underway.
https://www.ncdot.gov/projects/pip/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The new Raleigh train station is projected to open in January 2018, and the new Charlotte train facility (Phase 1A) is projected to open in February 2018.

Thanks for the link, which needed a little fix. And I fixed the spelling of Charlotte because I just couldn't help myself. LOL.

I corrected the earlier misspellings and fixed the link, I hope.
Whereas the projects are projected to finish in January and February, there still aren’t press releases stated when they will open exactly.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:That the Amfleet-I's have now seen over forty years of revenue service is a great testimonal to Budd's design and workmanship (and might I add the "take 'em or leave 'em" philosophy) it looks like there will be a "new kid on the block" to play for the prize - the inevitable 500 car order to replace fifty year old A-I's:
Stadler will now have a Stateside manufacturing (or at least an assembly) facility where "Daddy, what's a Union?" is an operative, and in view that the A-I replacement order need be placed during the incumbent Administration, Stadler will have the "toys in the toybox" to compete for such.

Stadler's EC250 is a train "set" solution, not an individual train "car" solution. The EC250 is a high speed improvement or modification of the basic Stadler's Flirt design. The between car coupling solution is a far cry from what Amtrak's RFP will propose. Amtrak will most likely propose having the train's electrical and mechanicals placed below the floor height for easier accessibility from the ground, most of Stadler products places the electrical and mechanicals above the floor, many above the ceiling on the roof.
Stadler does make individual cars, but haven't to date done so with American style knuckle couplers between cars, nor in a way with electrical and mechanical components located more acceptable to what Amtrak wants. But Stadler can change, few European manufacturers would have been as patient with the FRA with the "Alternate" Compliance rules.

Stadler currently has an order from the Rocky Mountaineer for more of those big gallery-observation cars they use. So by the time Amfleet Replacement rolls around, they will have experience with more-or-less FRA compliant equipment

Don't forget...Bombardier Rail div. is still a jump ball. And they're strongest in the areas--coaches and locos--where Stadler (MU's and integrated trainsets) are weakest. Possible matchup there.

Mr. Norman. The Amtrak fleet plan has the AM-2s being replaced first because they 40 - 50 % more miles as they are LD cars running many overnights. See the Amtrak fleet plan in reports section.

Just speculation it may be AM-2s may go to supplement AM-1s if replacements for the AM-2 are ever built

I’m not sure if the Amfleets 2s will be retired or used on the regional trains, but any new Amfleet 2 replacements cars should free up Amfleet 1 cars that might presently be used on some longer distance trains (i.e. Pennsylvanian, Carolinian, Palmetto, and Cardinal).

Gilbert B Norman wrote:Mr. F-Line, except that both Bombardier and Amtrak have sworn they will never do business with one another again.

That's not true; there's no "ban" list at One Union Station. Bombardier has submitted for RFP's and RFI's subsequent, and been duly considered. If they were banned, there'd be some moratorium on them submitting bid packages at all. That most certainly hasn't been the case. And there's no reason why Amtrak wouldn't very seriously consider them for any upcoming coach orders since they're still #1 in world market share for conventional coaches and almost always come out near the top in technical scoring on those bids.

What's not going to happen again is a contract with the deep-rooted tentacles of the Acela & Hippos' design + service/support package, because when things went sour the two partners were chained together in pure misery and couldn't extricate themselves from the bad marriage. Maybe that seemed like a good idea in the dark ages of 1998 to have the manufacturer take an extra- hands-on ownership role for the life-of-product and carry more of the risk, but it was naive on both sides on the partnership and quickly turned into a disaster when the partners didn't see eye-to-eye on the more intensive than expected maint attention all that custom BBD product required. Amtrak moved far away from that template with the Aveila contract. And all conventional rolling stock since then has either been built to: fully manufacturer-'agnostic' in-house design (Viewliner) or been required to follow reams of PRIAA specs so AMTK has the firm upper hand on maint independence from the original manufacturer should service/support suppliers need to change over life-of-product. Even if Siemens ends up winning every coach bid from Midwest corridor to East Coast flats to Superliner III and ends up with >1000 pieces of rostered equipment, AMTK won't have to live and die at their hands for the next 40 years if some future ill-fated corporate reorg sends Siemens' rail division product support completely to hell. That's the lesson they learned: don't make yourself completely dependent on single-supplier contracts through life-of-vehicle when the life of the vehicle is many times longer than the shelf life of a corporate management team. Corporate, we've found in this century's overheated big biz culture, can go from good to bad to screwed to good again to merged/out-of-business/in a competitor's hands within a fraction of the time their product is going to be on the rails.

