Passenger Trains > News on Acla-2

The Amtrak Board Meeting just ended-- which i watched on Zoom Webanar

President Harris said:

.  All approval have been completed.
.  They have permission to start service.
.  Only thing left is to officially accept the trains from the builder
.  Actual start date will be announced }"very soon"

They  ordered  28  sets.  Some   still in production??

ronald321 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Amtrak Board Meeting just ended-- which i
> watched on Zoom Webanar
>
> President Harris said:
>
> .  All approval have been completed.
> .  They have permission to start service.
> .  Only thing left is to officially accept the
> trains from the builder
> .  Actual start date will be announced }"very
> soon"

See ther post that I did - Harris said five (5) units are deliered and 1st date of revenue service is soon. The delivery is last step to launch of revenue service, not necessarily how many train sets are on Amtrak's property. Lets call that "semantics" or perhaps even "deflection?" VERY disappointing that "soon" was given at the macro level with no real meat on the bone as to what that really means or how existing testing of NextGen Acela train sets have been going over the past few MONTHS! I think they owed the BOD an answer to how they were operating and testing, as opposed to what the expectations are.....what will be REALITY and when. Course with all the stumbing to date on this project - not surprised. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/25 10:29 by jp1822.

cutboy1958 Wrote:
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> They  ordered  28  sets.  Some   still in
> production??

Every trainset that came out of the factory initially had various corrections to be made to it based on acceptance testing on the previous sets.  So it appears 23 sets are either still in production or require modifications for acceptance.

Watch them say 'early 2026' for full service!

Posted from Android

Yeah, what he actually said was that the *announcement* of the 1st revenue date would be "very very soon". The actual date itself could be next year.

ProAmtrak Wrote:
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> Watch them say 'early 2026' for full service!
>
> Posted from Android

I’m sure that will be the case. You can’t deliver 28 train sets overnight. Nor would I want to ride on something so hastily delivered. Just glad to see them getting started. Realistically deliveries will probably be at best weekly and probably biweekly.

Posted from iPhone

Jonny_Chi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ProAmtrak Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Watch them say 'early 2026' for full service!
> >
> > Posted from Android
>
> I’m sure that will be the case. You can’t
> deliver 28 train sets overnight. Nor would I want
> to ride on something so hastily delivered. Just
> glad to see them getting started. Realistically
> deliveries will probably be at best weekly and
> probably biweekly.
>
> Posted from iPhone

Just to be clear - in the kindest way possible too. I think we are getting confused on the word "delivery." There are more than "five delivered train sets" from Alstom on Amtrak property. It's just that Amtrak is saying they are now testing five of the delivered train sets - after having their various retrofits and such - and hope to have these in revenue service "soon." There's been a LOT of NextGen Acela train sets in the 30th Street Penn Coach yard for the past three years (or more) alone. It's just that Amtrak hadn't officially "accepted them" to be delivered due to NUMEROUS testing and other issues that were affecting these train sets. So Amtrak has a good stock of NextGen Acela train sets that have been physically "delivered" to their property and placed in various areas for storage as "issues get resolved" into full acceptance and then delivery into revenue service. Most of the NextGen Acelas are concentrated in the Philly area (e.g. Wilmington etc.). There's a site in NYC that Alstom has been squirrelling away the train sets because they ran out of space at Philadelphia as the train sets got to Amtrak property but were then not "put into revenue service" as had been planned for ongoing release/delivery into regular revenue service. Hope that helps...... It's a VERY complicated and delayed delivery/acceptance into revenue service - which still hasn't happened (the revenue service part).