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Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.

Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, mtuandrew, Tadman

 #1541548  by bdawe
 
bostontrainguy wrote: Mon May 04, 2020 8:29 am
eolesen wrote: Sun May 03, 2020 1:36 pmThe rest of the world seems to make do with single level cars for long distance.
Trend is to go bi-level where possible. It just makes economic sense.Avelia_Horizon.jpg.
Is it? They do bilevels on the Paris-Lyone High Speed Line because it's the busiest in the world or close, but they do eat into dwell times and accessibility
 #1541549  by Tadman
 
bdawe wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 6:18 pm
eolesen wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 5:47 pm Agree. LD’s simply don’t see the loads to justify the extra weight and drag of bi-levels, and having one fleet for the system opens up new options for thru-fleeting that aren’t possible to NYC today.
I don't think the bilevels are extra weight and drag per passenger mile than the single levels?
Agree. Drag is only an issue where a face is presented to the wind, IE the first car.

As for weight, you have a slight disadvantage - The super coach is 150k and the A2 is about 110k, while passengers are 77 versus 59.

But here's the big equalizer - operating and maintenance costs. It costs big money to maintain a railcar, and inspect it regularly. If you get 30% more passengers aboard, but have the same costs to keep the HVAC running, wheels turning, lights on, couplers intact, etc... you have a huge financial win. Recently VIA awarded Siemens a $23m/year contract for their new cars to be maintained, and that's just spares and some technicians to be stationed at the shops. It's not full service. $23m/year. That means the real cost to keep a corridor fleet going is something like $30-50m/ year. Now if you can cut car count by 20-30% does that cut $10m-15m off the operating expenses? That's a big number!


There is just no way that a single-level car is more cost effective than a bilevel.
eolesen wrote: Sun May 03, 2020 1:36 pm The rest of the world seems to make do with single level cars for long distance.
Many countries are constrained by height limitations. Great Britain built many railways around the world to clearances smaller than the BMT, so for example the UK, Argentina, and Australia can't have very tall trains. It's a bit odd seeing broad gauge trains in former British Colonial areas running with shorty equipment.

Other countries are moving toward double deck, including China, Russia, Japan, France, and Finland. Due to clearances, the French, Japanese, and Finnish stock is "smooshed" but China and Russia have very tall double deck coaches now.
eolesen wrote: Sun May 03, 2020 1:36 pm Yes, some trains might need an extra car or two. Today, you have huge layovers for the bilevels by nature of scheduling. I think that balances out if a trainset arriving from New York can flow into an Empire Builder or Zephyr.
I'm not sure I like this. They tried having the Caplitol Limited and Chief being interlined like that, and it didn't work so well. It's hard to turn equipment and clean it properly when the equipment arrives so late.

Perhaps if the trackage rights payments were market rate that wouldn't be a problem.
 #1541555  by Tadman
 
That's RZD, the Russian railways. They buy some stuff from Siemens, and also have their own works like Transmash. I believe the bilevels are for service to the south like Sochi, and were Transmash products.
 #1541566  by eolesen
 
Operational costs for inspections and hardware are only an equalizer if loads exceed the capacity of the single level car on a majority of operations. We know that rarely happens on LD and corridor trains.

If anything, you’re increasing cost with a bilevel because all that extra seating/space requires cleaning on every turn regardless if it’s occupied or not.

You also require heavier air handling equipment, more lighting, more seats, all of which also require inspections and repairs.

Breaking it down into unit times, you can probably clean and/or inspect 4 single level cars in the same time you can do 3 bilevels.

The only thing truly equal on a per car basis are the braking, coupler and exterior inspections.
 #1541574  by Tadman
 
eolesen wrote: Mon May 04, 2020 10:16 am Operational costs for inspections and hardware are only an equalizer if loads exceed the capacity of the single level car on a majority of operations. We know that rarely happens on LD and corridor trains.

If anything, you’re increasing cost with a bilevel because all that extra seating/space requires cleaning on every turn regardless if it’s occupied or not.