If Bombardier wants to bid on these upcoming PRIAA goodies, they'll be welcomed with open arms to do so. Stuff like the Amfleet replacements or NYSDOT dual-modes might be Siemens to lose on betting odds, but BBD being active players in those bids from its dominant worldwide position in coaches and existing domestic installed base of dual-mode locos will drive a better deal for Amtrak and push the competition like Siemens to up their game. They already fixed "the Bombardier glitch" by moving away from such inherently risky contracts like the original Acela deal. Even Bombardier is incapable of "pulling a Bombardier" the way these PRIAA procurements are structured much more risk-averse. Nippon-Sharyo came the closest when they vomited all over their own shoes on the Midwest bi-level contract...but note how quickly they got excised from the picture when that happened. Who knows...if Siemens can't rig up an ADA substitute quickly enough in its negotiating window with Sumitromo, the next vendor on the call list is most likely...Bombardier, makers of the Superliner II and inheritor of all the original Superliner patents.

electricron wrote:I’m not sure if the Amfleets 2s will be retired or used on the regional trains, but any new Amfleet 2 replacements cars should free up Amfleet 1 cars that might presently be used on some longer distance trains (i.e. Pennsylvanian, Carolinian, Palmetto, and Cardinal).

All of this is sourced from the somewhat dated Fleet Plan 3.1, but the rationale for retiring the Am2's first was:

1) the aforementioned mileage-related wear, despite their younger age.

2) they only have vestibules at one end unlike the Am1's and Horizons that have them at both ends, making them less appropriate for reassignment to crowded corridor routes.


Since the PRIAA flats will all have one universal 2-vestibule carbody differentiated only by the interior snap-in sections, it doesn't make a difference how the replacements are sequenced. If the snap-in designs are finalized, they can produce LD-seating coaches, corridor-seating coaches, biz class cars, and cafe cars all simultaneously from the factory. As well as some of the hybridized variants where the cafe/biz cars can be upscaled or downscaled by swapping out a coach seating section for more tables or lounge sections, and vice versa. The in-service numbers may simply accumulate a little more slowly by multitasking the liveries vs. single-tasking one type in a mass batch before moving onto the next livery. But since the cars aren't hard-wired at the assembly line for any one livery the replacement sequencing can be reshuffled literally to the last minute. So if the solve for the Midwest PRIAA situation is going to bleed into the timetable for the East Coast procurement, they can effortlessly move the NE Regional replacements first in line to free up some Am1's for immediate reassignment and kick the LD Am2's down to second in sequence. Say, for example, this flats-for-bi's substitution hail-mary just doesn't work out for and they really do need to take the full 5 years to go back to the drawing board to get the PRIAA bi-level design done right. But the East Coast order for 600 Brightlines (or whatever) gets cued up quick. Now they can immediately send these newer-livery Am1's out to Chicagoland to first buff the reserves, then start yanking the old-livery Horizons immediately instead of having to budget for a matching livery update on that fleet...until you've just got the 18 H-food's malingering. Then pause and figure out what's the next most immediate livery need: proceed to the LD-seating coaches to start yanking Am2's, or cue up a large cafe car batch that bumps the Am2 dinettes + H-foods in-tandem and rotates the Am1 dinettes around. Split hairs with the sequencing any way you have to as late-breaking conditions warrant.