by SouthernRailway
There is an Acela II parked at Philadelphia 30th Street Station today. It’s on the NYC side, in the yard.
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andegold wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 4:52 pm I think it's more of a "you" being most people here other than me. Commuter rail has been 50/50 for 50 years or more. Sure, some, maybe even many, people complain about it. But you know what they complain about more? Uncomfortable seats with no heat or air conditioning and a late train. As has been mentioned even airlines are going to 50/50 in business and soon in coach as well. I spent 14 hours facing backwards in the air last summer. Most pleasant flight of my life. Sleepers are 50/50. perpendicular compartments are 50/50. Get over yourselves. it's not an issue.It is for some people and there is a difference between a commuter train, the Surfliners a plane and a train moving at speeds 160mph over an infrastructure built in the late 1800s/early 1900s. This is particularly true when people have a choice of transportation products.
SouthernRailway wrote: ↑Sat Apr 04, 2020 2:47 pm There is an Acela II parked at Philadelphia 30th Street Station today. It’s on the NYC side, in the yard.Indeed. It's actually been there for several days, I believe about a week. Yard workers appear to have moved it so it's more visible now. IIRC, that is the "second" set... that was supposed to go for testing on the NEC. They're also parking the Acela "1"s all over--they had a set over on 1-track @ 30th in-terminal for several days and several other sets scattered about last week. Didn't see it last time I was by though. Not sure if they're still doing that but I've seen them do this before when they've sidelined the Acela fleet over the years due to wheel cracking and other stuff, mostly using the coach yard for Acela storage. I'm guessing the yards don't have combined capacity to support all the parked equipment, though I was surprised to see the both new and old variants of the Acela fleet parked at 30th. I'm not sure if they're still testing the Acela with everything going on right now (at least on the NEC).
AC4619 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 04, 2020 9:17 pmOh well, some more "easels" for the "students of the Philadelphia Museum of Art".SouthernRailway wrote: ↑Sat Apr 04, 2020 2:47 pm There is an Acela II parked at Philadelphia 30th Street Station today. It’s on the NYC side, in the yard.Indeed. It's actually been there for several days, I believe about a week. Yard workers appear to have moved it so it's more visible now.
ThirdRail7 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 04, 2020 7:48 pmThis is an important question - "What is facing forward?"
Even at 125mph, a lot of people do the "Keystone Shuffle" in Philadelphia. They ride forward and once the train unloads at PHL, they switch seats to face forward over the next segment.
ThirdRail7 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2020 12:17 pm My problem is the NEC. It isn't smooth by any stretch of the imagination. It has gotten better but it is still rough around the edges. Additionally, the NEC has a lot of traffic congestion. This train isn't going to just cruise along, unimpeded. That means quite a bit of braking, at high speeds. The train will need a superior braking system to smooth out the speed reductions and the infrastructure to make it comfortable for people sitting in two different directions.Your post made me think of something. I never get nauseous on a roller coaster. The motion which certainly can be rough just doesn't cause me to become queasy. That is until I recently rode the Expedition Everest at Disney World. That coaster stops midway through the ride and then goes backwards for a short stretch. And yup my stomach was seriously upset for quite a while afterwards. The NEC isn't as bad as Everest but it certainly will affect some people.
Matt Johnson wrote: ↑Sat Apr 11, 2020 4:43 pm I kind of feel like the original sleek concept vs the final kludge design was sort of a bait and switch. Can we get the original design back? Seriously, I wonder if there's any technical reason that the locomotives are completely slab sided.If you look at earlier renderings and models there was a fairing attached to the side of the power cars to help with the transition. I wish someone cared more about aesthetics and authorized that fairing and I assume it could still be done.