By what merit is the Acela 1, a failure, and 2, not historically significant? The Acela is the first true high speed train in North America, I'm not going to count the Metroliners because they were never able to operate to operate at their intended top speed. The Acela meanwhile did and does every single day even if it's only for a short portion of it's route. I'm also not counting the Metroliners because they were separate EMUs and not a true cohesive trainset like the Acela, which is basically a TGV homologated for US service.

Is it because the 1st Gen Acela doesn't meet the international standards of high speed rail? Well that's more to do with the infrastructure, not the trains themselves, which have been tested up to 170 mph, which isn't that far off the service speed of European and Japanese HSR. In fact, the Acela is faster than the Series 0 Shinkansen.

What's more, these trains have been reliably carrying thousands of people each day in the most dense supermetropolis for the past quarter century. So to say they have no broad personal or emotional connection is just incorrect.

I would also add that railroad history didn't end in the 1970s; it continues on to this day, and nothing should be considered too new to preserve (this line of thinking is why so few ALCO PAs and only one EMD E7 are left). And even then, the first gen Acelas aren't exactly new, with many locomotives in museums having shorter service lives.

If you're saying a premium-service train that was in service for 25 years and ongoing is a "failure," then by that definition, the following museum exhibits/operable locos should be scrapped immediately:

*The Alco PA (Santa Fe, D&H, NdeM, "NKP", or whatever)
*Amtrak Metroliner 860
*PRR E7A 5901
*British Rail's 9F 2-10-0 Evening Star
*BR 1954 Pacific Duke of Gloucester
*Ex-Amtrak SDP40F 6946
*The GM "Train of Tomorrow"
*PRR E44 4465

And last but not least, abandon the wasteful PRR T1 Project; they were an "abject failure" and only lasted less than a decade, after all.

You may claim "railfans" have no "personal connection" to the Acelas. Yet they were the stars of the NEC for the people that actually paid for their services.

There were few "railfans" that could afford luxury trains like the Super Chief or the Broadway Limited, and most of us could only dream of getting to ride in a first-class private car or railroad executive car. Yes those things are a disproportionate part of too many museums today. Even the EBT retains its "business car" today.

Just like the Turbo Trains, TGVs, BR HSTs and APT, and Japan's Shinkansen, the proposed preservation of an Acela is fraught with logistical problems--how do you preserve a concept with only a small part of the train? But to dismiss preservation completely as a "failure" is biased and narrow thinking.

Power car, coach car, Café car, first class car, power car. Throw it on a side track with a handicapped accessible high level platform and serve snacks out of the café car. Maybe on special occasions pull it with an Hep equipped locomotive or locomotive with Hep generator car if it is possible.

First off, while the original T-1 was a failure in the sense of its short service life-but the "wasteful" as you describe the T-1 project isn't preservation, it is new construction-an engineering exercise focused on using modern fabrication techniques (welding, CAD CAM, finite element analysis) applied to the boutique replication an a superseded machine. It's more forensic science, designed to examine the claims and counterclaims about a specific machine (speed, wheel slip, etc).

However, that short service life was in large part dictated by the emergence of not only competing modes of transportation, but the disruptive innovation of diesel power and even for steam, its extraordinarily narrow operating objectives which precluded secondary use, not defects of design or workmanship. Wheelslip didn't kill it-sleek EMD's did.

The T-1 was built for the presumption that the end of the serial depressions of the 1930's and the end of World War II would return passenger travel patterns to those of the late 1920's.

But as a "choo-choo" the very fact that it is able to produce a dedicated effort to produce a new construction by people who were born decades after the last one met the torch proves my point about steam's capacity to inspire nostalgia.

While I suppose I should distinguish between the HHP-8 and the Acela trainset and brand, these pieces provides a summary of the issues that plagued the HHP-8's ab initio until its end.

https://www.railwayage.com/regulatory/h ... s-lawsuit/

https://forum.trains.com/t/why-the-prob ... ies/258786

Here, defenders concede issues.

https://railroad.net/amtrak-hhp-8-discu ... 5-495.html

Now, if you can find people who wax poetic about the joys of riding the Acela while travelling the NEC, in order to check their crops in the cubicle farm, great. I knew of one. The recently deceased Mark Fetting of Baltimore. After he was promoted from Scranton to Newark, he ended up taking the CEO's job at Legg Mason, until he was replaced. My understanding was the trip was a grind. Unfortunately, we can't ask him about the joys of commuting from Baltimore to Newark on Amtrak.

https://www.thebanner.com/obituaries/ma ... CZX6BCK2A/

The reality is that the ultimate arbiter of preservation worthiness isn't the interests of enthusiasts or some industrial historians' paper on a technology or some exemplar-but popular or prurient interest driven by irrational affections-usually nostalgia.

There are limits. Was the Acela more important than the 707 or 747 variants? How many 747-8's should "we" preserve. Is the -8 more important than the -200 or -400? What about freighters. What about the 767? Do you expect to be able to go and fly on a 707? Yet ironically, you can get a ride on a B-25 or B-29, even though they weren't passenger planes.

Comparing the Acela and the HHP-8 and using it as a basis for the Acela being a failure isn't a good argument. For one thing, they are completely different animals mechanically; the Acela is based off the TGV while the HHP-8 is based off Alstom's BB 36000 freight locomotive. They have/had different software, electrical hardware such as inverters, and completely different maintenance regimes. They look similar because they were built by the same company, and were specified by Amtrak to resemble one another. In other words, saying the Acela was a failure because of the HHP-8 is like saying the EMD F7 was a failure because of the F2.

As for finding someone who can look back fondly on their commute on the Acela day in and day out, I counter you for argument and ask you to find any worker who commutes that enjoys their commute unless they're an enthusiast themselves, or ride with friends.

And on your point of nostalgia being a prerequisite for preservation, using your aircraft analogy, all three Boeing 787 prototypes are now in museums, yet the plane is still in production. Is there anyone nostalgic about flying on a 787? Are those aircraft undeserving of preservation because of how new they are? There's also an AC6000CW that's preserved, is anyone nostalgic towards them? Was anyone nostalgic towards the Baldwin 60000, which was only 7 years old, when it was preserved?

Additionally, just because people don't look fondly on riding the Acela now doesn't mean they will be in the future. For example, many people I know who rode the Blueliners and MP54s remember them as being loud, drafty, less comfortable than newer equipment, and having floors so dirty, they had no idea what color they were painted. Even today, only the enthusiasts really look back fondly on them, while people like my parents, still remember them as being awful.

You are also forgetting that the Acelas have been in service for 25 years, which is more than enough time for people who rode them to have retired. Some people may have spent half their careers or more riding them!

The Acela is an important footnote in the history of railroading in the US, and is a perfect example of early 21st Century American passenger rail, and if we get true high speed rail in this country (which considering Brightline West's progress, is only a matter of time), then the Acela can be viewed as the harbinger of passenger rail in the next century.

And on your point of nostalgia being a prerequisite for preservation, using your aircraft analogy, all three Boeing 787 prototypes are now in museums, yet the plane is still in production. Is there anyone nostalgic about flying on a 787?


Yes, Boeing is nostalgic about them. They found museums that thought they would be of interest and they accepted them. Given Boeing's management missteps over the past few years, they may become relics faster than one might expect.

You can compare a prototype donation by the maker to attempts to save something that has reached it's EOL and where the owner might obtain some scrap or salvage value.