European Railroad Discussion > Attack Of The Flexliners 2! (In Denmark)

Do you remember the Flexliner?

Let me refresh your memory.

So, picture a big centipede, like train size, and made of metal with windows (sort of like, minus the metal and windows, the way I would imagine a sand worm from the book Dune to look), and a big lamprey-like sucker mouth. But instead of a circle of little sharp teeth, a big rubber doughnut as the sucker mouth.

I don't have any photos of the original Flexliner, so, if your mental servers are overloaded by trying to envision such a thing, google "amtrak flexliner". If you have a photo of the Amtrak Flexliner, please post it to here.

Anyway, the Flexliner was a Danish-designed prototype smooth-ride tilt train that toured the USA in the late 1990s. It's eventual undoing turned out to be that is was finicky about grades. One wonderful story I heard was that once, it broke down during its tour climbing Donner Pass. When asked what was wrong, the Danish technician aboard responded "I do not know. We do not have hills in Denmark".

A couple of days ago, a non-railfan friend of mine was in Denmark on a business trip and he sent me this narrated video of a commuter train arriving a rural station. Little did he know that the "run-of-the-mill little train" he caught was actually----A FLEXLINER!!!!!!!!! They're still out on the prowl in flat Denmark!

(Please excuse the narration in the video. Although I had his permission to post this video, he didn't have that in mind when he took the video)

Happy rails to you,

Tor in Eugene

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In August of 1986 Amtrak was testing this Train in LA, Calif

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I agree with the comparison with a lamprey. That has to be the most un-aerodynamic passenger train ever--kind of like attaching a parachute to the front of a train.

Here are a couple photos of a diesel IC3(Flexliner). Last September I was traveling from Hamburg, Germany to Odense, Denmark on this IC3 set which kept having problems. We sat at Rendsburg, Germany for about 30 minutes while they worked on getting this running again. After a couple rounds of shut everything down and restart we were again on our way. A German crew member said the trains were junk, mostly due to their being around 25 years old.

There are a couple electric variants, the one in the video which is mainly used in Øresundståg service between Denmark and Sweden and the IR4, used in Danish domestic service.

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Torisgod Wrote:
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> Anyway, ...prototype smooth-ride tilt train that toured the
> USA in the late 1990s. It's eventual undoing
> turned out to be that is was finicky about grades.
> One wonderful story I heard was that once, it
> broke down during its tour climbing Donner Pass.
> When asked what was wrong, the Danish technician
> aboard responded "I do not know. We do not have
> hills in Denmark".

=======================================================

That was exactly what happened. Eastbound, the Flexliner, on the Oakland-Reno segment of
its Amtrak-sponsored tour, was running warm on a hot afternoon, climbing Donner Pass.
To get over The Hill with minimal disruption to normal traffic, the Flexliner was scheduled
thirty minutes ahead of regularly-scheduled Amtrak 6. So when the Flexliner's engine
computer began to throttle back on the engines to prevent further overheating, there
was genuine concern that we on the free junket train would delay the paying passengers coming
up behind us.

At Fulda, the Flexliner shut down. There was nothing anyone could do about it. I was
in the rear cab with the Danish technician, who shrugged, with the comment Torisgod
quoted.

We had less than five minutes to spare when the computers allowed the engineer and the
technician in the lead cab to throttle up and get us out of there.

Unique in the Flexliner's design, and the reason for its name, was that the train could be
split enroute by its own crew. Hinged panels (bearing "Amtrak" logo in Miralomarail's photo
above) with windshield and front bulkhead, and with the cab controls
on their rear sides, would be swung across the "vestibule" formed by the big rubber diaphragms
that resembled giant square doughnuts, and which gave the train its "Lamprey" nickname (more
than one MofW crew we passed on the way, referred to it exactly that way). This hinged panel
formed the "new" front and rear cabs of what would be the split segments that once had been a
single train; the uncoupling was done from controls in the newly-formed cabs. Communications,
air and electronics were disconnected automatically, and reconnected when the segments
were rejoined. This feature was demonstrated in Sacramento on the Flexliner's eastbound trip.

