Amfleet SSL

[jis]

This might work. It is the panorama car that VIA Rail now uses on some of their long distance trains:

Yes, a VIA Panorama Car would work as far as car height is concerned. I don't know if there will be any safety issues due to the presence of catenary.

 

[jis]

What is "loading gauge"?

Ostensibly, it's the maximum height that a car can be.

Loading gauge is the 3D template within which the car must fit in order for it to not interfer with any trackside structure or any passing train. So it is more than just the height, though height is certainly a factor.

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

This might work. It is the panorama car that VIA Rail now uses on some of their long distance trains:

Yes, a VIA Panorama Car would work as far as car height is concerned. I don't know if there will be any safety issues due to the presence of catenary.

Based on the pic, the cat shouldn't pose any problem since the Panorama Car appears to be a bit lower than the car next to it. Reconfigure the Coach seating with a Lounge configuration and you may well have a winner.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

This might work. It is the panorama car that VIA Rail now uses on some of their long distance trains:

Yes, a VIA Panorama Car would work as far as car height is concerned. I don't know if there will be any safety issues due to the presence of catenary.

Based on the pic, the cat shouldn't pose any problem since the Panorama Car appears to be a bit lower than the car next to it. Reconfigure the Coach seating with a Lounge configuration and you may well have a winner.

That looks very much like the SAL Solarium. Who built it? Colorado Railcar, Bombadier, Alstom, or others?

 

[PerRock]

Looks like a CRC build.

peter

 

[PRR 60]

I'm reasonably certain that Amtrak would not want a glass-topped car operating under 11kV catenary. They prefer to have grounded metal between high voltage and passengers.

 

[Dutchrailnut]

hmm they make insulators out of glass ?? coincidence ??

 

[The Davy Crockett]

I've said it before, (so why not say it again ) , add/drop dome cars to the rear of the Eastern LD consists when engines are switched at WAS.

ATTN: Marketing - They could be called The Capitol Domes. hboy:

 

[The Davy Crockett]

Are those lightning rods on the top? :giggle:

Now those would be a big hit on the NEC! :wacko:

 

[AlanB]

Looks like a CRC build.

peter

Correct, the now defunct Colorado Railcar built that lounge.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Looks like a CRC build.

peter

Correct, the now defunct Colorado Railcar built that lounge.

It's not a lounge. It carries revenue passengers.

 

[The Chief]

Well, assuming the cash could be found, a remake of the old SAL Solarium cars would fit that bill.

Hollywood Beach

Opiatephoto is spot-on suggesting the platform/style of the SAL's Hollywood Beach, Miami Beach, and Palm Beach. SAL's Silver Meteor carried them NYC-Miami. Heck Amtrak even had the cars in the early daze. Here's a photo of Hollywood Beach in Amtrak livery running beneath the catenary lines.

These Sun Lounges, which ran into New York, were configured as Sleeper Lounges with five double bedrooms. If manufactured today, a number of options exists. Bedrooms. Or kitchen/serving area. Or more table and booths. etc. Compared to the VIA Panorama Car, the Sun Lounge model of the 21st century would be closer to the SSL, if you want the Lounge.

As a Western Lines guy, I never saw or rode in a Sun Lounge. But a couple of years ago when I saw a photo of a SAL Sun Lounge, and started researching pics and data, I was intrigued at how neat they were, for back East with the clearance limitations. Amtrak dumped them apparently. What foresight.

. . . <<edit: add photo to AU post>>> . . .

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Well, assuming the cash could be found, a remake of the old SAL Solarium cars would fit that bill.

Hollywood Beach

Opiatephoto is spot-on suggesting the platform/style of the SAL's Hollywood Beach, Miami Beach, and Palm Beach. SAL's Silver Meteor carried them NYC-Miami. Heck Amtrak even had the cars in the early daze. Here's a photo of Hollywood Beach in Amtrak livery running beneath the catenary lines.

These Sun Lounges, which ran into New York, were configured as Sleeper Lounges with five double bedrooms. If manufactured today, a number of options exists. Bedrooms. Or kitchen/serving area. Or more table and booths. etc. Compared to the VIA Panorama Car, the Sun Lounge model of the 21st century would be closer to the SSL, if you want the Lounge.

As a Western Lines guy, I never saw or rode in a Sun Lounge. But a couple of years ago when I saw a photo of a SAL Sun Lounge, and started researching pics and data, I was intrigued at how neat they were, for back East with the clearance limitations. Amtrak dumped them apparently. What foresight.

. . . <<edit: add photo to AU post>>> . . .

When did Amtrak dump/sell them? Anybody know what trains they were used on with Amtrak?

 

[PRR 60]

hmm they make insulators out of glass ?? coincidence ??

