Amtrak and Bombardier

[WICT106]

"Are you tired of dealing with Bombardier? Then it's time for the Talgos!"

 

[jis]

"Are you tired of dealing with Bombardier? Then it's time for the Talgos!"

Looks like the choice has been made, and it is not Talgo so far. Talgo is mostly a Northwestern affliction On the NEC Talgo is mostly "been there, done that, never again".
Arguably, even if the Wisconsin Talgo decision went through to completion, it would probably have turned out to be the wrong decision given where the rest of midwest went, specially considering that the Talgo sets would have found it hard pressed to provide capacity found in existing Hiawatha trains and certainly would have found it difficult to grow capacity incrementally.

 

[Nathanael]

If the customer demands something that is clearly outlandish and stupid, other suppliers may tell them so, but Bombardier will diligently do the math and hand in a quote for manufacturing it. It's the "customer is always" right philosophy taken to dangerous extremes.

This sounds about right. Bombardier makes very good stuff if the customer knows what the customer wants, but if the customer asks for something dumb -- the customer gets something dumb! They do this in the airplane division too, from what I can tell.

It's worth recalling that Bombardier bought the remains of Pullman-Standard and Budd; and their construction techniques seem to be fine. You could order a Budd car freshly built from the original designs and you'd get one. But if you order the Acela, you get the Acela.

 

[Nathanael]

For reference, among the makers of passenger railroad equipment for international sales, the "big ones" are Bombardier, Siemens, and one or more of the Japanese consortia (which I can never keep straight in my head due to the interlocking ownership and partnership schemes their corporations use). Everyone else is second tier or lower in terms of worldwide sales, including Alstom and CAF. (Alstom is a much bigger deal in signalling, though.)

It seems like Bombardier and Siemens may have taken complementary market positions, with Siemens taking the "We'll do it our way, and you'll like it because we know what works" position and Bombardier taking the "You want what? We'll manage to get that built" approach.

 

[jis]

. . . Amtrak has to rightfully get some blame too, from the extra 4 inches of width to . . .

Will the new Acelas be 4 inches narrower? And the Viewliners coming? (Looks like the ACS-64s are narrower than the Amfleets.) Or has Amtrak given up on that degree of tilting? I'm sure MetroNorth won't be putting more space between the tracks. LOL.

Apparently that 4" thing was a smokescreen for something else. It looks like starting tomorrow Acelas will be tilting on MNRR, and AFAICT no tracks have moved an inch on that ROW to increase any track center distances, unless of course MNRR worked that out in secret using some slush fund that they did not tell anyone about.

 

[bgiaquin]

Bombardier has been the manufacturer of some of the worst equipment, some of the most overpriced equipment, and some of the most dangerously engineered equipment in service in North America. We can ignore the Acela, since Amtrak was partly to blame. But what about the Hawker-Siddley bi-levels whose bad engineering is responsible for almost all commuter train deaths in the United States, mostly on MetroLink? There bad welding design, practice, and execution is what made those two California wrecks so tragic, when the welds holding the cars roofs and floors together failed catastrophically and caused the cars to telescope. That didn't happen at Chase where the forces and speeds were much higher. It didn't happen at Palo Verde, and it didn't happen at Big Bayou Canot.

It was the defective cab cars designed by Bombardier that caused the deaths at the Secaucus wreck, and permitted NJT an excuse to retire otherwise serviceable equipment. The Bombardier multilevels are the most cramped, and least efficient at handling passenger flow, commuter cars in this country- nothing is worse. They, probably as much as any factor, caused the disaster at the Super Bowl, and why the person who selected those over the Comet V for that service still has his job is a mystery.

It was Bombardier who supplied the insanely overpriced ALP-45DP and built it insufficiently powerful to actually handle the routes it is best suited for (Bay Head and Hackettstown). Bombardier built the the LRCs, whose main feature (the tilt) has been out of service for decades. Because they are unreliable, and for no other reason. It was Bombarider who built the PL42, a locomotive so bad that for several years it was banned on Amtrak trackage outright.

