Viewliner II - Part 1 - Initial Production and Delivery

[neroden]

I see lots of Commercials on TV about incentives for locating New Businesses in Up-State New York and they show different types in such faded cities as Buffalo, Rochester, Utica, Syracuse etc.

With the benefit of local knowledge (cough cough) I can say that the cities along the Erie Canal Corridor, including Auburn, are solid enough that locating a business there could make a lot of sense. They still have skilled workforces and smart kids who are loyal enough that they are staying. And if they get the hankering to go to New York City... they can take the train. (And airfares are reasonable, too.)

The cities along the Susquehanna River corridor are another matter. Honestly, they've been declining since the Erie Canal opened The manufacturing knowledge is much more hollowed out and the whole area is going back to its farming roots. They're very isolated in transportation terms -- you gotta drive everywhere (no passenger trains, sky-high airfare and minimal flights), and the roads are slow and bad. It makes them a highly unattractive place for people to move.

 

[jis]

Each time I go to the Susquehanna Valley in the Southern Tier of New York State, all that I see more of are Antique Shops somehow. It is a beautiful area which could do well to develop a more robust tourist industry perhaps with the help of new passenger rail service using DMUs.

 

[me_little_me]

Each time I go to the Susquehanna Valley in the Southern Tier of New York State, all that I see more of are Antique Shops somehow. It is a beautiful area which could do well to develop a more robust tourist industry perhaps with the help of new passenger rail service using DMUs.

Those aren't antique shops. Those are the homes of all the old people where the great grandkids had to come back to sell off the furniture the people were still using before they ended up in the nursing homes. :giggle:

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

Wouldn't they be more effective in the Rust Belt States such as Michigan,Indiana,Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin that have a history of manufacturing but the jobs are gone to Mexico,Asia and the Caribbean?

I add a short story. Many years ago, AT&T had a problem making vacuum tubes in Manhattan. Too much dirt (what we could call pollution today) was getting inside the tubes. So, AT&T decided to build a new factory in Allentown, PA. A reasonable driving distance from NYC. Nice clean air (must have been a day when the wind was blowing Bethlehem Steel's soot the other way). And Allentown had many seamstresses, a skill AT&T felt could easily be transferred over to making vacuum tubes. So, yes, having a good local supply of skilled workers was indeed a requirement.

Though, a story ends with a bit of a twist. Soon after AT&T built the factory in Allentown, AT&T's Bell Labs people invented the transistor, and Allentown got quickly converted into the world first semiconductor fab.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

The cities along the Susquehanna River corridor are another matter. Honestly, they've been declining since the Erie Canal opened The manufacturing knowledge is much more hollowed out and the whole area is going back to its farming roots. They're very isolated in transportation terms -- you gotta drive everywhere (no passenger trains, sky-high airfare and minimal flights), and the roads are slow and bad. It makes them a highly unattractive place for people to move.

The southern tier recently got a interstate highway. So growth will follow. Transportation is key to growth. Unlike the toll way upstate, the downstate is a free way.

 

[PVD]

The interstate is 17 converted to limited access. It's not like its something new or vastly improved.

 

[jis]

The interstate is 17 converted to limited access. It's not like its something new or vastly improved.

Exactly. It was a divided highway in many places anyway with traffic lights in some areas, and the traffic in those areas was not exactly holding any development back. Now many parts of 17 have been upgraded to Interstate standards and rechristened as I-86. There are other parts where work still continues.

The southern tier recently got a interstate highway. So growth will follow. Transportation is key to growth. Unlike the toll way upstate, the downstate is a free way.

Wake me up when it does. It will take way more than an upgrade of one highway for that to come about. Southern Tier has serious additional issues.

I spend quite a bit of time traveling parts of it since my old host family from my Grad School days have retired to their native home there, and the only practical way to get to their place is to drive. They actually live in a part of the Southern Tier which has had an Interstate highway for decades, and that does not seem to have made a huge difference.

 

[edjbox]

I believe most of the GE locomotives for the North American market are built in Texas now, while many locomotives and kits for the international market are built in Erie

 

[Eric S]

The southern tier recently got a interstate highway. So growth will follow. Transportation is key to growth. Unlike the toll way upstate, the downstate is a free way.

I'd just note that "freeway" does not mean no tolls, it refers to flow of traffic unhindered by traffic signals, intersections, driveways, etc. A "tollway" with those characteristics is in fact a freeway.

And I'm not sure simply adding (or actually redesignating an existing highway as) an Interstate is going to create "growth." In a slow growth or no growth region, I think it's more likely to simply redistribute growth and development within the corridor.

 

[jis]

However I-86, I-88, I-99 and I-81 all of which pass through parts of the Southern Tier do not have any tolls unlike the New York State Thruway (I-90) which passes through the Northern Tier.

 

[Ziv]

afigg, this reminds me of a Star Trek TNG episode where the Enterprise was stuck in a time loop and kept repeating the same time period over and over. We could be hearing that the diners are just 6 weeks from arriving over and over and over... LOL!

On a serious note, I have been visiting this thread for what seems like forever waiting for the diners and, eventually, the sleepers to show up. I really hope that this late August/September time-frame is met!

