Who will save the acela?

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Thu May 06, 2021 5:47 pm

Ed Kapuscinski wrote:

But that doesn't make them good stewards of the artifacts. And those cars that they're modifying like that, I hope, aren't part of their collections.

If all someone wants is a convenient set of cars to use for excursion service (to get people in the door) there are far easier ways to do that than trying to modify an Acela set.

I'll put it this way:

Amtrak NEEDS passenger cars to replace Amfleet I's and II's on the Corridor and elsewhere.

Amtrak has the technical and mechanical ability AND the shop space (Beech Grove, Bear, Wilmington) AND the fiscal motivation to take those bodies and rebuild them to plain old loco-hauled equipment to run behind Sprinters or ACS-64s if it chose to.

It somehow chose NOT to, according to the articles I have read (and some former insiders).

This is NOT going to be our next "Lackawanna MU/SP commuter car/C&NW gallery car" fleet.

RCD · **Posted:** Thu May 06, 2021 7:21 pm

The fact is one of the reasons proposals get shut down to save equipment is because "we can't run that here". As it turns out it is very possable to run an acela train set (probely a smaller one) at most museumes. A few cars a café and first class car as well as the two power cars is all you need to tell the story and give occasional revenue trips in. If I recall correctly Amtrak only owns want to sell a train set in the rest are rented and they also don't like oddballs. If they are so desperate for Rolling Stock wouldn't they have taken the turbo liners? The people who come along for the Nostalgia of writing an Alco pulling heavy weights are not as common as the new geneeation who will remember F40PHs, AEM7 and Acela trains. And I am shure thoes units will have a biger wow factor than an Alco switcher from such and such grain elevator. But don't belive me and continue wondering why you can't find young volunteers or attract more visitors.

Bobharbison · **Joined:** Fri Dec 03, 2004 9:42 pm **Posts:** 3011

p51 wrote:

Same deal with the Cascades trains, two of them recently went in a funeral train down to CA for scrapping. I even missed getting photos of that train, and not even a single car will be preserved. It doesn't hit many nerves right now and you just can't save everything."

Not for the lack of trying... According Trains and other sources, Northwest Railway Museum attempted to acquire a set, both by donation and by bidding. They sold fairly cheap, and it would appear Amtrak wanted them gone, rather than sitting around as a reminder of a not-so-great moment in Amtrak history.

NSM Transportation was selected in the sale, in which the state agency had rejected bids and requests for a donation of one trainset or some of the permanently coupled cars, according to a source at the Northwest Railway Museum. Members of the Southern Rail Commission also traveled to the Pacific Northwest to determine whether the Talgo Series VI trainsets Washington was selling might fit into future plans for a proposed New Orleans-Mobile, Ala., service.

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... alifornia/

PaulWWoodring · **Posted:** Thu May 06, 2021 11:38 pm

It doesn't have to run. Groups are going to screw around arguing over this and they are all going to be scrapped. The goal is saving a representative set (or two), period. It would have been better to have a shell of a P30CH, than the none at all, which is what happened.

SD70dude · **Posted:** Fri May 07, 2021 1:26 pm

In a similar case that could foreshadow any Acela preservation movement, how many UAC TurboTrains were preserved? Wouldn't have needed an entire set to tell their story either.

Here's an old thread with some information about the attempts (or lack of) to preserve a Turbo:

http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/147849.aspx

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Tue May 11, 2021 1:17 pm

RCD wrote:

So aperentely you can power an Acela with HEP from a standard locomotive so that does give an option to run in a museums setting

I just checked with the Acela guy who just got back from a trip.

NO, YOU CAN'T.

To quote this Amtrak tech:

Quote:

For 480 [HEP], I'm sure it's possible but they went to hardwired 480 connections between cars back about 10 years ago after that one trainset caught fire around Gunpow. It was at the junction box where the 480 cables connected & they found that the connectors (plug type) became loose or poor connection headed after a period of time so they took all connectors off & hardwired using lugs & posts.

As for powering a power car: NFW ! Those require much more power than the 480v can supply, plus I believe those are on a completely separate power control system.
The AEM7s 480v ps was about 6-800kw, their TS PS [Traction System Power Supply] was in the order of 1.2MW.
Now the AEM7S had the ability to use the 480v as a aux field excitation supply in case the Aux ps failed but that was ONLY for TM field excitation, NOT ARMATURE powering. The current flows are much larger thru the armature of a TM.

RCD · **Posted:** Tue May 11, 2021 5:00 pm

Alexander D. Mitchell IV wrote:

RCD wrote:

So aperentely you can power an Acela with HEP from a standard locomotive so that does give an option to run in a museums setting

I just checked with the Acela guy who just got back from a trip.

NO, YOU CAN'T.

To quote this Amtrak tech:

Quote:

For 480 [HEP], I'm sure it's possible but they went to hardwired 480 connections between cars back about 10 years ago after that one trainset caught fire around Gunpow. It was at the junction box where the 480 cables connected & they found that the connectors (plug type) became loose or poor connection headed after a period of time so they took all connectors off & hardwired using lugs & posts.

As for powering a power car: NFW ! Those require much more power than the 480v can supply, plus I believe those are on a completely separate power control system.
The AEM7s 480v ps was about 6-800kw, their TS PS [Traction System Power Supply] was in the order of 1.2MW.
Now the AEM7S had the ability to use the 480v as a aux field excitation supply in case the Aux ps failed but that was ONLY for TM field excitation, NOT ARMATURE powering. The current flows are much larger thru the armature of a TM.

So that does not anser the question. We don't need to power the TMs just the lights and HVAC. So when you open the front of an acela to get to the coupler is there a 480v hook up? From photos I have seen it looks like yes.

p51 · **Posted:** Tue May 11, 2021 5:23 pm

Bobharbison wrote:

Not for the lack of trying... According Trains and other sources, Northwest Railway Museum attempted to acquire a set, both by donation and by bidding. They sold fairly cheap, and it would appear Amtrak wanted them gone, rather than sitting around as a reminder of a not-so-great moment in Amtrak history.
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... alifornia/

I didn't know that, nor am I the least bit surprised to hear it.
This reminds me of all the Naval ships that have been requested for donations to turn into museums and the Navy turned them all down just to scrap them instead. Now, maybe in the long run those were wise decisions, as few groups can preserve a large warship forever and eventually the ships start to rust away, but the idea that they thought that scrapping was better?