Bombardier builds crappy equipment, and while have a great respect for Dr. Jishnu, I dunno what he's smoking when he says otherwise. Sure there's a few good pieces, but hell, stranger things have happened, even reliable British automobiles.

The commuter coaches you are referring to are the earlier models. I have ridden in newer type cars cars and trust me they are much better.

 

[Crossover]

I'm still trying to understand this beef between the two companies but one good thing I know was good and that is the Superliners that Bombardier manufactured .

 

[Nathanael]

If you're thinking of buying some passenger railcars, Bombardier and Siemens are both perfectly good companies, you just have to handle them a little differently.

Disclaimer: I own stock in both. The Japanese companies are perfectly good too but I couldn't figure out how to invest in them. ;-)

 

[zephyr17]

I'm still trying to understand this beef between the two companies but one good thing I know was good and that is the Superliners that Bombardier manufactured .

Superliner IIs are Bombardier products

Superliner Is were built by Pullman-Standard.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

The commuter coaches you are referring to are the earlier models. I have ridden in newer type cars cars and trust me they are much better.

Sir, I am a governing officer of a rail advocacy organization. I have ridden every SEPTA, NJ Transit, Metro-North, LIRR, and Metra line, not to mention Shore Line East, and South Shore Line. I have ridden in so many kinds of equipment, I have lost track of them, but they include, I think, every kind of equipment Bombardier has sold in this country, at least on the east coast. I am qualified to render a judgement on my opinion of every piece of equipment I blasted. You can agree or disagree as your parameters modulate, but trust me, I am eminently qualified to rant and kvetch about Bombardier as I see fit!

 

[bgiaquin]

The commuter coaches you are referring to are the earlier models. I have ridden in newer type cars cars and trust me they are much better.

Sir, I am a governing officer of a rail advocacy organization. I have ridden every SEPTA, NJ Transit, Metro-North, LIRR, and Metra line, not to mention Shore Line East, and South Shore Line. I have ridden in so many kinds of equipment, I have lost track of them, but they include, I think, every kind of equipment Bombardier has sold in this country, at least on the east coast. I am qualified to render a judgement on my opinion of every piece of equipment I blasted. You can agree or disagree as your parameters modulate, but trust me, I am eminently qualified to rant and kvetch about Bombardier as I see fit!

When did I ever say anything about your opinion or judgement? Never.

 

[Ryan]

The commuter coaches you are referring to are the earlier models. I have ridden in newer type cars cars and trust me they are much better.

Sir, I am a governing officer of a rail advocacy organization. I have ridden every SEPTA, NJ Transit, Metro-North, LIRR, and Metra line, not to mention Shore Line East, and South Shore Line. I have ridden in so many kinds of equipment, I have lost track of them, but they include, I think, every kind of equipment Bombardier has sold in this country, at least on the east coast. I am qualified to render a judgement on my opinion of every piece of equipment I blasted. You can agree or disagree as your parameters modulate, but trust me, I am eminently qualified to rant and kvetch about Bombardier as I see fit!

When did I ever say anything about your opinion or judgement? Never.

I put it in bold for you. That reads as "You don't know what you're talking about, your opinion is based on older equipment and therefore isn't valid".
That may not be what you intended to say, but that's the message you conveyed.

 

[bgiaquin]

The commuter coaches you are referring to are the earlier models. I have ridden in newer type cars cars and trust me they are much better.

Sir, I am a governing officer of a rail advocacy organization. I have ridden every SEPTA, NJ Transit, Metro-North, LIRR, and Metra line, not to mention Shore Line East, and South Shore Line. I have ridden in so many kinds of equipment, I have lost track of them, but they include, I think, every kind of equipment Bombardier has sold in this country, at least on the east coast. I am qualified to render a judgement on my opinion of every piece of equipment I blasted. You can agree or disagree as your parameters modulate, but trust me, I am eminently qualified to rant and kvetch about Bombardier as I see fit!

When did I ever say anything about your opinion or judgement? Never.

I put it in bold for you. That reads as "You don't know what you're talking about, your opinion is based on older equipment and therefore isn't valid".
That may not be what you intended to say, but that's the message you conveyed

That is not what I was trying to convey. I was trying to state what I know.