New Superliners

Come on folks, an overnight replacement of Superliners isn't going to happen, it's virtually impossible to do. Just look at the slow phase introduction of new Viewliner 2s into service for confirmation. New replacement cars are going to have to be able to interface with the older cars, otherwise it will be impossible to walk the length of the train.
Trains sold as complete sets like Acela and Talgo are the exception. which might be why there's so much talk about buying entire train sets instead of individual cars. For example, the SW Chief requires 6 train sets for its daily service. Amtrak could replace a set at a time with a train with different floor heights while continuing to run Superliners on the other train sets. Instead of phasing in individual cars, they phase in whole sets. Otherwise, an entirely new design wouldn't work.

How many Superliners will be freed up when the "Brightline" (single level car replacement for NS bilevels ) are delivered?

Not many, perhaps 20? There are a few running around in California service as filler cars in between Surfliners, so that's maybe 5-10. The Pere Marquette uses them fairly often, so that's 3-4, but the PM usually runs on whatever is laying around. To my knowledge that 3-4 cars may be literally something taken off the back of an LD train, who knows. For a while one of the Cascade sets to Vancouver was running with 3-4 Superliners on account of Talgo shortages, so those likely won't be freed up when the Siemens cars arrive.

Over all, it's not a big number and only coaches to my knowledge.

keep in mind the superliners are at least 10 years younger than the Amfleets .
which probably need to be replaced first, and with lack of capital funding, I doubt we even get to superliners in next decade .

electricron wrote:Come on folks, an overnight replacement of Superliners isn't going to happen, it's virtually impossible to do. Just look at the slow phase introduction of new Viewliner 2s into service for confirmation.

Bombardier's Superliner II order went much more smoothly as I recall. Maybe the difference was sticking with the original design without too many modifications.

Add Stadler to the list of builders offering bilevels (in addition to double-levels): https://www.progressiverailroading.com/ ... eet--54769" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

DutchRailnut wrote:keep in mind the superliners are at least 10 years younger than the Amfleets .

First Amfleet delivery 1975. First Superliner delivery 1978. Both according to Wikipedia. Three years does not make them "at least 10 years younger".

USRailFan wrote:

DutchRailnut wrote:keep in mind the superliners are at least 10 years younger than the Amfleets .

First Amfleet delivery 1975. First Superliner delivery 1978. Both according to Wikipedia. Three years does not make them "at least 10 years younger".

Superliner IIs however are of early 1990s vintage.

USRailFan wrote:

DutchRailnut wrote:keep in mind the superliners are at least 10 years younger than the Amfleets .

First Amfleet delivery 1975. First Superliner delivery 1978. Both according to Wikipedia. Three years does not make them "at least 10 years younger".

More important than age is mileage. Despite being about six years younger (1981 introduction vs 1975), the long-distance Amfleet IIs had an average of 5.6 million miles on them vs 4.1 million miles for the Amfleet Is, and that was in 2012. The Superliner Is have been mostly in long-distance service since 1979 and probably have even more mileage on them then the A-IIs.

Amfleet 1s may do a WAS-BOS daytrips and rest over night while Superliners and Amfleet IIs are running during the night and day and resting for 12 hours when they get to their end points. Some serious mileage, vibrations and wear and tear on the body,trucks, and HVAC components. And in all types of weather that we rather sleep through. Budd and Pullman did an incredible job on these two products, their best effort by far. And before someone mentions about a 60 year old Canadian consist, put that bad boy on the SWC route for a year and see how it holds up.

Whatever replaces the Superliner and Amfleet will have a legacy to live up too.

Budd and Pullman-Standard (and Bombardier after them) did amazing work on both the Amfleets and the Superliners. The problem is, the next builder shouldn’t have to build cars that stay on the rails for 60 years and 6 million miles. For our personal vehicles, sure, we would like them to last for decades - I’ve put well over 200k on a pair of Jeeps, and am over 150k on a Ford sedan - but most people with means start looking for something else when that magic 10 year, 100,000 mile boundary gets crossed.

If Amtrak can spend half the amount on about the same amount of cars (built from aluminum and carbon steel for instance) but twice as often, I think it would be a much stronger position both for its own fleet and the American rail car industry.

I agree with your reasoning but problem for Amtrak is a 30 year car is one price.
two 15 year cars may be cheap now but what will price be once second half of order is placed after 15 years, and what will political climate be ??

According to a poster who has a good track record of being right on another Amtrak forum has learned Anderson is looking at standardizing Amtrak around a single level design. A new design.

MBTA for example has been going in the opposite directions with (high platform) bilevels due to single-levels exceeding length of available platforms. Amtrak stops usually have longer platforms, but still...

Going off of anecdotal evidence, Amtrak has many stops with such short platforms that they require double stops as it is with Superliners. I don’t know the numbers, but the Capitol Limited or Texas Eagle has quite a few (can’t recall which).