According to a discussion I had with an Amtrak official that I won't name, but will describe as extremely tall and generally large in size with big teeth, Amtrak does not have any serious plans to retire the Amfleets within the next 10-15 year time period. They are considering acquiring some additional higher-speed new cars to supplement (and perhaps displace) some from the Corridor itself, but he described the likely hood of that happening as "remote".
Given their acceptable top speed, the sheer number of cars they have, the amount of money they are putting into them, and the amount of money it would require to acquire about 400-450 rail cars with limited intended life, and Amtrak's overall plans, it just doesn't make any sense. Amtrak wants to electrify to Richmond.
They're overall dream is to acquire a pair of tracks alongside the CSX ROW, straighten where possible, and electrify the thing with high platforms the entire way. To put it differently, the intention is to have the core corridor be BOS-RVR, and running with high speed trainsets. The Amfleets and any successors to them need to have traps, to serve the numerous low-level platforms along the Northeast, Keystone, and Empire corridors, as well as a possibility (and we are talking long, long term here), of running a corridor from New York to Buffalo via Dover, Scranton, and Binghamton. I.E. the old DLW line- the Cutoff that NJT is rebuilding. NJT is gonna run trains to Scranton, New York and Pennsylvania have shown interest in helping to fund a New York-Buffalo corridor under those circumstances.
Since these theoretical Amfleet replacements would need traps to serve the NEC as it currently stands, they would have to be limited to 125 mph. More then that and you go to FRA tier II and you need trapless construction. What he said was that the intention was to work on improving the infrastructure to the point where the core Northeast Corridor, as well as the Keystone and perhaps Empire corridors, could be served by tier II equipment, at which point Amtrak would start asking congress for that kind of equipment, which is easier to sell since it is faster.
Given these plans, any Amfleet replacement would, by its very nature, be temporary, and thus make very little sense economically. The impression I got was that if they did order Amfleet replacement equipment, it would be something off the shelf and easily resold. I got the impression that NJT/AMT multi-levels would be likely if they had to do that, but more likely of the still only-on-the-drawing board Arrow IV Multi-Level variety, which are Bombardiers plans for EMUs based on the Multi-level coaches.
All of that is subject to change, but what the contact said was that, equipmentwise, short/medium distance single-level 125mph trap-equipped coaches are about last on the priority. Intended NEC capacity increases is going to come from freeing up such cars from duties where other cars can do the job- i.e. California-car style bi-levels.
