Passenger Trains > Amtrak Along the Hudson

Hoping to catch the JV Pretty One, aka Amtrak 704 to no avail yesterday, I did manage thise two.

1  Southbound Amtrak 238 passes under the former narrow gauge railroad bridge of the Brockway Brick Company in Beacon, NY.

2  Amtrak 284, another Albany to NYC train passes through Manitou, NY as seen from the Bear Mountain Bridge.

rfprr

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Wonder what would've become of the route had Gunn not killed the Turboliner program. More pax, better frequencies? Shame not seeing those RTL-3 sets plying the route.

As a regular passenger on this route, I value trains where the snow stays on the outside. 

And the the current trains don't catch fire often, either. 

The fire might be a relevant point - I think there were 2 Turbo fires, but both were in Penn Station with no passengers on-board - but I always thought the Turbos handled snow far better than the Amfleet does.  Amfleet vestibules fill up with snow terribly, but I never saw any snow inside the Turbos.

The big advantage of Turbos was that the cafe-car attendant couldn't "hide" from the passengers at the origin station because there were no car end-doors for the crews to close to keep passengers out of the cafe car until all the tickets are checked, as they like to do.  I never rode a Turbo on which the cafe car was closed upon departure from New York or Albany.  By the same token, I've never ridden an Amfleet train that had its cafe car open upon departure from New York or Albany.  The crews always keep the cafe-car end doors closed until they collect the tickets.

There are 13 weekday trains in each direction between New York and Albany, a route that really doesn't have all that much population.  How many trains do you want?  Until recently, the only train that New York State paid for was Trains 68-69, The Adirondack.  The rest were paid for entirely by Amtrak.  It was a very sore point for numerous other states who were picking up the entire cost of their services, with nowhere near as many frequencies.

Well, in any case, they sure were pretty!

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Wow!  You actually got a photo of a rare trip of a refurbished Turbo!

Heh, I'll do you one better. That's my little brother on a trip up to Albany aboard the RTL-3. They were nice looking on the inside as well. Loved the big windows!

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I liked the turbos, as well.  The problem they had, according to David Gunn, was that they were 
fuel hogs.

The Turboliners did not do well with a lot of snow because they ingested it. Been through the 1977 Buffalo Blizzard with that nonsense.
They were also fuel hogs compared to an F40, had less capacity than a 5 car Amfleet, and extraordinarily weak with traction and HVAC when running off 3rd rail.
They were also prone to corrosion with LAHTS steel , and would be around 40 years old today.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/16 06:29 by joemvcnj.

Doesn't Vermont pay something toward the Ethan Allen service?

Posted from Android

They had a lot of issues.
Just like the old Metroliners, a technician often (always) rode along.

I have been told many a story by those who used to work them. Nobody who worked on them cried when they left.

They look cool...

joemvcnj Wrote:
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> The Turboliners did not do well with a lot of snow
> because they ingested it. Been through the 1977
> Buffalo Blizzard with that nonsense.
> They were also fuel hogs compared to an F40, had
> less capacity than a 5 car Amfleet, and
> extraordinarily weak with traction and HVAC when
> running off 3rd rail.
> They were also prone to corrosion with LAHTS steel
> , and would be around 40 years old today.

For all their numerous flaws, one thing the turbos could have enabled on the ALB-NYP route is bi-directional operation.  It seems very inefficient that Amtrak currently runs each arriving Empire Service train through the capacity-challenged East River tunnels and around the Sunnyside loop.  This operation cries out for cab cars to allow 20-30 minute turns at NYP, which would enable either more round trips with the same equipment, or a savings in equipment required plus labor to turn the train sets.

Dave

   Yes, the operation does cry out for cab cars.  If Amtrak could find some that would be good on the 110 mph section south of Albany, that would be the way to go.

   That said, the cab-car operation only works efficiently if you turn trains on the platform at New York in a quick time frame.  Otherwise, you're just as well off detraining the passengers and sending that engine and 5 cars around the loop to Sunnyside Yard and bringing it back to New York, 20 minutes on the platform and the train departs.  If a push-pull train sits on the platform for an hour or two waiting for the next northbound departure to Albany, there might not be enough track space in New York to allow a train to sit there for that long.

  As I recall it, New York used to double Turbos on the platform.  I think the first inbound would go down to the end of the platform and park, almost all day, and later arrivals would arrive on top of the first train and turn back north in short order.  But I think the problem was that 2 6-car trains wouldn't fit on the platforms.  I think 1 of them had to be a 5-car train.  If that's true, you wouldn't be able to store 2 push-pull Amfleet trains with an engine on the platform, because they have 5 cars and an engine, the rough equivalent of the length of a 6-car Turbo.

   I also heard the same thing about the Turbos, that they needed a technician to go everywhere with them.  That drives up the cost.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/16 08:13 by knotch8.

cab unit cab cars too ... not ex metroliner type cab cars susceptiple to engineer injury at a grade crossing ...

I always thought that it was absolutely inexcusable to throw away the newly rebuilt Turboliners and give the taxpayers nothing for their $70 million investment.  That total lack of accountability is nothing short of outrageous.  Anyway, I also thought that if the fuel consumption was too high, they should at least be converted into push-pull sets with the power cars acting as cab cars, similar to the ICE2 cab car I photographed here in Cologne, Germany.

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That sounds like an idea that would have been worth exploring.

knotch8 Wrote:
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>
>    That said, the cab-car operation only works
> efficiently if you turn trains on the platform at
> New York in a quick time frame.  Otherwise,
> you're just as well off detraining the passengers
> and sending that engine and 5 cars around the loop
> to Sunnyside Yard and bringing it back to New
> York, 20 minutes on the platform and the train
> departs.  If a push-pull train sits on the
> platform for an hour or two waiting for the next
> northbound departure to Albany, there might not be
> enough track space in New York to allow a train to
> sit there for that long.

Of course....my point was that Amtrak should keep the equipment moving in revenue service instead of deadheading.  Deadheading trains produce no revenue and eat up scarce track capacity.

Dave