Wow, for the first time in a long time, some actual dates for the delivery of the diners and sleepers. Let's hope this prediction is more accurate than previous "delivery dates."

The last reports/rumors on projected delivery dates of the first diner cars was for late May/June, that was in April IIRC. Now that we are passed mid-July, according to NARP, the first of the new diners should be ready for revenue service in August or early September. Hopefully, they are not stuck in a loop where the initial delivery and then revenue service dates are always 6 weeks or 2 months away.

Presumably the diner cars will have to be moved to Hialeah for inspection and acceptance tests and undergo test runs before they can be accepted into revenue service. To enter revenue service in August, wouldn't the first batch have to be moved to Hialeah soon?

 

[Bob Dylan]

It's "Ground Hog Day" Redux!

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

The big problem appears to be that locating a factory in Elmira made it hard to hire a workforce who were trainable, let alone trained -- though this was not anticipated by the Spanish bosses at CAF or the bosses at Amtrak, and probably should have been.

Not a dig at anyone in particularly, but a lot of Europeans, especially from the continent, often don't grasp the enormity of the United States nor the regional variations in skills, development, etc.

I'm always surprised that it's mostly manufacturing jobs that actually use the subsidies for relocation - for corporate relocations otherwise its icing on the cake or something they negotiate (I'm thinking Talgo in Milwaukee or say Nippon Slowyo which locate their plants near the customer to get the job, usually state sponsored, but Illinois and Wisconsin still have a lot of skilled labor and are central) to scare the state or other governmental unit - even if they were going to locate there anyway.

 

[neroden]

The interstate is 17 converted to limited access. It's not like its something new or vastly improved.

The limited access conversion basically destroyed the local businesses in Horseheads, in fact. People driving through used to stop at the traffic lights and go to the gas stations and restaurants. They don't stop any more. It's now surrounded by vacant, boarded-up buildings. Prosperity! Not.

An expressway is a good tool of economic destruction. The conversion of 17 to limited access seems to have shuttered all the businesses which used to be at intersections. It certainly hasn't attracted any businesses. We saw this played out very, very clearly -- I used to think the interstate would be helpful, but it's been a disaster.

At its most fundamental, there's no particular economic reason to be in the Susquehanna Valley in NY, except for farming. The roads and railroads through the area follow the river, with all its bends, so they're slow. They'll never be as fast as the direct routes on the Erie Canal Corridor, because making them straight would require too much tunneling to be worth it. And if they were faster, it would just help people blow past the area.

The region originally developed as the "gateway to the west" way back when development followed the rivers. The opening of the Erie Canal rendered it irrelevant, and the B&O and C&O rendered it even more irrelevant. If it hadn't developed so early, it would *never* have developed, much like Northwestern Pennsylvania. Like I say, it's been declining since the Erie Canal opened, and it's got nothing which would cause that to change.

 

[PVD]

Hearing about Horseheads is a "throwback" for me. My first travel tournament as an ice hockey coach was played at the Elmira College Murray Domes and the hotel (Holiday Inn?) we used was in Horseheads. It's almost 30 years later, and I think my feet are still cold from standing behind that bench!

 

[Palmetto]

Continuing off topic, I once hosted a group of Belgian secondary school students when I worked in Chicago. One of the things their chaperone told me was that they wanted to see the Great Lakes. I told them to take a good look on the approach to O'Hare.

 

[PerRock]

You know almost every time I login here (multiple times a day) I see that there are new posts here & I think "ooh new info on the Viewliners" but inevitably it's some random conversation about something fairly off topic... I really shouldn't get my hopes up.

peter

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

You know almost every time I login here (multiple times a day) I see that there are new posts here & I think "ooh new info on the Viewliners" but inevitably it's some random conversation about something fairly off topic... I really shouldn't get my hopes up.

peter

I guess because there is no new information? *wry grin*

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

afigg, this reminds me of a Star Trek TNG episode where the Enterprise was stuck in a time loop and kept repeating the same time period over and over. We could be hearing that the diners are just 6 weeks from arriving over and over and over... LOL!

That was just on last night.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

I'd just note that "freeway" does not mean no tolls, it refers to flow of traffic unhindered by traffic signals, intersections, driveways, etc. A "tollway" with those characteristics is in fact a freeway.

People drive on Parkways, and people park on Driveways.

We have freeways and thruways and parkways and expressways and causeways and byways.

 

[PRR 60]

I suggest we return this topic to Viewliner II discussion. Discussion of the socio-economic impact of limited access highways and other subjects not related to the Viewliner II order can be continued in Random Discussions.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Now if anyone sees a Viewliner consist rolling down a road of any kind, well have some Real News!

 

[DSS&A]

Hi, the CSF website has posted photos of the new diners.

http://www.caf.net/en/productos-servicios/proyectos/proyecto-detalle.php?p=189

 

[Steve4031]

Those look Very nice. I see that the vents are lower like was mentioned in other posts. I wonder what the cooks think about the kitchen.

 

[GaSteve]

Those look Very nice. I see that the vents are lower like was mentioned in other posts. I wonder what the cooks think about the kitchen.

I spoke to the chef on 19/20 last week when the 8400 was in the consist and he said he "loved" it. There is a lot more work space in the kitchen, partly because of all the upper storage with the higher ceiling.