Amtrak needs to cut the cord with this outfit. How long since this contract has been issued? N-S I do not think is capable of manufacturing these cars and I don't think ever will. The group involved with the specs for this order (NGER?) should be dissolved. Amtrak and the states involved with this have screwed up royally and it may mean the end of corridor service out of the Chicago hub. The Horizon fleet is wearing out, ridership is dropping due to all the track work, Republicans are in charge of many state governments (see issue with Missouri) and at the end of the day there is no new equipment to offer the customer that has had to deal with all the delays, bustitutions, etc. Sure, the Siemens Chargers may provide new power, but without new rolling stock, things will continue in a downward spiral. How Amtrak and the states involved could f*&k this up as much as they have is beyond me. People who were supposedly "experts" in passenger car design have seem to have put together a bid package that was unrealistic. Beyond sad!
Siemens Caltrans/IDOT Venture design, engineering, testing and delivery (2012-1Q 2024)
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Amtrak is not the one buying the cars; There is no cord to cut.
With respect, the suggestion this debacle could mean the end of Chicago regional service is ludicrous. Granted, this is turning into a textbook example of why design by committee is a disparaging term but Nippon-Sharyo's failure is not the end of the world.
OK...so what comes next? Will N-S ever come up with a prototype that actually passes the various tests? What about the funding issue? 2017 is when the stimulus funds run out, and there is still not a car to be seen. The Horizon fleet is rumored to have speed restrictions placed on them due to lateral movement issues. The states and Amtrak (Mr. Moorman) need to put laser like attention on this situation to find out a way to get new equipment and keep the Chicago corridors from falling apart. No one seems to know what is going on (or they are not saying), but relying on N-S to develop a car that will actually work seems like a losing proposition.
MikefromCrete
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This is all up to the Midwest states and California. I suppose they could attempt to collect some kind of compensation from N-S over their failure to deliver a promised product. They could probably try to get Alstom (who I believe is the builder of the California/Surfliner cars) to come up with new version of a proven design (which is what should have been done in the first place, all this reinventing the wheel on every car order is a bit much). Or see if Siemens can come up with something in a hurry. In the meantime, the corridor services will continue with the Horizon/Amfleet consists they've used for years. There's nothing to indicate that these cars can't continue in service for the foreseeable future. Of course the one thing they can't do is to go to CAF, any cars built by them wouldn't be done until the 2100's at the earliest. This is a tough problem, but it will be solved. No need for hang-wringing.
By the way, Wick Moorman isn't the Messiah. He's not going to singlehandedly solve every problem in passenger railroading. He's a good railroad executive who will do his best with what he has. But the key is support from Congress, the new administration and the states. We'll see if Trump's capital improvements plan will be of help to Amtrak. It might just get us a bunch of privately-built toll roads.
By the way, Wick Moorman isn't the Messiah. He's not going to singlehandedly solve every problem in passenger railroading. He's a good railroad executive who will do his best with what he has. But the key is support from Congress, the new administration and the states. We'll see if Trump's capital improvements plan will be of help to Amtrak. It might just get us a bunch of privately-built toll roads.
Latest update on the Nippon-Sharyo bi-level car procurement (meeting was yesterday), in the draft report at:
http://www.highspeed-rail.org/Documents/305%20Exec%20Brd%20minutes%20-1-17-17%20DRAFT.doc
"Essentially, things are in the same position as the last update – the contract is behind schedule and the parties are involved in negotiations – providing any further information would be inappropriate now."
http://www.highspeed-rail.org/Documents/305%20Exec%20Brd%20minutes%20-1-17-17%20DRAFT.doc
"Essentially, things are in the same position as the last update – the contract is behind schedule and the parties are involved in negotiations – providing any further information would be inappropriate now."
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The speed restrictions are on specific Horizon Cars that have the problem, not on the entire fleet. And as the cars go through level 2 maintenance they should return to full speed status.
At present there is zero chance of the Chicago Corridor falling apart due to this delay.
As for relying on N-S or not, terminating the work with N-S now and starting a new procurement process is unlikely to get a car any sooner than just getting N-S to complete their work.
As for the interesting Iran angle, pretty soon there may be no supplier available to buy equipment from
Most European companies have some dealing with Iran, as do most Asian companies.
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neroden
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Yeah, it's about time to revoke the stupid Iran restrictions. Nobody else in the world is interested in sanctioning Iran, so this just isolates the US and creates trouble for the US.
The potential issues over state sanctions refer to Siemens and not Nippon-Sharyo and the bi-level car order.As for the interesting Iran angle, pretty soon there may be no supplier available to buy equipment from
There is a great deal that isn't yet clear about this, and obviously the regulations may vary greatly from one state to another (I think at least Illinois, North Carolina, and California - probably others - all have something on the books). Just how long after a 'deal' would a particular company be ineligible for state business? What about existing contracts? At least EMD offers an alternative to the Charger locomotive.
Iran's human rights record, stance toward Israel, and nuclear ambitions are hardly 'stupid' matters, and not to be taken lightly.
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Even EMD has sold locomotives to Iran in the past.
EMD also seems to have become another CAF and N-S, considering that so far it has failed to get the F125 certified for operation from FRA.
EMD also seems to have become another CAF and N-S, considering that so far it has failed to get the F125 certified for operation from FRA.
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frequentflyer
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Though these cars look Superliners from the outside, were the N-S cars to built to higher crash standards than the California Cars from Alstrom?
