Acela II (Alstom Avelia Liberty): Design, Production, Delivery, Acceptance

Nothing is being said about all the open punch list items.

Let's chill and enjoy this video from Sunday of Avelia Liberty in Sunnyside. Add this to the pile of the other 500 videos from the 7 subway over SSY...

Let's all breathe shall we?

I saw on the Facebook Amtrak Next Generation Equipment group page that the date for revenue service is March 26, 2025. No word on if it’s a phase-in or total takeover.

I imagine some of our enterprising members could flesh this out on the reservation system…

The final phase of testing has still not been completed, so I still consider that a rumor. That's the same date from the largely debunked reddit post from a couple months back.

Another beautiful weekend come and gone and no movement of the Avelia sets. 9 more weeks left in 2024, so unless testing/qual runs start ramping up real soon I have a hard time seeing an early/mid 2025 revenue start date.

Avelia Liberty, Capitol Limited, MARC and more at Amtrak's DC Ivy City facilities
Shared October 26, 2024

One set in DC




WNYP Avelia Liberty Fall Chase
Shared October 22, 2024

A trainset was returned to Hornell, October 15 (from thumbnail)
A trainset was moved from Hornell on October 2nd (videos in previous posts) so this may be the counterpart "swap" alluded in the description of that video

lensovet wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2024 12:03 am Saw a picture recently where there's 5 of them at 30th St. So there's at least that many.

Passing Amtrak's Philadelphia 30th Street Yard on Acela
Shared today, October 31, 2024

No confirmation of date. I count 6 trainsets. The lonely trainset up in the front (north) has been parked there for many weeks without respect to whether it actually moved.

Does anyone have an idea of how the resolution of the OIG's open items is going?

What was the more interesting surprise of 2024? Alcos pulling Acelas or British HST sets in Mexico alongside Amfleets?

This was a banner year (and not necessarily in a good way) for high speed rail in North America.

Tadman wrote: ↑Fri Nov 01, 2024 10:12 am What was the more interesting surprise of 2024? Alcos pulling Acelas or British HST sets in Mexico alongside Amfleets?

This was a banner year (and not necessarily in a good way) for high speed rail in North America.

Definitely the HSTs. I'm genuinely shocked that they are still going in revenue service outside the UK, and that the expectation is that they will remain in revenue service for a while.

Regarding Mr. Livinius' Fall Chase video, looks like the Erie Limited has returned.

ERIE's passenger livery was a Dark Green carbody with a Cream window strip.

If the video were in Black and White, would be difficult to tell the difference.

TheOneKEA wrote: ↑Sat Nov 02, 2024 11:52 am

Tadman wrote: ↑Fri Nov 01, 2024 10:12 am What was the more interesting surprise of 2024? Alcos pulling Acelas or British HST sets in Mexico alongside Amfleets?

This was a banner year (and not necessarily in a good way) for high speed rail in North America.

Definitely the HSTs. I'm genuinely shocked that they are still going in revenue service outside the UK, and that the expectation is that they will remain in revenue service for a while.

You may be right about that one. I love the HST - very comfortable ride. If they werent toward the end of their design life (and they are) it would make a great design for the Detroit or Cascade trains aside from the need for high platforms.

The HST also proves a theory of mine. You don't truly need a high speed set like Acela or TGV. You need speedy looking locomotives on both ends and standard coaching stock that all matches really well, call it "its high speed!!!" and sell it at a premium. The HST just uses BR mark III coaches with some different wiring and coupling. It was a smash success for 40 years.

I seem to remember that one of the tines the Acelas were sidelined, the ever-popular AEM-7 + Amfleet combo was able to maintain the schedule pretty closely.

With a small amount of the NEC actually being over 125 mph, and numerous slow sections, maybe the best route is a bunch of new, light coaches, bookended by ACS-64s. Then focus on dumping the numerous slow section (The infamous Elizabeth curve etc), and then worrying about going faster.

Not to mention the catenary, which sucks, particularly in NJ, and the long obsolete 25Hz power.

Nasadowsk wrote: ↑Sun Nov 03, 2024 9:30 am With a small amount of the NEC actually being over 125 mph, and numerous slow sections, maybe the best route is a bunch of new, light coaches, bookended by ACS-64s. Then focus on dumping the numerous slow section (The infamous Elizabeth curve etc)

According to this crazy thing called "math", your idea works very well.

Top speed gets all the glory, while eliminating slow sections tends to speed up the schedule.

Trains not going over 125 are much cheaper to buy and maintain, and have longer lives. For example, how many high speed train sets from 1975 are still running in Europe or Japan, while the Amfleet and HST125 sets are still going.

Of course, there's no way in hell that the Elizabeth curve is ever getting fixed, since new housing was built next to it in the last 5 years.