Upon arrival at Reno, 90% of the riders went back home on chartered buses. Those who stayed
behind saw to their own hotel accommodations and returned to the pre-trench Reno depot next
morning. The plan was, again, to operate ahead of the scheduled Amtraker; but Train 5 was still
in eastern Nevada, more than four hours late. With a near-empty Flexliner to offer, then-Amtrak West
President Gil Mallery instructed the Reno station agent and the train's crew to honor regular
Amtrak tickets, with applicable refunds for those holding sleeper space, if the passengers wished
to ride with us on the Flexliner. A bonus: there was plenty remaining of the complimentary meals
that had been loaded aboard the train for the prior day's VIP excursion, so anyone availing
themselves of the opportunity had free breakfast and lunch, with an afternoon snack, too. They
were very pleased that Amtrak had allowed them to ride this special train instead of being more
than four hours late; I pointed out Gil Mallery to several of them, because after all, it had been
his decision to welcome them aboard.

The Flexliner made the westbound trip without delay...the morning was much cooler than the hot
afternoon before, so the train made the summit with no overheating.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/14 09:58 by GenePoon.

As I recall the IC3 Flexliner units that toured the US (and Canada) were later delivered to Israel Railways.

Dave

DavidP Wrote:
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> As I recall the IC3 Flexliner units that toured
> the US (and Canada) were later delivered to Israel
> Railways.

=========================================================

Correct. Some of the labels and markings in the cab were in Hebrew.

Torisgod Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Do you remember the Flexliner?
>
> If you have a photo of the Amtrak
> Flexliner, please post it to here.

I posted front end and in-cab photos of it eight years ago about half-way down the webpage at http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,1196512,1196589#msg-1196589. They were taken shortly before departing Eugene, Oregon for the return run to Portland, Oregon.

Jim700 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Torisgod Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Do you remember the Flexliner?
> >
> > If you have a photo of the Amtrak
> > Flexliner, please post it to here.
>
> I posted front end and in-cab photos of it eight
> years ago about half-way down the webpage at
> http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,1
> 196512,1196589#msg-1196589. They were taken
> shortly before departing Eugene, Oregon for the
> return run to Portland, Oregon.

It came to Eugene!? No way, I live in Eugene! Well, I didn't have Trainorders or any railfan friends then, so I couldn't have known...Geez, I hate the Flexliner so much, I love it. Sort of like the Flexliner's modern counterpart, the Oregon Talgo. See: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,3305495,3305528#msg-3305528

Tor in Eugene

Looks more like a "traveling condom". LOL! Thanks for an interesting post.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/14/14 18:00 by RFandPFan.

The Flexliner folks insisted that only one engineer be assigned to that set when it was in L.A. Guess who drew the short straw off the extra board. ME! There was all kinds of flak from the BLE, but Flexliner stood their ground and threatened to move on if Amtrak couldn't work out a deal. When we took it to Las Vegas, It overheated on Cima Hill, so we had to stop for about 20 minutes to let it cool down.....(Detroit Diesels). When we took it to Escondido, Road Foreman Rick Zajick took it over for awhile. Frustrasting to run because you had to acknowledge an alerter within 2 seconds or it went into emergency. Here's Rick running about half way between Oceanside and Escondido. I might add that the Flexliner manager and technicians required I take an 8 hour course at 8th St. on it's operations and mechanics before I could run it. We did the "split" westbound into Oceanside on the return trip. The Adtranz folks were kind enough to give me this pin and a coffee cup.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/14 12:39 by whistlepig.

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VIA tested these on various routes out of Toronto. I travelled on them to and/or from Niagara Falls, Woodstock, London, Kitchener and Kingston. The train we took to Kingston continued to Ottawa. We always sat in the spacious first class section which was available for a special supplement of $5 - possibly more for Ottawa - as there was no meal or beverage service.

I posted some video of the Flexliner's visit to California in this old thread:

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,2469868,2470219#2470219

As I recall, the overheating problems were blamed on air-cooled engines, and the manufacturer promised water-cooled engines if any trainsets were ever ordered.