You also require heavier air handling equipment, more lighting, more seats, all of which also require inspections and repairs.

Breaking it down into unit times, you can probably clean and/or inspect 4 single level cars in the same time you can do 3 bilevels.

The only thing truly equal on a per car basis are the braking, coupler and exterior inspections.
I'm not sure what you're getting at. The ridership of any route is represented by X. X fits into 4 Amfleet or 3 Superliner. X fits into 8 Amfleet or 6 Superliner. X fits into 25% less bilevel cars than single level.

The seats don't require nearly the inspections that the mechanical and draft equipment needs. You have an air conditioner. You can have a window unit to cool a small cabin, or you can have a larger unit to cool an entire house. It's a bigger compressor and motor, but you're still looking at the same stuff.

If this math didn't add up, you wouldn't see railroads going to the expense of bilevel equipment. But virtually every US railroad that doesn't go into Manhattan has converted all or most of its trains to bilevel.
 #1541578  by eolesen
 
Yeah apples and oranges for what commuter agencies pick, Tad. They actually fill up their trains (some to standing room only) on a regular basis. Amtrak doesn’t.

It’s time to stop picking equipment meant for 85% load factors in a 45% load factor world (and that was pre-COVID).
 #1541599  by bdawe
 
eolesen wrote: Mon May 04, 2020 12:06 pm Yeah apples and oranges for what commuter agencies pick, Tad. They actually fill up their trains (some to standing room only) on a regular basis. Amtrak doesn’t.

It’s time to stop picking equipment meant for 85% load factors in a 45% load factor world (and that was pre-COVID).
I kinda get the impression that you mostly think Amtrak's western LDs are just too long? I mean, quibble with their business decisions and all, but they could just run fewer cars if that was the operational problem
 #1541603  by Alphaboi
 
bostontrainguy wrote:
mtuandrew wrote: Mon May 04, 2020 9:06 am btg: what’s the second one? It looks like a knockoff Bombardier Multilevel.
Here's some info:

https://www.russianrail.com/train-double-decker.html
That looks pretty cool. If one could buy a berth in a shared compartment it would really bring down the cost of a sleeper (like in Europe &Asia), but I don't think that would be popular with most Americans. It's great for families & groups, but Amtrak would still need to go with mostly private sleeper accommodation.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

 #1541626  by Tadman
 
eolesen wrote: Mon May 04, 2020 12:06 pm Yeah apples and oranges for what commuter agencies pick, Tad. They actually fill up their trains (some to standing room only) on a regular basis. Amtrak doesn’t.

It’s time to stop picking equipment meant for 85% load factors in a 45% load factor world (and that was pre-COVID).
But how does load factor affect this? It goes back to the tickets sold are "X". Assemble a consist of bilevels that is just enough to hold "X". It's less cost than a consist of single levels that can hold "X".
 #1541630  by Matt Johnson
 
The Pacific Surfliner coaches were built by Alstom in Hornell in the late 90s, and are designed for 125 mph operation even though they're unlikely to ever see that speed in service. I'm not sure why Amtrak decided to reinvent the wheel with the ill-fated Sumitomo design, but I'm curious as to who owns the design for that most recent iteration of the Superliner design that actually made it into service.

I became a fan of the Superliners after traveling aboard the Capitol Ltd, Southwest Chief, Coast Starlight, and Empire Builder in 2013. Certainly low level is the rule in Superliner territory, and any switch to single level equipment would lead to the boarding complications of using traps, though that obviously didn't stop Siemens from replacing the most recent bilevel order with single level equipment.
 #1541634  by bdawe
 
are the traps that much more complicated/higher dwell than the stepstools that the staff have to put to board superliners?
 #1541664  by eolesen
 
bdawe wrote: Mon May 04, 2020 2:19 pm I kinda get the impression that you mostly think Amtrak's western LDs are just too long? I mean, quibble with their business decisions and all, but they could just run fewer cars if that was the operational problem
No, I just don't see what the love affair is with bi-levels for long distance. Seems more efficient to stick with a proven design that works for all missions.
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