Amtrak ACS-64 Sprinter Discussion

The only triple 6 number on Amtrak equipment today is 82666 Amfleet I coach.
Are there anyone around today refusing to ride it?

electricron wrote:The only triple 6 number on Amtrak equipment today is 82666 Amfleet I coach.
Are there anyone around today refusing to ride it?

Put me on a ship named Titanic or Edmind Fitzgerald and I'll be out there enjoying the high seas!

Jeff Smith wrote:I apologize. I know this is an ongoing problem. I have advised the site owner who is supposed to be working on the problem. I’ll let him know again. Unfortunately there's not much more I can personally do.

Jeff Smith
Site Admin

Thank you Jeff

644 was in Penn Coach Yard Tuesday morning coupled to three cafe cars and a cab car. It went out the Keystone Line for a test run shortly after 11:30.

edited to add photo links

America's Railroad Salutes our Veterans motor ACS-64 642 was on train 174 Tuesday.

So apparently 602 still doesn't like to be MU'd? She left DC under power along with leader 604 on train 84 (7), but by the time the train got to me at MET, 602 was DIT.

chuchubob wrote:America's Railroad Salutes our Veterans motor ACS-64 642 was on train 174 Tuesday.

turned for train 171 today West out of Boston...looked good!

also on a side note, test train with 644 and 3 amfleets thru East Greeenwich, RI eastbound at 3:24p. Look for the return trip to follow #2159-9 out of Boston

Anyone know if 642 will make a trip to Boston tomorrow?

Fan Railer wrote:So apparently 602 still doesn't like to be MU'd? She left DC under power along with leader 604 on train 84 (7), but by the time the train got to me at MET, 602 was DIT.

It was testing. Obviously, it didn't go to well. Not all of the units are modified to operate together. They are a work in progress.

acela2030 wrote:Anyone know if 642 will make a trip to Boston tomorrow?

It seems unlikely. If it goes to Boston, it will be late in the day since it is currently headed to NYP on a train that dies in the yard.

I don't mean to cause trouble...but I saw something really surprising this morning.
Regional 180 was being pulled by 2 ACS-64s! I thought...ok...maybe there are going to be 12 private varnish cars attached to the back for some reason. Nope. Just a standard NEC regional train.
I wasn't able to get a picture or the locomotive numbers. But...why...? Already?
Actually there could be plenty of reasons besides a reliability or power availability issue...but I thought it was funny because in the dark old pre-ACS-64 days, that more often than not meant a locomotive had had to be rescued. (and from riding the cross-honored regionals on my MARC ticket, a not extremely uncommon occurrence. The funniest incident I remember was a NB regional, 188 or 148, stopping north of Baltimore for mechanical problems. But, luckily, a Wilmington shop employee was deadheading on board. I observed all this because I was sitting in the cafe car where he was. He walked forward to try to fix it and 10 minutes later, we were moving again! That was with a HHP-8 IIRC.)

*EDIT* ok, I hadn't read this thread in a few months. I see thirdrails recent long comment for example. Worrisome that so many problems are already cropping up. But as others have said, there's still time to work out the kinks, and surely Siemens is highly motivated to do well in the US market and do whatever engineering fixes are needed to keep Amtrak happy.

not so ominous, you know a more efficient way to send locomotive from point A to B without light engine speed or extra crew ?

Actually I'm pretty sure I've seen an older Amtrak locomotive (AEM-7, probably) speeding along solo on the NEC...so, yeah, I knew it might not be a sign of a problem. That's why I said: "Actually there could be plenty of reasons besides a reliability or power availability issue". I actually hadn't mentioned that I saw - for the only the second time for me - another couple of them, coupled together around K tower this morning too! I didn't mention that because, in that case, I think they might just be moving two of them at once to Ivy City or whatnot.

Reading though the last several pages of this thread though, one could reasonably suspect that it was due to a recent problem.

(for some reason, seeing lone NS prime movers between Baltimore and the Port Road is much more likely though, almost commonplace. A couple went by Aberdeen station last month while I was waiting. I guess they are shuttling them from one yard to another.)

NS is the king of light power moves. When my office was on their main in South Bend (former Conrail/NYC Chicago line), they'd send 6+ light units sailing by (could be 15, 20 some days) and a few hours later they'd sent another light move in the opposite direction.

I'm not a railroader but seems a bit superfluous... I'm sure there was a reason.

Tadman wrote:NS is the king of light power moves. When my office was on their main in South Bend (former Conrail/NYC Chicago line), they'd send 6+ light units sailing by (could be 15, 20 some days) and a few hours later they'd sent another light move in the opposite direction.

I'm not a railroader but seems a bit superfluous... I'm sure there was a reason.

Could be engines shuffling between a yard and a servicing area?

I am still super curious about 601. If it is dead, my wondering is if they will produce another unit with same number, or make it a higher number at the tail end of the order. Sad that derailment had to happen, but at least it put Amtrak & transit infrastructure and equipment funding issues in the spotlight...

One question: will there be any other special or heritage scheme liveries? Would be kind of neat, though I'm sure it isn't likely...

Lite engines are often sent that way to move stuff at another location, and return to home base (NY KN70X crews do this out of adams) or they are sent lite because the engines in tow have defects and they do not want them on or near a train where they can be a problem. Amtrak does not want to send any shopped engines on revenue trains anymore. They must be on a shop move. Double headers you see lately are most likely the older ACS units with the mods being applied for double header operation. from the factory this feature did not work and had to be tweaked.

The reason why lite engine moves are done at a MAX of 50mph is because you cannot brake as quickly as you would with cars. There is nothing stopping the engine from getting up to track speed though, other than the engineer loosing his license for speeding. If you see a single unit moving along its most likely the YN1, or 4 heading out to rescue a train off the road. It seems as of lately there are a lot of crap outs, almost every day, with these new ACS things on the Keystone trains. Train 645 today had to stop before princeton jct, reversed to metropark and dropped off all of its passengers for another train.