Viewliner II Part 2: Dining Car Production, Delivery, Speculation

[sitzplatz17]

And I'll take a Heady Topper beer please.

I agree with the others that the order will be completed. It may not be CAFs #1 priority which is why they're plodding along, but it's more in their interest to finish it eventually rather than just give up.

 

[Ryan]

LOL. I'm in on that one too.

Dennis in a year:

 

[neroden]

So, it's been a leisurely month since the last two came out. Aren't we about due for another one? Or two?

And how about the cars mouldering in the shop: 68000, 68001, 68003? One would hope that a month would be long enough to address the problems on at least *one* of them.

At this rate the first sleeper will come out in 2019.

 

[A Voice]

So, it's been a leisurely month since the last two came out. Aren't we about due for another one? Or two?

And how about the cars mouldering in the shop: 68000, 68001, 68003? One would hope that a month would be long enough to address the problems on at least *one* of them.

At this rate the first sleeper will come out in 2019.

Diner 68000, Albany, is still at CAF, with various rumors it will likely be the last to be delivered (for specified modifications).

We don't really have any basis to believe - or discount - that this "two every 30 days or so" pattern will remain. We don't know what (if anything) is happening behind the scenes with the sleepers and baggage-dorms. The latter might well be ready in the next few months as was previously announced, we just don't know.

 

[Acela150]

One thing to remember is that quite a few baggage cars came out at once. Granted it's a baggage car, but still.

 

[me_little_me]

At the speeds Amtrak long distance trains run on freight tracks, there is no rush. Everything moves at glacier pace.

 

[Thirdrail7]

And how about the cars mouldering in the shop: 68000, 68001, 68003? One would hope that a month would be long enough to address the problems on at least *one* of them.

They've picked up company. h34r: :help:

 

[west point]

It may be that we can believe the 2 per month delivery of diners. Amtrak is anticipating no deliveries of Bag Dorms or Sleepers before February 2018. Amtrak has a petition to the FRA stating that they will delivered sometime after then. The waiver is to allow deliveries after FEB with out having the propulsion door open interlock int installed. Can imagine that locos are not equipped as well ? 3rd rail ? Cannot get link to show.

.

 

[dlagrua]

With reference to my comment that the CAF Viewliner order never being completed; are not the deliveries over two years late at this point? The contract was supposed to have been completed by early 2015, but as of this month CAF USA Inc has delivered 70 baggage cars and a few diners Nearly 400 defects were identified in the first lot of baggage cars so like Nippon Sharyo they may not be able to meet USA specs to one degree or another. The order called for 70 baggage cars, 25 diners, 10 baggage-dormitory cars and 25 sleepers. I could certainly be wrong about CAF walking away from the rest of the order but when they are shipping dollars with each unit it doesn't make good business sense for them to deliver. It makes perfectly good business sense to keep delaying deliveries ( which they are doing) until Amtrak gets fed up and cancels the order which is probably what CAF is hoping will happen. Am I wrong with the facts or with this analogy? If so please explain how.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

With reference to my comment that the CAF Viewliner order never being completed; are not the deliveries over two years late at this point? The contract was supposed to have been completed by early 2015, but as of this month CAF USA Inc has delivered 70 baggage cars and a few diners Nearly 400 defects were identified in the first lot of baggage cars so like Nippon Sharyo they may not be able to meet USA specs to one degree or another. The order called for 70 baggage cars, 25 diners, 10 baggage-dormitory cars and 25 sleepers. I could certainly be wrong about CAF walking away from the rest of the order but when they are shipping dollars with each unit it doesn't make good business sense for them to deliver. It makes perfectly good business sense to keep delaying deliveries ( which they are doing) until Amtrak gets fed up and cancels the order which is probably what CAF is hoping will happen. Am I wrong with the facts or with this analogy? If so please explain how.

You make it sound like they're delaying on purpose, rather than because they're having issues (perhaps not enough skilled labor to finish them in a timely fashion). I have no idea why things are delayed, but I don't suspect them of dragging there feet on purpose.

 

[Maglev]

How deeply is CAF committed to completing the order in terms of stock-on-hand? Are there car shells or sleeper room modules awaiting assembly?

 

[A Voice]

With reference to my comment that the CAF Viewliner order never being completed; are not the deliveries over two years late at this point?

How late were the original Superliners (from Pullman Standard) back in the 70's?

 

[Ryan]

Nearly 400 defects were identified in the first lot of baggage cars

Don't get hung up on the number of defects. We deliver warships with thousands of trial cards written, some covering multiple occurrences of the same defect. These things get fixed, which is why they spend time between delivery and revenue service.

so like Nippon Sharyo they may not be able to meet USA specs to one degree or another.

