Amtrak & Bombardier settle out of Court

http://www.railwayage.com/breaking_news.shtml

Amtrak, Bombardier/Alstom settle dispute

Amtrak and the consortium of Bombardier/Alstom have reached an out-of-court settlement of their legal dispute involving the $1.2 billion procurement of 20 Acela Express high speed trainsets and 15 HHP8 electric locomotives for the Northeast Corridor.

Under the terms of the settlement, both parties will drop all claims. Amtrak will pay up to $42.5 million of $70 million in payments it has withheld from the consortium. A 10-year maintenance contract entered into last year with Northeast Corridor Maintenance Service Company (NECMSC) for the trainsets will be terminated in October 2006 instead of 2013, with Amtrak assuming all responsibility for maintenance at that time.

In November 2001, Bombardier filed a lawsuit against Amtrak in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking damages. Amtrak promptly countersued, seeking its own damages. The settlement, said Amtrak President and CEO David Gunn, is a better outcome than "continuing to spend unnecessary time and money on costly and attention-diverting litigation." He said that efforts now will instead be focused "on improving the performance of Acela Express and delivering the best service we know how for the passengers who enjoy and depend on it."

Bombardier President and CEO Paul Tellier said the consortium is satisfied with the out-of-court settlement and "will respect Amtrak’s strategy to provide maintenance services and will take the necessary steps to ensure a seamless transition between now and October 2006." NECMSC will continue to provide parts and technical advice to Amtrak’s mechanical department during the transition period.

The Acela Express program has been trouble-plagued since shortly after its inception in 1996, when Amtrak awarded the Bombardier/Alstom consortium a performance-based contract for the equipment and its operation and maintenance, which included construction of three specialized maintenance facilities in Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C. First, there was the discovery that the carbodies were slightly wider than specifications called for, limiting the degree of tilting the trainsets could accomplish through some curves. This was followed by discovery during testing of excessive truck hunting and wheel wear. Resolution of that issue postponed revenue service for several months. Then, shortly after the first trainsets were placed into service in December 2000, cracks were discovered on locomotive yaw-damper brackets, which caused the entire fleet to be pulled from service for further modifications. There were numerous other small but annoying technical glitches—locomotive roof shrouds that broke off during operation, door problems, etc. ("Crapper doors that don’t work," David Gunn quipped at one point.) Blame flew back and forth, with the consortium at one point alleging that Amtrak had provided inaccurate data regarding the Northeast Corridor infrastructure’s ability to handle high speed equipment designed to operate at speeds up to 150 mph.

Amtrak’s customers, though, didn’t seem to notice.

All the technical glitches have been addressed, and the Acela Express service continues to grow in popularity. Thirteen daily roundtrips are now in service between New York and Washington, D.C.; 10 between New York and Boston. More than six million passengers have used the service since its introduction.


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Here's some good news for fans of Don Phillips, the Trains columnist late of the Washington Post. Looks like Don's got himself a new ride, at the International Herald Tribune.

http://www.iht.com/articles/510812.html

I think the following statement from Mr. Phillips' article is a little misleading:

"The Acela trains, which run between Boston, New York and Washington, are essentially an attempt to combine French TGV technology with the existing U.S. rail system, which was designed primarily for freight service and has far more sharp curves than European high-speed systems."


I think the Northeast Corridor was, from the beginning, primarily a passenger railroad, and certainly today more closely resembles a European high speed line than it does a typical American freight railroad. The NEC is grade separated (with the exception of a few remaining grade crossings in eastern Connecticut), fully electrified, and has an advanced signaling/traffic control system designed specifically for high speed passenger operations. Curves are still quite numerous, especially on the shore line east of New Haven, but the tracks are superelevated for passenger train speeds. Most track on the NEC is well maintained, typically with 136 lb rail on concrete ties.

So, it's not as if the Acela was an attempt to take TGV technology and apply it to your average CSX freight line!

I am glad to see Don Phillips has a new home! He's definitely one of the most knowledgeable people out there when it comes to rail topics.

Actualy yes the Acela is built based on freight requirement. AAR sets one standard with FRA, and since freight does enter the NEC it is not treated as a seperate entity.
as far as comparing freight here and in europe the average freight car in europe is max 80 tons and travels at 120 km/h in shorter consists of about 20 > 30 cars. on 90 percent signaled track with ATC.
here Acela on its journey has to deal with one train of 50 x 125 ton and 3 GE's.
If the coridor could be seperated from any other rail traffic it could go with Euro standards but were would that leave every commuter agency on east coast.

Point taken...I guess as long as any heavy freight operates on the NEC, it will influence passenger train design.

Reading Don Phillips' article, it looks like Amtrak got beat. They got to keep $37 million in payments they withheld, BUT Amtrak is letting Bombardier out of its Acela maintenance responsibilites 7 years early. I wish I knew the whole story.

Perhaps this is part of it:

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/sto ... /Business/

A 10-year commitment doesn't mean much if Bombardier leaves the business in 2007. Today it's bye bye Barre--and the bond rating companies didn't like the news. Stock price went down, too. It's not just Amtrak managers that worry about Bombardier's future beyond 2007. Since the yaw-damper bracket problems revealed Bombardier's incompetence, there has been a leadership change and three separate waves of "restructuring." The Acela problems were the trigger. So no, I would not suggest that Bombardier skated.

Funny the FRA regulations..especially considering the signalling system. In Europe, greater emphasis is placed on making sure that trains just don't hit each other, with advanced signalling. I heard some German lines have glorified streetcars, freight trains and the quickest non-ICE trains sharing the same tracks, without accidents. Just require that the freight trains have the proper signalling equipment, why don't they?

Oh, I forgot, that would require THINKING. And it would go against the norm here that "bigger is better", and the ultimate goal....in the future, "Tier-XXX" will ensure that the NEC has Armoured Personnel Carriers and de-cannoned tanks with pantographs installed.

~Ra'akone

Just to be clear, the bond rating companies were reacting to Bombardier's announced restructuring, not the settlement with Amtrak.

On the other hand, The Wall Street Journal did report that Bombardier will take a C$139 million charge related to the settlement. Figure comes from the print version (page 13A of the midwest edition), not available online.

The Globe & Mail story puts the restructuring charge at C$770 million. By comparison, the Amtrak settlement would hardly be considered material.

Sorry I'm a bit late. On the subject of Don Phillips, it might be that he still has a godfather or two at the Washington Post. If I remember correctly, the IHT is a joint venture of the WP and NYT. A significant number of the IHT articles and editorials are attributed to their originals in the two papers.

From the Montreal Gazette:
http://www.canada.com/montreal/montreal ... 3C7EEE4029

Bombardier spokesperson Dominique Dionne said Paul Tellier "sat down with (Amtrak president) David Gunn, (a former head of the Toronto Transit Commission whom Tellier called 'a good Canadian'), to put that issue behind them."

Tellier said "we decided that fighting one another in court was not the way to settle the issue."

"It would have taken a great deal of time and money to resolve the issue," Dionne added.