Siemens Caltrans/IDOT Venture design, engineering, testing and delivery (2012-1Q 2024)

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GML, I agree.

BTW, I met a bunch of refugees from the MMC who left NJT because they just could not deal with MMC management any more, so they decamped to Brightline. They have done a beautiful job setting up the new maintenance facility at West Palm Beach in collaboration with Siemens.

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I find this highly surprising, since all the NJT people who went to brightline were managers there (including the CMO who was the top dog at MMC). Is he saying he was someone who could not be dealt with? Perhaps he had trouble dealing with a union shop, a problem he will not have at Brightline since maintenance is being handled by Siemens itslf with non union utility workers.
 
GML, I agree.

BTW, I met a bunch of refugees from the MMC who left NJT because they just could not deal with MMC management any more, so they decamped to Brightline. They have done a beautiful job setting up the new maintenance facility at West Palm Beach in collaboration with Siemens.

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I find this highly surprising, since all the NJT people who went to brightline were managers there (including the CMO who was the top dog at MMC). Is he saying he was someone who could not be dealt with? Perhaps he had trouble dealing with a union shop, a problem he will not have at Brightline since maintenance is being handled by Siemens itslf with non union utility workers.
I will just say that there are union shops and there are union shops -- it's not really about the union, it's about the culture which has developed on the particular location. Some locations develop a good culture, others develop a bad culture. I feel sorry for anyone who has to deal with the LIRR maintenance "worker" union, which have developed *quite* a reputation after a lot of documented skiving off on the job (which they defended). By contrast, I'd happily work with anyone in my local electrician's union, which has a reputation for responsibility and quality work. The same is true on the management side -- sometimes a management culture can turn completely toxic (with WMATA probably being an example) and sometimes it's a joy to be around.

You can even have 80% of the same people and have a completely different corporate culture if the 10% who are setting the *tone* are different.
 
Neroden makes a very good point which I wholly agree with, Having lived through corporate culture hell from time to time and then watch the exact same people when hived off in a divestiture and placed in a different more progressive and productive corporate culture, including the VP level folks, behave completely differently and much more reasonably, I can attest to the validity of his observation from personal experience. So I do not find the case of the NJT refugees at Brightline surprising at all. All that it says to me is that NJT work environment is toxic.
 
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In addition to Brightline, the other close relative of these trainsets appears to be the Austria/Czech Railjet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railjet). Railjet is another Siemens product with Comfort Coaches. I think that this might have been mentioned once earlier.

The Railjet video at https://youtu.be/BpRAtQth9Ew shows a walkthrough of an early Railjet. The early Railjets had Bistro cars with longitudinal seating and small tables. These seem a likely inspiration for the café cars in the California/Midwest order. The later Railjets have Restaurant cars with transverse seating and tables as shown at https://youtu.be/mJUqi6wbs2g. Both the Bistro and Restaurant cars have a First Class area with wheelchair positions, an accessible rest room, and an information booth in addition to the food service area. The 2+2 seating in Railjet’s Economy class and the 2+1 seating in the Railjet’s 1st class parallel the Smart and Select seating in Brightline, but with different seats.

In the cab car, there are premium accommodations with large reclining chairs in semi-private spaces. These are called Business Class accommodations and they are better than the normal 1st class seats. These accomodations would not seem a likely choice in the USA.

As some speculative math:

Using the California values of 35 coaches, 7 café and 7 cab cars, you get 7 seven-car trainsets of 5 coaches, 1 café and 1 cab car each. That results in 49 cars total. The Midwest values of 54 coaches, 17 café and 17 coach/business class would result in 14 five-car and 3 six-car trainsets. The total for the Midwest is then 88 cars for 137 total cars on the combined order.
 
There is also a picture of the California cab car with the revised window locations here. The various cab car drawings including the side drawing in the presentation indicate a conventional coupler on the engineer/driver’s end, but a semi-permanent coupling to a trainset on the opposite end.


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So what is the design of the new single-level cars? Are they Viewliner variants or something else. Would really like to know what we should be looking for (not that anyone knowledgeable would be able to tell a new car from an old one).
 
Well, looking at the artwork of the Caltrans cab car answers my question. Will be some nice looking equipment to say the least...
 
