tubaallen said:
The only disagreement I have with the statement about superliners running on NEC tracks, is that I do believe there are a couple of miles here and there that they do where they are coming in to NYC or WAS from CHI. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Tubaallen,
Superliners never, ever enter NYC, as they can't fit through the tunnels. If Amtrak ever tried to reach NYC with a Superliner, they would be quickly converting it to a Viewliner. Most likely it would be a very messy conversion too.
As for the Capital coming into DC, that train does enter the NEC at the Ivy City yard located just north of Washington Union station. However that's less than 1/4 a mile, maybe even less, from the station. So they run on the NEC for maybe 2 minutes at most, if that.
Therefore, while they are on the NEC very briefly, I wouldn't really consider that running on the NEC. The Capital is mainly just crossing over the major interlocking plant, immediately north of the station. The train probably never gets about 20 MPH the whole time.
MSTS has Superliners running the full length of the sim, from DC to Philly. That's something that never happens, as again one would be converting a Superliner into a Viewliner when you hit (literally) the Baltimore tunnels.
I also think that, while by and large Superliners can fit under the catenary, there are places where the cat is too low and would ground out on the car roofs.
Finally Superliners don't run on the NEC, because with the exception of WAS and a few smaller stops on the NEC, all stations have high-level platforms only. A passenger would need a ladder, in order to climb out of a Superliner at a high level platform.