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Boston Herald
May 15, 2003
Sagging springs unsettle Acela
As Amtrak prepares to repair major structural flaws on its high- speed Acela
Express trainsets, a nagging new maintenance problem is bedeviling the snub-nosed
bullet trains.
Over the last 10 months, the main springs in the Acela's trucks - the swiveling
components that hold the train's wheel sets - have begun to break, requiring
replacements to be installed much earlier than predicted by Bombardier/Alstom,
the train's manufacturer.
This is on state-of-the-art trains that have, at most, 30,000 miles on them.
"Thirty thousand (miles) isn't bad, but it's a far cry from what (the manufacturer)
committed to," Amtrak President David Gunn told the Herald. "I'm not prepared
to say it's premature or otherwise. The point is, they built the maintenance
(schedules) around 250,000 miles, which means they have some constraints (in
fixing them now)."
Bombardier/Alston, the joint venture that built the troublesome Acelas, is responsible
for their maintenance. According to Gunn, the difficulty with the spring failures,
which have happened on "16 or 17" trucks, is that the broken trains have to
be hauled out to Alstom's maintenance facility in Hornel, N.Y., to be repaired.
"What is happening is they're having to ship stuff all over the place (to be
repaired) . . . why do you ship the whole . . . truck to Hornel to change the
spring?" said Gunn, the Melrose native who took the helm at Amtrak a year ago.
"They can do a better job. We're beating them up all the time to do a better
job."
Amtrak said it has the equipment to do the repair work, and is hoping to come
up with some arrangement with Bombardier to do so.
The manufacturer doesn't deny there have been problems with the springs, but
believes they're likely a product of the Northeast Corridor's state of disrepair.
"That Acela equipment is slugging it out in that environment every day, at high
speeds. They're taking a beating," said David Slack, a Bombardier spokesman.
"We're starting to see some of the wear and tear . . . (but) it's not a safety
issue and it's not impacting service.