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N-S did build at least 1 car. The car may not have been fully fitted out, but there was a complete frame. There are photos of it. The problem is that the car failed the required crush test. Oops. So back to the drawing board so to speak.Hey, at least they have managed to actually build one. That puts them light years ahead of Nippon-Sharyo.....
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At least as it relates to the North Carolina, the restriction only applies to vendors who have or had investment activities with Iran's energy sector (natural gas, oil or nuclear). Locomotives and aircraft, in my opinion, would not fall into the restricted category. It appears that the management-level bureaucrats that make up the NGEC did not know that, and were unable to use Google. They likely paid a consultant to perform an investigation of the issue, who will later report their findings after spending $20,000 or so.
From a Q&A about the North Carolina act:
North Carolina’s Iran Divestment Act Q&A
The actual list of companies subject to the NC sanctions is relatively short and can be found HERE.
neroden
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Oh, good.
Thanks for checking.I just hope other states don't have heavier restrictions.
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seat38a
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Maybe Trump will executive order away the dumb crash rule from the FRA that is causing all this headache. We can only hope.
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Unlikely. Trump may be a blowhard, but he is not stupid. The 800klb rule has been there since about 1945. It is hard to believe that suddenly in the 21st century it is not possible to build cars that meet it. There may be a problem with a bit of incompetent specification writing by the Next Generation Committee, which if so, should be fixed. It should not require a Presidential decree to fix stupid mistakes. And it certainly would be stupid to remove a basic rule that has been adequately modified now to allow CEM and all the goodies that it did not allow in the past. What buff strength do you suppose TGVs have to pass on the head end unit?
MikefromCrete
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You want to get rid of a safety rule? I hope you're never involved in a train crash with inadequate safety equipment.
seat38a
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Well the rest of the world seems to be operating fine without turning every railcar into a battle tank. There are safety rules and then there are OVERBOARD beyond ridiculous. Its not only in rail but with aircrafts. Because of ONE mistake, the FAA pretty much made Combi passenger aircrafts done and over with. Why can't they just dust off the same Superliner / Surfliner design without having to rejigger everything every new order? Are the Superliner / Surfliner's on the railroad so unsafe that we should remove them from the rails??
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In general cars built to old UIC standards do fall apart more spectacularly than those built to newer UIC standards which are more like the latest revised FRA standards, including both buff strength requirements and CEM, requiring only that the passenger carrying capsule remain intact while the rest of the car is allowed to crumple to dissipate energy. If you want to see how old UIC standard cars perform take a look at any derailment in India involving the old Schlieren design ICF coaches. See how they fold up into themselves, including spectacularly deforming the passenger compartment.
There is no safety standard difference (specifically the 800klb buff strength) between those that the Superliner/Surfliner adhere to and what is expected of the N-S cars. The big difference is that the N-S cars are required to be 20klb lighter with no one ever having validated that such a car can be vaibly built. We may know the answer to that question. Now one could ask why we do car structure research as part of a commercial car order instead of validating specification before publishing them and making them part of a commercial order, and that would be a legitimate question. but that isn't exactly FRA safety office's fault.
Nobody, including the FRA has said anything about the lack of safety of the Superliners, or that they are non compliant with any existing or new FRA safety standards, hence the last sentence in the quoted text is at best a red herring.
The next Generation Car specification is not an FRA safety project but it is a commercial project supposedly targeted to reducing car acquisition costs by facilitating multiple agencies to place orders together to produce consolidated large orders. As for safety specifications it merely points to the FRA safety standards in CFR
And the FAA part of the rant has zero relevance to the subject of FRA safety specifications. Unlike the FRA, FAA is considered to be the gold standard of safety standards, and most world aviation safety governance organizations take the cue from the FAA, not the other way round.
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Without getting into a discussion on whether or not the crush standard is a good or bad thing relative to the different approaches used in various parts of the world, this standard is not new, and has been met many times before. The problem is not the standard, it is the execution........
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ScouseAndy
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It's hardly surprising that different countries have different methods of protecting passengers and differing safety criteria. The US have the one of safest and strongest vehicles on the rails for passengers some I personally think Europe would do well considering to replicate to some degree but our trains are generally more separated from the environment they travel thru the US trains.
The problem is it seems is you choose a supplier with little or no experience of building cars to US safety specs and clearly not up to the job. It's a sad state of affairs when the corridors are in need of new rolling stock and I'm sure we could all find examples world wide where modern rolling stock has increased ridership
The problem is it seems is you choose a supplier with little or no experience of building cars to US safety specs and clearly not up to the job. It's a sad state of affairs when the corridors are in need of new rolling stock and I'm sure we could all find examples world wide where modern rolling stock has increased ridership
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Scouse you are mostly correct. There is an additional nuance to the N-S affair. N-S has actually built plenty of US standards compliant cars and delivered them to various outfits. The thing is, they were all cars with center sills to support the buff strength. This is the first order of cars without a center sill that they have taken on. They were further hamstrung by the 20klb weight reduction when compared to Superliner/Surfliners that was thrown at them by the Next Gen Committee, which had never researched what the effect of such would be on buff strength and cost of the car. So there is enough blame to go around.
Perhaps PRR can give more details since he is more conversant with the actual contents of the next gen specs than I am.
Perhaps PRR can give more details since he is more conversant with the actual contents of the next gen specs than I am.
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