He said Viewliner2, she said Viewliner2

Another rail forum has cited an editorial of Railpace magazine's Tom Nemeth, of what's called a "Viewliner Fiasco", replete with claims of shoddy workmanship without solutions, disinterest in Amtrak management, and the obvious undisputed fact that these cars have missed the lucrative Summer travel season of 2014.

Please debate, elaborate, congratulate, but don't obfuscate, please.

Wild opinions drive pageviews and clicks generate ad revenue.

And there's no shortage of bitter foamers longing for a bygone era that eat that stuff up.

The important thing is that the cars are rolling out now, and we'll see how testing goes. Facts speak louder than rumors and innuendo.

NE933 said:

Another rail forum has cited an editorial of Railpace magazine's Tom Nemeth, of what's called a "Viewliner Fiasco", replete with claims of shoddy workmanship without solutions, disinterest in Amtrak management, and the obvious undisputed fact that these cars have missed the lucrative Summer travel season of 2014.

Please debate, elaborate, congratulate, but don't obfuscate, please.

Click to expand...

Tom Nemeth is known to get somewhat shrill from time to time. Besides it is hard to debate a second hand report of a second hand report with no access to original anything. :help:
My only take on this so far is, if he was really interested in information, he should have first gone for an FOIA instead of throwing a royal tantrum. But wait, that'd take too much time and would not be conducive to selling more magazines either.

Sounds like my fellow grumps @ train orders are at it again!

Most of us are thrilled that the new cars and engines are rolling out of the factories and under going testing!

Who will be the first AUer to get to ride on an in service Viewliner II?

My money is on a trinity of Anthony, Alan and Bill, Win, Place and Show!

jimhudson said:

Sounds like my fellow grumps @ train orders are at it again!

Most of us are thrilled that the new cars and engines are rolling out of the factories and under going testing!

Who will be the first AUer to get to ride on an in service Viewliner II?

My money is on a trinity of Anthony, Alan and Bill, Win, Place and Show!

Click to expand...

You Amtrak cheering section .... you!
I vote for Penny

I have learned something in my many years of mechanical knowledge of Cars. And that is that we won't know for sure how good or bad the Viewliners are for at least 5-10 years. When they first roll out there will probably be significant teething problems.

That does not mean there is something bad. Did you know that for the W124 Mercedes-Benz E-class Mercedes built over a thousand prototypes and pilot production cars before they went into shakedown production (slow with extra careful inspection) and finally spooled it up after the first six months? And still had teething problems? To this day, however, it is still in the top ten best cars ever built in terms of quality and durability.

CAF gets no prototypes. All cars will be production line cars. Teething problems will happen. And even if they don't, that's no proof that there aren't major structural issues that will rear there heads later on.

The last two major Amtrak car orders were disasters. I assume Amtrak will only accept them if they are at specs. Beyond that, nobody has any info to write such an article. Nor will they for years to come.

You provide the pictures, I'll provide the war.

jis said:

jimhudson said:

Sounds like my fellow grumps @ train orders are at it again!

Most of us are thrilled that the new cars and engines are rolling out of the factories and under going testing!

Who will be the first AUer to get to ride on an in service Viewliner II?

My money is on a trinity of Anthony, Alan and Bill, Win, Place and Show!

Click to expand...

You Amtrak cheering section .... you!
I vote for Penny

Click to expand...

Thanks Jis!! I vote for you.

I vote for myself. I hope all of you are there too.

jis said:

Tom Nemeth is known to get somewhat shrill from time to time. Besides it is hard to debate a second hand report of a second hand report with no access to original anything. :help:

My only take on this so far is, if he was really interested in information, he should have first gone for an FOIA instead of throwing a royal tantrum. But wait, that'd take too much time and would not be conducive to selling more magazines either.

Click to expand...

He could also wait for the Amtrak Inspector General report on the Viewliner 2 program. The OIG website posted that they would be conducting an audit of the CAF contract in early April. OIG report may not dive into all the technical aspects on the construction quality and build, but should provide a independent assessment and overview of the reasons for the delay and issues with program management.

I'm still trying to figure out what the title to this thread means.

That's a fool's errand.

The title refers to the role of hearsay in all news Viewliner2 project; hearsay is a mainly legal term for its signature way information is disseminated: in this case, a TrainOrder posting's reference to an editorial in Railpace pokes well deserved stabs at the lack of transparency in the progress of the Viewliner2's at CAF. Loud silence everywhere, with a daisy chain of TrainOrders said what Railpace said what Tom Nemeth said.