Acela

[Crescent ATN & TCL]

On the nationwide tour the ICE was powered by the pair of Amtrak's AC drive demonstrator F69PH AC's 450 and 451, specially painted in an ICE-like livery. Take a look at this picture.

what ever happened to the F69PH's?

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

["Full PTC Today with Off the Shelf Technology: Amtrak’s ACSES Overlay on Expanded ATC" by Hoelscher and Light]

That paper is available at http://www.arema.org/eseries/scriptcontent...dings/00022.pdf

 

[jis]

["Full PTC Today with Off the Shelf Technology: Amtrak’s ACSES Overlay on Expanded ATC" by Hoelscher and Light]

That paper is available at http://www.arema.org/eseries/scriptcontent...dings/00022.pdf

Thanks for finding the link. It is an excellent paper and is highly recommended for anyone that wants to quickly learn what ACSES is all about.

One weakness of ACSES that it does not mention though is that being based on the PRR ATC ACSES enforces the speed based on the signal just passed, which has certain deleterious effect in areas where the blocks are relatively long. In contrast more modern PTC systems like TVM in France, LZB in Germany and ETCS II in Europe the speed curve and target speed at each point is calculated using the aspect of the signal that the train is facing (i.e. will pass next, and the distance to that signal. Neither of these two pieces of info is available to the train from the PRR ATC. Distance to next signal is available under ACSES from the transponder, but the aspect of the next signal still is not available.

However, given the goal that ACSES had to be an overlay on the existing system Amtrak bought into this weakness for all times to come and the end to end speed on the NEC will always be a little less than what could be optimally achieved with systems like TVM, LZB or ETCS II. That is the price one pays for being there first. It is very likely that California HSR will use one of the more modern PTC systems.

 

[jis]

what ever happened to the F69PH's?

According to Go By Train they are stored in Mt. Vernon IL. Look under Retired Locomotive Types

 

[Green Maned Lion]

I thought California HSR was deader than Dick Nixon.