So what is the design of the new single-level cars? Are they Viewliner variants or something else. Would really like to know what we should be looking for (not that anyone knowledgeable would be able to tell a new car from an old one).
Something else, they're same design as the Brightline cars, or any of the other Viaggio cars Siemens makes (new RZD cars, OBB/CZ RailJet to name two others)

peter
 
Unfortunately they won't have the spiffy looking Brightline engines
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Instead they will have the blunt nosed variant.
 
One small point is that in order to look like the sleek trainset with the cab car on one end and a Charger on the other shown in some drawings , the Caltrans Charger rear wedge has to go.

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One small point is that in order to look like the sleek trainset with the cab car on one end and a Charger on the other shown in some drawings , the Caltrans Charger rear wedge has to go.

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I'm sure the "ski-jump" won't be going anywhere. Asthetics don't matter much in operation; wait until one of these sets is combined with an F-59 or Dash-8 for 80% of their runs.
 
The wheelchair lift on RailJet.

.I’m not certain if they can or will use a similar contraption on the California/Midwest cars. It also looks a bit tight for some of the larger motorized conveyances I see regularly on my DC Metro Rail train.

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Not sure if it has been cover before....

What the purpose of the big door just behind the cab?

Between the cab doors and windows. Bike, baggage space?
The Railjet has one in a similar position for engineer/driver and Premium class access (http://www.stscms.com/FileUpload/files/media/1872/pdfs/Railjet_seat_map.pdf via https://www.seat61.com/index-mobile.htm). That doesn’t make sense here as there is a separate engineers/drivers door forward and the passenger compartment seems to start further back. Caltrans does not appear to have checked baggage based on a web site search. I’m on the right coast and can’t check personally. The clue may be all the vents on the roof implying that there is lots of equipment in that area. My guess becomes access to the equipment for maintenance, etc.

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Well, looking at the artwork of the Caltrans cab car answers my question. Will be some nice looking equipment to say the least...
Has anyone seen anything similar on the color scheme/livery of the Midwest passenger cars? I presume it will continue the theme on the Amtrak Midwest Charger locomotives, but I haven’t seen anything specific.

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Well, looking at the artwork of the Caltrans cab car answers my question. Will be some nice looking equipment to say the least...
Has anyone seen anything similar on the color scheme/livery of the Midwest passenger cars? I presume it will continue the theme on the Amtrak Midwest Charger locomotives, but I haven’t seen anything specific.

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As a further note, I recently read on another blog that the Amtrak Midwest cars will not be trainsets like California but individual cars. And that they will run with a Charger at each end eliminating the need for cab cars. That also has an effect on the color scheme as each car needs look ok in any consist/composition.

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Not sure if it has been cover before....

What the purpose of the big door just behind the cab?

Between the cab doors and windows. Bike, baggage space?
Caltrans does not appear to have checked baggage based on a web site search. I’m on the right coast and can’t check personally.

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The Capitol Corridor does not have checked baggage service, but the San Joaquins and Surfliners do have it.
 
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Not sure if it has been cover before....

What the purpose of the big door just behind the cab?

Between the cab doors and windows. Bike, baggage space?
Caltrans does not appear to have checked baggage based on a web site search. I’m on the right coast and can’t check personally.

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The Capitol Corridor does not have checked baggage service, but the San Joaquins and Surfliners do have it.
Great. I think that makes baggage the most likely use of the large cab car side door.

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Do these Siemens trainsets represent the end of Amtrak California branding? Or did the SC-44s already represent a change?

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Slide show from the NGEC Meeting last week....

Besides having many renderings, it includes the anticipated start and end dates for delivery as well as a breakdown on the car types and quantities.
 
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Several thoughts.

1. Siemens actually delivered the Brightline cars earlier than contracted.

2. Siemens may be able to deliver this order early as well. Wonder if Siemens will get any type of incentive payment if it delivers the cars early ?

3. Expect that a certain number of new cars both standard couplers and the semi - permanent coupled ones will have to go to Pueblo for HSR testing as the Brightline cars have yet to be tested to 125 + 10%. Probably behind both P-42s and SC-44s ?

4. Wonder when the replacement SC-44 for the PNW wreck will be built ?
 
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