Is Fluting Dead?

Amtrak's Viewliners are maybe the last modern passenger car with fluting. Is fluting even necessary anymore? Is it only an aesthetic consideration? Would Amtrak order new Siemen's Venture coaches with fluting to match the Viewliners? Just curious if anyone has any ideas on this.

Fluting does contributes to the overall strength of the outer wall, but I doubt they'd add it after passing the crush tests.

UP operated a mix of smooth and fluted cars which wasn't too distracting. I think they still have at least one in the business car fleet (UPP 202 Willie James which started out as Pacific Domain).

While most Budds had signature fluting, some did not: CTA 2600s are the most apparent. And the M-1/M-3 only had two fluting lines where the blue paint stripe would be. NYCT's R68/R68A and the Market-Frankford M4 may be the last rail transit cars with fluted sheetmetal, along with the CTA 3200s (ironically returning to fluting after
smooth stainless on the 2400/2600 series).

Believe BNSF Topeka Biz Car shop has it's own Fluting Machine.

All of the Nippon Sharyo gallery cars have fluting. (Their DMU does not.) I don’t believe the Chinese multilevel being built for Philly has fluting.

mtuandrew wrote: ↑Wed Sep 02, 2020 7:56 am All of the Nippon Sharyo gallery cars have fluting.

Too bad they didn't use a bunch of it on the bi-level

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe their predecessors, that being the Surfliner Cab and the California Cab, had fluting on their side as well, along with the superliners.

Most smooth sided coaches have wavy appearances as every small dent or bump is easily seen. Fluting hides or masks the waves, but not the dents. Coaches with fluting keep their new appearance longer than smooth sides, imho.

Some interesting discussion here on American rail car fluting from Australia of all places:

https://www.railpage.com.au/f-p1325892.htm

Backshophoss wrote: ↑Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:49 pm Believe BNSF Topeka Biz Car shop has it's own Fluting Machine.

Likely the case as I have observed a former NP Diner included in the consist of BNSF Executrains passing here.

Composite panels would take over any strength advantage of fluting. visually, I would say fluting is considered old fashioned.
Almost all long distance stock in Australia in the late sixties / seventies , was the Budd design manufactured under licence. .

David Benton wrote: ↑Mon Sep 07, 2020 4:54 pm Almost all long distance stock in Australia in the late sixties / seventies was the Budd design
manufactured under licence.

And the Silverliner/Arrow MUs built under Budd license by AVCO and Canadian Vickers with GE assembly used the
fluted stainless to great effect in same period.

All St. Louis stainless cars built between 1966 and 1973 (NYCT R38/R40/R42/R44, Silverliner III and Arrow I/
MP85E6) have fluting, though minimal on the R44s.

My impression is that fluting is pretty much a US and US export thing. Can’t think of many European examples, there were the French Mistral Inox (stainless steel) coaches. https://retours.eu/en/54-inox-grand-confort/
The Danish IC3 (as trialed by Amtrak) has very shallow fluting

talltim wrote: ↑Tue Sep 08, 2020 6:41 pm My impression is that fluting is pretty much a US and US export thing. Can’t think of many European examples, there were the French Mistral Inox (stainless steel) coaches. https://retours.eu/en/54-inox-grand-confort/
The Danish IC3 (as trialed by Amtrak) has very shallow fluting

The X2000 from Sweden had fluting to the point it looked right at home during it's north american tour.

Portugal (CP) had some cars in it's fleet listed on the Railfan Europe site as being Budd cars -
http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/pt/car ... dd_011.jpg
http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/pt/car ... dd_014.jpg
http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/pt/car/Budd/LEIRIA.jpg

Some of these CP cars ended up in Argentina.

In the UK I believe Budd built one car as an attempt to enter the UK railcar market. Unfortunately I can't seem to find anything on Google at this time. I believe the car was scrapped after being trialed in Ireland.