That is exactly the problem. In the event the catenary gets snagged and pulled down by a moving train, you want the first thing it hits to be solid, conductive and grounded. The roof of a conventional car meets those requirements. A glass roof does not. A broken 25kV or 11kV catenary makes a pretty big flash when it hits grounded metal. If it hits a conventional, metal car roof, the fault occurs fast, goes directly to ground, and the passengers are protected by the solid roof. But, if it hits a glass roof, it may search for a solid ground, perhaps break the glass in the process, then make a huge flash when it finally hits a grounded part. You don't want a pane of glass, maybe broken by the impact of the hard, bronze trolley wire, to be the only protection between passengers and that flash.

 

[PerRock]

Simple solution: don't make the whole roof windows. If you divided the roof up in 3rds (width wise) have windows on the outer two thirds & metal on the inner 3rd. Similar to an SSL (and I believe most dome cars). Cable snags & it would most likely hit the metal part, ok granted there is still a chance of it hitting the glass, but it'd be a fairly low chance. And with structual beams between the windows it's even less surface area of glass for the cable to short on.

peter

 

[Anderson]

Well, assuming the cash could be found, a remake of the old SAL Solarium cars would fit that bill.

Hollywood Beach

Opiatephoto is spot-on suggesting the platform/style of the SAL's Hollywood Beach, Miami Beach, and Palm Beach. SAL's Silver Meteor carried them NYC-Miami. Heck Amtrak even had the cars in the early daze. Here's a photo of Hollywood Beach in Amtrak livery running beneath the catenary lines.

These Sun Lounges, which ran into New York, were configured as Sleeper Lounges with five double bedrooms. If manufactured today, a number of options exists. Bedrooms. Or kitchen/serving area. Or more table and booths. etc. Compared to the VIA Panorama Car, the Sun Lounge model of the 21st century would be closer to the SSL, if you want the Lounge.

As a Western Lines guy, I never saw or rode in a Sun Lounge. But a couple of years ago when I saw a photo of a SAL Sun Lounge, and started researching pics and data, I was intrigued at how neat they were, for back East with the clearance limitations. Amtrak dumped them apparently. What foresight.

. . . <<edit: add photo to AU post>>> . . .

When did Amtrak dump/sell them? Anybody know what trains they were used on with Amtrak?

Based on my limited understanding of Amtrak during the 1970s, I believe that they would have tun on the Florida trains. For the first few years, I think that Amtrak tried to keep equipment roughly where it originated (i.e. SCL cars running to Florida, Hi-Levels running CHI-LAX). As to when Amtrak got rid of them, I would actually guess that they might have never bought them, simply opting to pass when the opportunity arose (remember, a lot of Amtrak's equipment for the first few years was technically leased...this was particularly the case with locomotives, but I think it may also have applied to at least some revenue cars as well; other than the cars some roads turned over to Amtrak as part of their buy-in, Amtrak didn't get a whole lot other than a big loan and some operating cash at the start IIRC). Failing that, the sales would have been sometime in the late 1970s in all likelihood, coming in conjunction with the Carter cuts and/or the Amfleet purchases.

As to the suggestion of cutting stuff short of NYP, what does the loading gauge look like through PHL? i.e. Are the New York tunnels worse than the ones in Baltimore or Philly, or are they all about the same? Also, I'm wondering if you couldn't "pull" a coach at WAS as well to save a car. Given that the train is "R" until WAS SB and "D" from ALX NB, and given the amount of boarding at WAS, I would think that the traffic flow at least would support it.

 

[The Chief]

Simple solution: don't make the whole roof windows. And with structual beams between the windows it's even less surface area of glass for the cable to short on.

peter

Peter that sounds right. Check out this aerial view of the roof of the Sun Lounge:

Not all glass.

That is exactly the problem. In the event the catenary gets snagged and pulled down by a moving train, you want the first thing it hits to be solid, conductive and grounded. The roof of a conventional car meets those requirements. A glass roof does not.

As the SAL (and Amtrak) used the Sun Lounges without reported incident, their safety record underneath cantenary seems appropriate. The car is not glass-topped.

And like Anderson wrote, early Amtrak deployed its equipment mostly on said equipment's legacy routes.

 

[dlagrua]

In the unlikely event that the trains that go into NYP would ever get a lounge car, it would probably need to be designed like the one that was on the old Pennsylvania RR Broadway Limited or more likely based on the standardized Viewliner car. The Viewliner already has lots of window space and if you made that into a lounge car with outward facing seating, it wouldn't be too bad. Nice thoughts for the future but today Amtrak has all to do with keeping the routes that they have in place.

