by Wdobner
Nasadowsk wrote:Actually, didn't the Astride series have a pretty bad record over in .eu. IIRC, the HHP-8s were the first from that series to actually hit real service. Could be wrong though.I believe you're right. The French only ordered some 234 Sybics in the late 1980s, and only ordered 60 some Astride locos (which I believe were derived from the Sybic). Now Alstom has the Prima line of modular electric locomotives to go up against the Bombardier Traxx and Siemens Eurosprinter locomotives, but so far their sales have been pretty lackluster outside France. I know there was some sort of fight between SNCF and Alsthom over the Sybics, but I'm not sure what the details were. From what I've heard the HHP-8 was basically a Sybic with a dual tap transformer and no DC capability (never quite understood why the French needed one loco with 1500vdc/25kv capability and another with 1500vdc/3000vdc and 25kv capability) and a beefed up frame for the FRA. These days it looks like the the vast majority of Sybics in France are working for SNCF Fret hauling goods trains, while a few are hauling night trains, and even fewer are actually doing daytime semi-express regional runs of the type the HHP-8 was supposed to do for Amtrak. I have to wonder what happened to the Sybics in the early 1990s, since SNCF seems to have ordered them with the same role in mind for them as Amtrak ordered the HHP-8s, that of hauling express trains which did not warrant TGVs or Acelas being assigned to them. Now the Sybics are largely hauling freight, SNCF has blown tons of money buying EMUs which seem to do the same thing the Sybics would have done, and our HHP-8s are having problems.
DutchRailnut wrote:Hmm maybe problem is not on french side of locomotive. Could it be that its the Amtrak Maintenance ?? Maybe the lacks attitude of workers.I dunno how EMD and GE manage to turn out decent locomotives then (excepting of course the utter trash that comes out of Super Steal Schenectady). And it's not like Boeing is exactly rolling over in the face of the subsidized Airbus competition. Having talked with Amtrak folks and seen some of their maitenance efforts I would say it's highly unlikely those folks are to blame for the HHP-8s problems. The AEM7s and rebuilt AEM7ACs offer both a whole series of both high and low tech problems for the crews to fix and they seem to have little problem tackling and solving them. When it comes to the HHP-8s the damn things just seem to thwart the maitenance crews at nearly every turn. I've sat and watched a crew at 30th St Station try to reset an HHP-8 which apparantly refused to give HEP power for some reason. The ordeal went on for almost two hours even with Bombardier techs standing by trying to lend assistance. They finally gave up and hauled out an E60CH for the Keystone the HHP-8 had been slated to run.
How bout any Concrete in this country, four components mixed at right amounts but it won't last but a few years ?? there are German bunkers still standing in Europe with no wear but here Cenment fails after 8 years ??? from rainwater.I dunno about you, but I see few buildings in danger of falling over. From the 1950s onward reinforced concrete has been the rule rather than the exception in building materials, yet we're in no real danger of anything collapsing due to poor construction. If you're refering to our highways, then yes, they were stupidly built for 20 year lifetimes with thinner materials than used in Europe (particularly the Autobahn) because the roadbuilders would rather have an extensive highway network than a high quality highway network and knew they could count on government funding for a good long while. Roads which forbid heavy weight commercial vehicles are generally in better shape than interstate highways because passenger cars do very little damage to roads, but those roads are in the vast minority.
Nasadowsk wrote:Heh. IMHO, the Space Shuttle needs to be flown into a museum and left there. I still don't get the point of making something that spends the bulk of it's flying time outside the atmosphere look like an airplane. Ok, other than the biggest whine of Mercury/Gemini/Apollo astronauts was 'it doesn't have wings!!! Wahhhhhhhhhh'. IMHO, history will look at the Shuttle like automobiles styled like horse buggies - an example of people molding a new technology into a shape they can recognize. Sure a 'capsule' looks weird, sure it works weird.At the risk of further derailing this thread, I would argue the same thing about the proposed Space Shuttle replacement, the Crewwed Exploration Vehicle, which is bound to be a capsule of some sort launched on an expendible rocket. To me it represents a retreat from the technological cutting edge at the expense of cost per point to LEO. Capsules are insanely wasteful, not only are you throwing away a very complex piece of machinery every launch, but you're burning very expensive liquid oxygen in an environment which is 22% oxygen. Vertical launches to orbit attempt to shove a payload to supersonic speeds while still very low in the thick atmosphere and as such will never be as efficient as a horizontal take off and landing single stage to orbit vehicle. NASA has finally proven that they can not only make a Scramjet develop a meaningful thrust, but that it can be controlled and used to power a vehicle, in their case the X-43A HyperX testbed which last November reached Mach 10. With the advent of this technology there is no reason we cannot have what the space shuttle originally promised but never delivered, a cheap, efficient way into low earth orbit from an airport requiring nothing more than a small liquid oxygen facility. A few aerial refuelings and you could set whatever SSTO spaceplane resulted from the X-43 program (presumably called the X-30 NASP) on the equator and launch payloads into GEO for a fraction what Ariane costs today. But I digress, I'd be happy to continue this discussion on Subchat's OT board or somewhere else if anyone cares to pursue it.[/url]