If they didn't meet specs, none would have been delivered. The fact that there are cars in revenue service (and have been for quite some time) indicates that you're mistaken.

I could certainly be wrong about CAF walking away from the rest of the order

You are.

but when they are shipping dollars with each unit it doesn't make good business sense for them to deliver.

Objection: Assumes facts not in evidence.

It makes perfectly good business sense to keep delaying deliveries ( which they are doing) until Amtrak gets fed up and cancels the order which is probably what CAF is hoping will happen. Am I wrong with the facts or with this analogy? If so please explain how.

As usual, you take some wildly wrong "facts", then use them to jump to a logically unsupportable conclusion. Bonus points for consistency, though.

 

[KnightRail]

Maybe another couple diners next month and maybe the 25th diner by a year from next month. It's not worth throwing out dates for bag-dorms or sleepers till all diners are served. Good things come to those who wait...eventually. Glacial progress is being made.

 

[Ngotwalt]

Dare I ask, how many VD's (maybe not the best abbreviation) are actually in service and operating?

Nick

 

[Ziv]

I think this was current as of last week:

8400 Indianapolis Operational Not a regular VLII though. I think it was a Budd prototype built back in the late 80's.

68000 Albany Being modified, not operational

68001 Annapolis Being repaired

68002 Atlanta Operating

68003 Augusta Inoperative, no reason given in last post I read

68004 Baton Rouge Operating as of 7/12

68005 Boston Operating

68006 Charleston Not delivered

68007 Columbia Not delivered

68008 Columbus Not delivered

68009 Concord Not delivered

68010 Dover Not delivered.

Sorry for any errors. So 4 diners if you include the 8400.

Dare I ask, how many VD's (maybe not the best abbreviation) are actually in service and operating?
Nick

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Dlagura, are you aware that foot dragging costs CAF a lot more money then the rapid completion and removal of this order from their Accounts Payable would do?

They are running an entire factory here, have tons of in process inventory, and all of that costs them money. Just because a project has become unprofitable does not mean that completion is not the most financially sensible outcome.

 

[PVD]

Of course. When you take into consideration that a major portion of building a railcar is assembling parts sourced from other vendors, there may be very high costs in canceling or delaying those orders. What exactly would Railplan do with a bunch of sleeper room modules if they have already been built? What payment terms apply to different components? There are probably many millions in obligations CAF would be stuck with.

 

[neroden]

And how about the cars mouldering in the shop: 68000, 68001, 68003? One would hope that a month would be long enough to address the problems on at least *one* of them.

They've picked up company. h34r: :help:

Oh dear. If it's the A/C *again*, we may not see anything for a month or more, then. If it's something else, that's even worse.

I hope the liquidated damages provisions in the contract were substantial.

 

[west point]

About AC modules. A complete spare unit will be easier to inventory. Spare units allow the trouble shooting to be much quicker. Either it can reset or not and if not replace the whole unit. Once all the V-2s are delivered then spare AC units can be kept at MIA, Sunnyside, New Orleans, CHI. If they can be swapped out within 1 - 2 hours ( doubtful ) then maybe spare(s) at WASH, ATL and Florence ?

Then when V-1 sleepers are going through major overhaul they could be retrofitted?. That would give a total of 110 Viewliners with same AC. That is if the V-2 diners do not have to have a higher capacity AC ? Questions for 3rd rail.

EDIT excuse this post on this thread. Meant to have it on Viewliner thread but for some reason could not paste it. Unable to paste anything on the site only. What am I doing wrong?.

 

[dlagrua]

Nearly 400 defects were identified in the first lot of baggage cars

Don't get hung up on the number of defects. We deliver warships with thousands of trial cards written, some covering multiple occurrences of the same defect. These things get fixed, which is why they spend time between delivery and revenue service.

so like Nippon Sharyo they may not be able to meet USA specs to one degree or another.

If they didn't meet specs, none would have been delivered. The fact that there are cars in revenue service (and have been for quite some time) indicates that you're mistaken.

I could certainly be wrong about CAF walking away from the rest of the order

You are.

but when they are shipping dollars with each unit it doesn't make good business sense for them to deliver.

Objection: Assumes facts not in evidence.

It makes perfectly good business sense to keep delaying deliveries ( which they are doing) until Amtrak gets fed up and cancels the order which is probably what CAF is hoping will happen. Am I wrong with the facts or with this analogy? If so please explain how.

As usual, you take some wildly wrong "facts", then use them to jump to a logically unsupportable conclusion. Bonus points for consistency, though.