 

[Anderson]

In the unlikely event that the trains that go into NYP would ever get a lounge car, it would probably need to be designed like the one that was on the old Pennsylvania RR Broadway Limited or more likely based on the standardized Viewliner car. The Viewliner already has lots of window space and if you made that into a lounge car with outward facing seating, it wouldn't be too bad. Nice thoughts for the future but today Amtrak has all to do with keeping the routes that they have in place.

I suspect that the best hope would be for a Viewliner-style cafe-lounge (half tables, half SSL-style lounge seating) to accompany a club-dinette operation in a dining car. The Amfleets aren't well-disposed towards this sort of setup (the windows are too small), but with larger windows, a half-lounge included in such a setup would seem plausible.

 

[NE933]

Well the Acela windows are the largest of any Amtrak rolling stock, save for the Superliner Sightseer Lounges. If there is a way to get those in two columns without requiring a whole new Viewliner subdesign?

I should've mentioned before as a footnote about the cars' crossbeams and the important of their continuity in deciding how big the windows shall be: You can probably get Superliner sized windows but that means making a Viewliner car that's not really a Viewliner design. Current design is that the wall bends at an angle at about waist height assuming an average sized adult is standing on its floor. Make the car completely square, like a Horizon, and maybe a Superliner Lounge sized window, or that Heritage Sunshine Lounge shown a few posts prior, will work.

Any structural engineers or railcar builders care to chime in on this?

As a P.S., maybe an Acela shaped lounge, which is identical to (duh) Acela but while close to a Viewliner, not identical, can accomodate more window area without Amtrak going into the expense of inventing a third car type for East Coast trains.

 

[railiner]

Looks like a CRC build.

peter

Correct, the now defunct Colorado Railcar built that lounge.

You can see the strong resemblance with that of the doubledeck dome cars they built for the various Alaska operators....

 

[railiner]

hmm they make insulators out of glass ?? coincidence ??

That is exactly the problem. In the event the catenary gets snagged and pulled down by a moving train, you want the first thing it hits to be solid, conductive and grounded. The roof of a conventional car meets those requirements. A glass roof does not. A broken 25kV or 11kV catenary makes a pretty big flash when it hits grounded metal. If it hits a conventional, metal car roof, the fault occurs fast, goes directly to ground, and the passengers are protected by the solid roof. But, if it hits a glass roof, it may search for a solid ground, perhaps break the glass in the process, then make a huge flash when it finally hits a grounded part. You don't want a pane of glass, maybe broken by the impact of the hard, bronze trolley wire, to be the only protection between passengers and that flash.

In support of this, I would add the fact that in the days of the B&O 'Stratadomes' on the Capitol Limited and other B&O trains to and from Washington, they had a barrier to the entrance to the dome section that was opened after the train reached Takoma Park or Silver Spring, beyond the PRR/Washington Terminal catenary wires....

 

[The Chief]

I would add the fact that in the days of the B&O 'Stratadomes' on the Capitol Limited ,,, they had a barrier to the entrance to the dome section that was opened after the train reached Takoma Park or Silver Spring, beyond the PRR/Washington Terminal catenary wires....

Probably cordoned off because it was a raised dome car.

The Sun Lounge is flush top. After reading many of the good — and other — ideas here, I still advocate the SAL Sun Lounge as best design. That equipment has proven track record on trains that ran at capacity for years.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I would add the fact that in the days of the B&O 'Stratadomes' on the Capitol Limited ,,, they had a barrier to the entrance to the dome section that was opened after the train reached Takoma Park or Silver Spring, beyond the PRR/Washington Terminal catenary wires....

Probably cordoned off because it was a raised dome car.

The Sun Lounge is flush top. After reading many of the good — and other — ideas here, I still advocate the SAL Sun Lounge as best design. That equipment has proven track record on trains that ran at capacity for years.

Maybe they can make one based on the Horizon/Comet design, as much as I dislike "commuter cars" on Amtrak. Are the Horizons made out of aluminium? I don't think aluminium can withstand the force.

 

[MikefromCrete]

I would add the fact that in the days of the B&O 'Stratadomes' on the Capitol Limited ,,, they had a barrier to the entrance to the dome section that was opened after the train reached Takoma Park or Silver Spring, beyond the PRR/Washington Terminal catenary wires....

Probably cordoned off because it was a raised dome car.

The Sun Lounge is flush top. After reading many of the good — and other — ideas here, I still advocate the SAL Sun Lounge as best design. That equipment has proven track record on trains that ran at capacity for years.

Maybe they can make one based on the Horizon/Comet design, as much as I dislike "commuter cars" on Amtrak. Are the Horizons made out of aluminium? I don't think aluminium can withstand the force.

Judging by some interior photos of the Viewliner dining car, a Viewliner lounge car would allow for a lot of sightseeing. Overhead windows would be nice, but not a necessity. Amtrak's not going to buy any more Horizon cars.