How many cracks were there?

[capltd29]

How many of the Acela did they actually find cracks in the Rotors?

Was it just one?

Was it all?

Clarification would be nice.

Jon Parker

 

[AmtrakFan]

I believe most of them had cracks.

 

[AlanB]

While I'm not 100% sure, I believe that each one of the 20 trainsets had at least 1 cracked spoke and many sets had more. If I recall correctly from what I read, there is something like 1,440 disc brakes on the 20 trainsets. Over 300 brakes were found to have cracks.

It should also be noted that the cracks found were visible cracks and most were very small and fine, what they call “spider cracks.” However no one so far, last I knew, has checked for defects with penetrating dye spray and blacklight, or by x-ray. These and other more intense detection methods could show even more cracks.

And of course Bombardier only has 80 spares, which won’t even make a dent in the problem. Not to mention that no one knows yet, why they are failing. So even if they put the 80 on one train in an effort to get it up and running, the new ones could fail too.