You think that CAF is not losing money? Not according to what they have said. My comments are based upon logic acquired from many years in the business world. That logic says that when you lose money with every shipment ( as CAF claims) you seek to get out of the contract. That's just good business sense and a tactic often used in the corporate world. Corporations are there to make money and show a profit, not lose money. The Amtrak/CAF contract like the Nippon Sharyo contact is a bad deal and IMO it will go nowhere. Some industry experts sited in Trains Magazine seem to agree. .

 

[PVD]

That logic is certainly not an absolute. Sometimes it is true, very often it isn't. If I have already committed to the purchase of the components to manufacture something, and I am obligated to pay for them, I might lose far more terminating a sale. Instead of losing x per unit, I might lose far more. Also, depending on how my fixed costs, like factory and equipment costs are allocated, it could make other contracts less profitable by shifting added costs onto them. Every situation needs to be evaluated independently.

 

[Acela150]

Nearly 400 defects were identified in the first lot of baggage cars

Don't get hung up on the number of defects. We deliver warships with thousands of trial cards written, some covering multiple occurrences of the same defect. These things get fixed, which is why they spend time between delivery and revenue service.

so like Nippon Sharyo they may not be able to meet USA specs to one degree or another.

If they didn't meet specs, none would have been delivered. The fact that there are cars in revenue service (and have been for quite some time) indicates that you're mistaken.

I could certainly be wrong about CAF walking away from the rest of the order

You are.

but when they are shipping dollars with each unit it doesn't make good business sense for them to deliver.

Objection: Assumes facts not in evidence.

It makes perfectly good business sense to keep delaying deliveries ( which they are doing) until Amtrak gets fed up and cancels the order which is probably what CAF is hoping will happen. Am I wrong with the facts or with this analogy? If so please explain how.

As usual, you take some wildly wrong "facts", then use them to jump to a logically unsupportable conclusion. Bonus points for consistency, though.

You think that CAF is not losing money? Not according to what they have said. My comments are based upon logic acquired from many years in the business world. That logic says that when you lose money with every shipment ( as CAF claims) you seek to get out of the contract. That's just good business sense and a tactic often used in the corporate world. Corporations are there to make money and show a profit, not lose money. The Amtrak/CAF contract like the Nippon Sharyo contact is a bad deal and IMO it will go nowhere. Some industry experts sited in Trains Magazine seem to agree. .

Dennis, You're not going to win this one at all.

When the original Viewliner I contract went out I believe the order called for something like 100 sleepers. Someone else can confirm that for me. That order was dropped to something like half of it cause Amtrak wasn't able to pay the full contract price. That is again if I'm correct on that.

At this time Amtrak is in desperate need of new Diners. The heritage fleet is limping along, and I mean limping. Parts have to be custom fabricated for them these days. On top of that with a renewed need for sleepers and Crew Dorms on trains it justifies the entire orders fulfillment. Hyundai Rotem delivered Every single car to Septa years behind schedule, and the same with the order that the MBTA placed with them. The CAF contract is already being fulfilled unlike the NS contract which hasn't even seen a car being built. Which makes it more successful then the NS issue.

 

[west point]

Amtrak is expecting the Bag - Dorms and Sleepers to be delivered sometime after Feb 5, 2018. Amtrak petitioned the FRA to not require the FRA requirement of the propulsion - door open interlocks effective Feb 5, 2018.

 

[Ryan]

You think that CAF is not losing money? Not according to what they have said.

Where did I say they weren’t losing money? If they are, delay may not (likely not) be the cheapest way out of the problem. It’s more likely cheaper to do the exact opposite of what your “logic” dictates and complete the order as quickly as possible to stop the bleeding as soon as they can.

My comments are based upon logic acquired from many years in the business world. That logic says that when you lose money with every shipment ( as CAF claims) you seek to get out of the contract.

And mine are based on many years of experience as well, including working with a shipbuilder for the last two years that probably isn’t making money on ships at this point. Profitability is a few hulls in the future by most estimates, so your logic is completely incorrect. If you have enough insight into CAF finances to demonstrate that your “logic” loses then the least amount of work, then back the claim up with some evidence.

That's just good business sense and a tactic often used in the corporate world. Corporations are there to make money and show a profit, not lose money.

Really? I wasn’t previously aware of that. Thanks for the valuable lesson in the completely obvious.

The Amtrak/CAF contract like the Nippon Sharyo contact is a bad deal and IMO it will go nowhere. Some industry experts sited in Trains Magazine seem to agree. .

I read it on the internet, so it must be true.