spare cars: Amfleets vs Horizons

[Joel N. Weber II]

In Portland on Saturday, we saw a spare Amfleet coach parked, presumably there so it could be swapped into the Downeaster if one of the Downeaster trainsets had a coach that needed to be swapped out unexpectedly.

Given that the spare coach is unlikely to carry many revenue passengers in any given week of being scheduled to sit in Maine, wouldn't it be better to park a spare Horizon in Maine, and let revenue passengers elsewhere in the system who are currently enjoying a Horizon coach ride in that Amfleet every day?

 

[Green Maned Lion]

No way. A Horizon sitting in maine, especially during cold weather, would probably quickly be rendered unusable.

 

[Neil_M]

No way. A Horizon sitting in maine, especially during cold weather, would probably quickly be rendered unusable.

Why? Do the wheels fall off if it gets too chilly?

If you are referring to the water systems, then best practice would be to drain any water out if you are going to leave the vehicle stood without it being plugged in a shore supply. You can always refill it when you need it.

 

[cpamtfan]

I thought that was a bad order coach....

 

[battalion51]

Generally during the winter months cars and engines are plugged in when not in use to keep the juices flowing on a regular basis. The locomotives have an auto-shutdown feature that kicks in after an hour of idling, however this is automatically disabled if the ambient temperature is below 40 to keep the engine from freezing up. I don't know what they do with equipment that will be standing for significant periods of time though...

 

[jis]

I thought that was a bad order coach....

That was my impression too. There really is no need to keep a protect car in Portland. In the worst case they will have to run a train one car short back to Boston should there be a problem with a car. OTOH, I wondered why they had two P42s sitting there doing nothing too.

 

[Donctor]

There really is no need to keep a protect car in Portland. In the worst case they will have to run a train one car short back to Boston should there be a problem with a car.

Why would they leave it in Maine? I'm not saying that it wouldn't (or doesn't) happen, but were I in charge I would keep the car (assuming it could still roll) on the train and return it to Boston to be repaired. Is that not realistic? I don't know the ins and outs of Amtrak maintenance, but I'd think it'd be better to repair a coach in Boston than in Maine.

 

[battalion51]

Hypothetically, if it is bad ordered, many times its necessary to make some repairs on site before it can be moved to a better facility. If there is a locked axle or something like that you have to repair it so you can actually move at a decent speed before it goes to a real shop. It's also not exactly an easy maneuver to get stuff over to the North Side for the Downeaster.

 

[Hamhock]

Also, and this is just my complete speculation, the number of coaches sometimes is increased by one on specific Donweaster runs, no? It would make sense to have it handy when needed, and otherwise just sitting there when not.

 

[Long Train Runnin']

I was looking at the picture I took of this car. Look at all the growth on the tracks. I think that car has been sitting there for awhile.

 

[AlanB]

Growth in and around the tracks would not be a good indicator of the car having been sitting there for a while. In fact, there might actually be less growth under the car due to lack of sun light.

Shiny rails vs rusted rails would be a much better indicator of just how long that car's been there.

 

[wrjensen]

I was looking at the picture I took of this car. Look at all the growth on the tracks. I think that car has been sitting there for awhile.

I seen tracks with 4 trains a day with more growth then that. Because it under the car I would say it been there less then a week

 

[cpamtfan]

Well I saw it in a picture on Railpictures.net from a few weeks/months ago....

 

[Green Maned Lion]

No way. A Horizon sitting in maine, especially during cold weather, would probably quickly be rendered unusable.

Why? Do the wheels fall off if it gets too chilly?

If you are referring to the water systems, then best practice would be to drain any water out if you are going to leave the vehicle stood without it being plugged in a shore supply. You can always refill it when you need it.

The doors and traps freeze, as well as the stairs. The Horizon was never designed for manual doors, or exposed stairs. Actually, the original Comet design didn't even have traps. It was low-level only. Erie and Lackawanna didn't have any high-level platforms. The Comet II "Sliders" was a compromised design to begin with, and the Amtrak Horizon version of it is more compromised still. They thought it wouldn't be too much of a problem, especially as they were bought with California service in mind.

I don't know what BON has, but the car would quickly be relegated to running with the traps either frozen open or frozen closed. If you closed the doors, they'd probably freeze, too. It takes Chicago Yards resources to the edge of their sanity to keep them in constant use in Chicago. Leave it sitting for a while, like you would with a protect car? God help them.