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

The Siemens design looks like an DB/NS ICE international (also known as Siemens Velaro)

My one in-person glimpse of an Acela II was at 30th Street Station as my train was pulling in; the Acela II was parked in the yard.

I did not find it attractive; it seemed like a Talgo that had gotten punched in the nose.

bostontrainguy wrote: ↑Sun Apr 12, 2020 10:30 am
If you look at earlier renderings and models there was a fairing attached to the side of the power cars to help with the transition. I wish someone cared more about aesthetics and authorized that fairing and I assume it could still be done.

With Alstom being one of the premiere world class manufacturers of high speed trains, you'd think they'd want get the details right as a matter of pride. I suspect this has Amtrak cost cutting written all over it.

I'm also not sold on the bright colors both inside and outside of the trains. Seems more nursery school than upscale business transport, and sort of a return to Amtrak's 1970s love of orange and other garish colors. But I guess I'll have to see it in person before I can have a strong opinion.

This video has the best trackside angle and lighting I have seen so far. They arrive in the shot at 8:52. Keep in mind on aesthetics that every photo so far has been taken with the "benefit" of a P42 and a Viewliner in the way.

Great find on the Acela video! Thanks.

The Acela II is ugly. Its power car looks like a duck with a broken beak.

There's a M-8 style coupler and a "cheater" knukle installed on both ends,nose shields are likely in the 1st car.
The orange plastic is covering the vents for shipping

I did some quick back-of-the-envelope (literally) figuring for what it's worth:

Acela 1
304 passengers
11 restrooms (2 per coach plus 1 in cafe)
Bathrooms per passenger: 0.036

Acela II
410 passengers (304+35%)
8-9 bathrooms - (one per coach - don't know if the cafe has one)
Bathrooms per passenger: 0.019-0.021

An increase in passenger capacity of 35% with a reduction in bathrooms by almost 50% pp.

I never found the bathrooms to have problems with availability onboard. Perhaps that was because the ratios were balanced but I was riding on sold out trains on several occasions. I think the ratios will still work fine. I think there could be some interesting questions to ask about platform capacity. Penn Station for example is already quite crowded with the current trainsets. I can't imagine what it might be like with the new ones. Even with the crowd management procedures already in place you're talking about substantially increasing the number of passengers running through what is already a very crowded station.

Yes platforms at NYP are narrow and overcrowded. Probably platform needs more escalators but where to terminate them at station level ? Incredibly expensive ?

Am I the only one who finds the Acela IIs- and particularly the “beaks” on the power cars- astonishingly ugly?

SouthernRailway wrote: ↑Fri Apr 17, 2020 5:34 am Am I the only one who finds the Acela IIs- and particularly the “beaks” on the power cars- astonishingly ugly?

My wife saw it and said it looks like a grey dildo. I think it would look much better without that grey downward swoop on the nose.

SouthernRailway wrote: ↑Fri Apr 17, 2020 5:34 am Am I the only one who finds the Acela IIs- and particularly the “beaks” on the power cars- astonishingly ugly?

They seem to resemble the beaks on the Shinkansen which do have a function. As trains enter a tunnel at high speed, it reduces a shockwave and accompanying sonic irritation to nearby communities. Something like that. But let's be honest, how many tunnels are on NEC and are any of them entered at 150+?

I've tried to give the new trains some space to grow visually, but there is no denying they're ugly ducklings. At this point there's not much we can change.

I wonder who at Amtrak approved the exterior designs.

The whole train is ugly, but the power cars and their beaks are the ugliest.

Hopefully it's a sign that they are sticking with the factory design and not making too many changes.

Did you guys know that there is a new topic under General Discussion for a contest for the ugliest train? You can submit the Avelia Liberty there and it might win! XD