Cascade's OOS

[Guest]

With this kind of unreliability of AMTRAK. there is no way any of us staunch proponents of passenger rail can promote AMTRAK as a viable or even existent rail passenger service! AMTRAK needs to be privatized immediately. It CAN and must be self-sufficient.

Amtrak IS privatized - and there's the problem; where else in the world is a large domestic passenger rail system fully privatized? It gets subsidies just like the airlines and automobile companies.

And regarding the cracks in the Talgo equipment, here's a quote from a SoCal conductor this weekend: "No wonder - they beat the hell out of those things!"

 

[AlanB]

Amtrak IS privatized - and there's the problem; where else in the world is a large domestic passenger rail system fully privatized? It gets subsidies just like the airlines and automobile companies.

It's privatized by a mere technicality. However, the only stock holder that matters is the US Government. The DOT holds all the Amtrak voting stock, 100% of it, in trust for Congress and thru them the citizens of the US. That means that our Government owns and operates Amtrak and makes all the decisions about it.

Some freight RR's still own some common stock, but it is just a worthless piece of paper as far as they are concerned. They have no voting rights, and the stock has never paid a dividend in 30+ years and it is unlikely to ever pay a dividend.

 

[yarrow]

amtrak resuming service on cascades route

i find the above link goes to the seattle times website and not the specific story. you can find it by going to the time"s website if you wish

 

[john h]

With this kind of unreliability of AMTRAK. there is no way any of us staunch proponents of passenger rail can promote AMTRAK as a viable or even existent rail passenger service! AMTRAK needs to be privatized immediately. It CAN and must be self-sufficient.

Amtrak IS privatized - and there's the problem; where else in the world is a large domestic passenger rail system fully privatized? It gets subsidies just like the airlines and automobile companies.

And regarding the cracks in the Talgo equipment, here's a quote from a SoCal conductor this weekend: "No wonder - they beat the hell out of those things!"

Someone correct me if I am wrong but didn't the United Kingdom try the same thing and then they went back to goverment run? Also is Greyhound run by the goverment or is that a privately owned company as well? Not to get off topic though

 

[sechs]

Greyhound is owned by Laidlaw, a Canadian company.

 

[john h]

Greyhound is owned by Laidlaw, a Canadian company.

Thanks for the clarification

 

[Trogdor]

The UK tried privatizing British Rail, by splitting up operations and infrastructure and selling them separately. The operating companies have had varied levels of success, and are still private (though some receive operating subsidies). The infrastructure company (Railtrack) was a financial disaster and the government has resumed control (Network Rail).

There's a book called "Broken Rails" (can't think of the author, and I loaned my copy to a friend so I don't have it handy to reference right now) that has a detailed (albeit clearly one-sided) account of the sequence of events that led to (and followed) privatization.

 

[George Harris]

A likely major factor in this issue is that by American standards, European track is glassy smooth, and by European standards, American track is impossibly rough. Because of this difference, the basic suspension and other mechanical parts of these trains have worked harder than they would have with the same milage in Spain, or elsewhere in Europe. According to people that should know what they are talking about, the Talgo coaches are as close to "straight out of the box" mechanically as they could make them. As a consequence, we had better be extremely glad the inspection has caught these problems before an in-service failure created a disaster.

George

 

[gswager]

I am wondering if using one wheelset instead of two wheelsets per truck takes a lot of abuse over rough track. I've learned lesson when using single axle livestock trailer over dirt road. It gets bounced a lot while the double axles smoothen out the ride.

 

[Guest_timetableflagman_*]

Cascade "cars" (coaches, lounges, etc.) are actually sections of one articulated car. If Cascades are run with an engine at each end only, they actually constitute a one-car train, unless there is another car coupled on, which I have never heard of with the Cascade.

It would seem that articulated cars would be seen as inefficient considering that the whole car must operate whether full or empty and that the whole car must be bad ordered (in this case, the whole "train") if any section only has a bad order. How many empty sections of articulated flatcars can be seen with maybe only one loaded with trailer? Yes, there are reasons for this but, the empty sections are still empty and constitute deadhead equipment unable to be switched out.

 

[wkaemena]

The entire debacle is probably gone work into hands of people that have been saying all allong that Euro toy trainms have no place on American rail, no matter how cute they look.

hehehe exactly these Euro Toy trains are running at 125mph in whole spain day and night and some of them are covering every night distances of almost 1000 miles running trough different countries.

 

[battalion51]

Cascade "cars" (coaches, lounges, etc.) are actually sections of one articulated car. If Cascades are run with an engine at each end only, they actually constitute a one-car train, unless there is another car coupled on, which I have never heard of with the Cascade.

Depending on how technical you want to get the Cabbage (or NPCU) is considered a Car. It does not have the ability to move on it's own, making it a car technically. However, given its use on the Cascades service it acts (and is maintained as) an engine since its sole purpose is to provide the Engineer with the ability to remotely control the engine.

 

[George Harris]

hehehe exactly these Euro Toy trains are running at 125mph in whole spain day and night and some of them are covering every night distances of almost 1000 miles running through different countries.

The only problem with this line of thought is that we do not know how much effort it takes to make this happen. A lot of things can be made to look good if you just throw enough money and manpower at them.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

Well, George, as you pointed out, Eu track is very smooth, so they're not getting the he** beat out of them on a daily basis, compared to U.S. trackage which is apparently kept just well enough to avoid a bunch of wrecks... This past week or so I think we've had a fairly impressive example of what happens when infrastructure spending is chronically neglected, and it seems like a great deal of what we have, in all transportation regimes, has been kept just operable enough not to be a total disaster, and that is close enough that periodically we're going to have one of those. We need a totally reversed set of spending priorities, but I don't see that happening until sometime after November of next year.

 

[DirtyD]

Well, I just got back from a quick trip and I asked the conductor when the Talgo's would be back and she said roughly Christmas time.

Here is a quick pic i took as the train left Olympia

Also, what paint scheme is that on the locomotive? I have never seen it here in the northwest

 

[AmtrakFan]

That would be one of the Pacific Surfliner painted F59's.

 

[Dutchrailnut]

Cascade "cars" (coaches, lounges, etc.) are actually sections of one articulated car. If Cascades are run with an engine at each end only, they actually constitute a one-car train, unless there is another car coupled on, which I have never heard of with the Cascade.

Depending on how technical you want to get the Cabbage (or NPCU) is considered a Car. It does not have the ability to move on it's own, making it a car technically. However, given its use on the Cascades service it acts (and is maintained as) an engine since its sole purpose is to provide the Engineer with the ability to remotely control the engine.

The NPCU and cab cars are considered locomotives by law (CFR 49) a locomotive is not an engine all time.

 

[DirtyD]

That would be one of the Pacific Surfliner painted F59's.

Thats what I thought, thanks!

 

[GG-1]

Also, what paint scheme is that on the locomotive? I have never seen it here in the northwest

Has a similar look of the California sceem.