Atlas Shrugged

[pldenc44]

I just watched Atlas Shrugged, Part I. I didn't realize the movie was going to be centered around trains. Some of the footage was really cool! What I wouldn't give for a 250 mph train ride!

Seeing the concept of the new railroad made me wonder what trains would look like if they were completely redesigned today. It seems the equipment hasn't really changed at all in the last 35 years at least. It seems sometimes that being the first to develop a technology is a curse because our equipment gets old first and nobody wants to put out the capital to replace the fleet to take advantage of new technology. I saw that the cost of a superliner coach car was about $2-2.5 million. Seems like a lot to me for something that has no engine. Would getting new cars really cost that much? Any opportunity for Amtrak to purchase modern passenger cars from abroad? I think we'd all love to see a couple more cars on each consist and it should make LD travel more affordable.

 

[Anderson]

As to the book, though I've never read it (I tried once), I do know that Rand had an extensive correspondence with the management at AT&SF to get the workings of a railroad right. However, the visuals are more recent. You're right that things haven't changed much in a long time...fundamentally, today's high speed sets aren't that much different from the first ones back in the 60s; with other cars, you've got similar design pedigees going back to the 60s (for the Amfleet/Metroliner designs) or before (Superliners are based off of Santa Fe's bilevel coaches from the mid-50s, and I can point to a lot of similarities between newer non-Amfleet single levels and passenger cars going back to the 1930s and 1940s).

On equipment costs, I think it's more than that per car. $2.5m is, IIRC, the estimated cost for a single-level car (i.e. Amfleet, Horizon, or Viewliner); Superliners and other bilevels come in close to $4m. Engines are even more (though a lot more variable, depending on what you want).

 

[Grandpa D]

As to the book, though I've never read it (I tried once), I do know that Rand had an extensive correspondence with the management at AT&SF to get the workings of a railroad right. However, the visuals are more recent.

She did get most of it right, considering that the book was written in the early '50s. Steam was still in use and figured into the plot. (I've read the book twice.)

The movie was set in a much later timeframe, supposedly a few years into the future from today. Some, I guess, to make comparisons to today, but mostly to keep the cost of production lower. They could, for the most part, use present day trains, cars, building, etc. Only the "John Galt Line" highspeed train had to be computer animated.

 

[the_traveler]

I did not see the movie, but did read, and very much enjoyed, the book!

In the book, only the first 1/3 or so was about the building of the "John Gault Line"!

As to cars from other countries, Amtrak would have to get a special FRA exemption to operate them in the US. They had to get that exemption to operate the Spanish Talgos on the Cascades, because they do not meet US safety and/or crash standards! That is why the new midwest Talgos are/were to be built in WI. (To meet the US standards.) I don't know the current status of those.

Amtrak also had to get FRA exemptions to operate the demonstration runs of the X-2000 and ICE trains many years back before the Acela ran!

 

[George Harris]

As to cars from other countries, Amtrak would have to get a special FRA exemption to operate them in the US. They had to get that exemption to operate the Spanish Talgos on the Cascades, because they do not meet US safety and/or crash standards! That is why the new midwest Talgos are/were to be built in WI. (To meet the US standards.)

Where the cars are built is immaterial. The standards to which they are built is the significant issue. The FRA standards for equipment are public documents. Anybody anywhere in the world can both read them, and it won't cost them one single dollar, euro, yen, pound, or any form of currency to download and analyze. They can then build equipment that complies with them, wheter for the US market, their own, or somebody else.