Passenger Trains > Amtrak falling apart on routes out of Chicago.

The first significant cold spell comes along and the operation falls on its face as expected. A train on the Michigan line broke down, blocking other Michigan line trains. Many hours of delay have resulted to several trains. It’s now 10:15 PM in Chicago and the Floridian has not even left yet due to mechanical issues. I don’t think even Penn Central operated this bad in 20 degree temps!

Posted from iPhone



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/24 20:17 by alan2955.

So what's New?  The wrong people are still in charge of Amtrak.
John in White Marsh, Maryland

Teething problems. Its only been 54 years. Give them more time. And more money. New equipment would be nice. Wait, they've got that?

Saw a YouTube video from the Roaming Railfanin about Brightline adding a 5th coach to each trainset last week. Brand new cars from Siemens arrived from California and within 11 days of arriving all had been placed into service on all Brightline trainsets. No drama, no sitting in yards for years, no 50% equipment utilization (refering to the Viewliner sleepers).

Not sure what it is, but everything Amtrak touches seems to turn to crap. Oh, train 41 departed Chicago 4 hours late and train 352 died in Battle Creek after a 6 hour equipment related delay. Every winter is a surprise.

Posted from Android

Was 352 and 41 hauled by Siemens junk ? 

joemvcnj Wrote:
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> Was 352 and 41 hauled by Siemens junk ? 

It’s s amazing how the “Siemens Junk” seems to run consistently and without issue on Brightline every single day but fails on Amtrak…

Posted from iPhone

                  Simple          It isn't that Amtrak cannot get their act together. It is that THEY DO NOT WANT TO RUN.   The head guy is always in cahoots with whoever in government does not want Amtrak   If Amtraks ridership gained 2 million people a day paying double the price for tickets, guaranteed they would lose even more money ( they would claim ).  The Mafia would run a better business because at least those guys are IN BUSINESS to make money.

DJ-12 Wrote:
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> joemvcnj Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Was 352 and 41 hauled by Siemens junk ? 
>
> It’s s amazing how the “Siemens Junk” seems
> to run consistently and without issue on
> Brightline every single day but fails on Amtrak…

One or another breaks down on VIA Rail every few days, on average, though I once saw 2 go down on one day. Their entire corridor is impacted. They have new maintenance centers in Toronto and Montreal for them. VIA has never been known for poor maintenance. 

Brightline operational model is not replicable. It is entirely Siemens maintenance people and with a loco at each end of the trains. I don't recall GE and EMD taking over Amtrak and VIA Rail shops to keep them running, even when new 

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/24 04:25 by joemvcnj.

In addition to having Siemens maintenance, parts, and supervision, each BrightLine train set will overnight in Orlando maintenance base camp every other evening of so.

Amtrak had a lot of problems with early Acela equipment. Even yanking the whole fleet for several months. The solution was reliability centered maintenance.

Amtrak mechanics, Alston supervision and parts, focused entirely on one train model.

RCM delivered almost two decades of high reliability. Then Amtrak folded all maintenance programs together.

Posted from Android

“RCM delivered almost two decades of high reliability. Then Amtrak folded all maintenance programs together.”

Just because something works doesn’t mean it works!

New ideas get people noticed, cut jobs or programs, less money spent = profit in PSR Newspeak. “Productivity and Profit” = bonuses for the idea people; idea people get noticed, noticed people get promoted.

The viscous cycle continues.

Regards

Posted from iPhone

But yet, #5 (California Zephyr) and #3 (Southwest Chief) both got out of Chicago on time yesterday.

Posted from iPhone

_
_ **** D E L A Y S ****
_
_ 11/30/24 8:51am EST
_ Travel Adjustment: As of 6:15 AM ET Due to mechanical issues
_ with the engine Wolverine Train 353 is now canceled. Alternate
_ bus transportation will be provided between Pontiac (PNT)
_ and Chicago (CHI). We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> The solution was reliability
> centered maintenance.
>

When I was designing the Seattle facility, AMTK folks were complaining that Talgo wanted too much and was over-maintaining the trains. Funny how things turn out.

TAW

TAW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lackawanna484 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The solution was reliability
> > centered maintenance.
> >
>
> When I was designing the Seattle facility, AMTK
> folks were complaining that Talgo wanted too much
> and was over-maintaining the trains. Funny how
> things turn out.
>
> TAW

Yes.  If nothing else, RCM proved that Amtrak people, with proper guidance and parts, can maintain a high level of reliability.  I suspect Talgo took the same approach, with similar results.

Train 365 (Port Huron train) broke down after noon near New Buffalo.

Posted from Android

Police hold and then "switch issues" but they only delayed the inevitable.

It broke down.

GenePoon Wrote:
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> Police hold and then "switch issues" but they only
> delayed the inevitable.
>
> It broke down.
> can anyone imagine Amtrak running a UP Z train from CHI to Los Angeles......

Regular scheduled maintenance and parts replacement on equipment according to a scheduled maintenance plan is common in Europe. That apparently, per many reports I've seen, is the regimen that Brightline follows, with all maintenance farmed out to Siemens.

And although built in the US, and containing a substantial percentage of American-made parts as required by Buy American federal rules, the Amtrak Chargers are still essentially a European locomotive, based on the Siemens Vectron family of straight electric, diesel, and dual-mode locomotive designs. Perhaps meaning that they share at their core a philosophy for a more intense, scheduled and regular maintenance regimen - as in Europe. And more intensive than Amtrak or VIA utilizes.

And perhaps with usage of the lighter, less robust design and engineering practice that is also sometimes a European preference. And perhaps with more systemic interconnectivity and redundancy and multiple operational pathways per process, something that European design practice also can favor, as compared to simpler, less complex, more direct process design that is favored in North America. A design philosophy can fundamentally affect a lot of things in a machine, from choices about how heavy and robust components are to be, to choices about component life cycles, to how simply or complexly their subsystems and processes are designed. All of those kinds of things could be having an effect on the reliability of the Siemens Charger locomotives.

And still unanswered to us on the outside (so far as I know) who are concerned about such things, is whether the problems that have occurred so regularly are mostly with the control systems, which one would expect to be heavily of Siemens' own design and origin, or with the Cummins QSK prime mover. Which is a 100% US design built by Cummins in Seymour, Indiana. And which I would anticipate to have been designed more along the American preference for a more robust design, longer maintenance cycles, and less intensive maintenance than is the European practice.

Or... if it is just poor quality of assembly (by a US-based workforce in Sacramento, Calif.)? Or of the manufactured quality of components and subsystems from suppliers to Siemens? Which could be either a US-based, or foreign-based, supplier issue, depending on the sourcing.

Lots of questions to be answered about these locomotives that are sadly proving to be so problematic for Amtrak and VIA.

MC