Isn't it also the case that a lot of the current NEC alignment is never going to be Class 9 (thinking the Shore Line in CT). Without realignment of the route true HSR is just not possible.
Amtrak did have a plan to build a bypass around the curvy Shore Line route, from Rhode Island to Old Saybrook. This would presumably bring the track to FRA Class 9, but was ultimately dropped circa 2017 due to concerns about a tunnel under Old Lyme’s historic center. I think a better bypass route would be from Providence to Hartford, like the North Atlantic Rail plan alignment. This would be longer but run through more sparsely populated areas, and bring Hartford onto the mainline.
I probably should have been more specific, my question pertained only to the very straight sections of track (Sharon - Attleboro MA, Cranston RI, East Greenwich - Kingston RI, New Brunswick - Princeton Junction, NJ) which are already maintained to FRA Class 8. I've heard that the Avelia Liberty trains are capable of 186 MPH but I wasn't sure what it would take/how realistic it would be for the Acela to run 186 MPH revenue service over certain segments of the NEC.
I'll try to find F-Line's explanations for my questions, thank you!
The Metroliner* (1969) Amfleet I (1973)and Amfleet II (1980) are probably one of the most successful government vehicle procurements since the Jeep or the B-52. Anyone from Charleston SC to Vermont or Maine who pictures a non-Acela passenger train is picturing the tubular corrugated stainless steel design by the Budd company from the mid-1960s
I know the ex-Metroliner cabs are ancient, but they run at (current) Northeast Regional speeds on the NEC, don't they? For some reason I had it in my head that the Acela had to have the power cars because of something FRA-specific about high-speed rail. These things are presumably more crashworthy than the rustbucket Metro cabs.
Great find on the pictures, though it's hard to tell, are these just stock Ventures given another name for some reason, or are they a modified version (lightly, heavily, or somewhere in between), anyone know?
I don't think there are any dual-mode electric Chargers in existence yet.
Sort of. They'll be led by an ALC-42E diesel loco, and the first passenger coach behind the loco will have a pantograph with electrical transformers underneath. The electricity is then piped into the loco to power the traction motors for same 125 MPH running that the current Sprinters do, with the diesel engine off. It's basically splitting the guts of the electric loco partially in the front car, and portioning the loco to just the 'common' elements like the motors. It'll eliminate all the Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and New Haven engine swaps in lieu of pantograph dropping and diesel engine starting at those diverging points.
Metroliners run primarily on the Keystones and Pennsylvanian for the Philadelphia reverse move. The new cab cars will be a little bit more crashworthy by having full-width operator cabs instead of the half-width + pass-thru vestibule of the Metroliners, but it's not a big difference in crashworthiness overall. The Metroliners are fully up-to-spec for FRA crashworthiness regs since they were midlife-overhauled not too many eons ago.
Video's a little misleading in that the wide-view shot seems to show cab cars at both ends. You'll still have a stock one of these at the front. . .
www.flickr.com
Awsome! That video is extremely high quality so I was able to get some really clear stills from it. Some exciting times ahead with these, the aveila liberty, and the new orange red and green trains all coming online within a few years of eachother. A lot of cities around the country are also replacing their metro rolling stock as well, and cali and texas both are running new stadler flirt trains, as well as canadas new via trains. North american passenger railroading is going to be in a whole other league soon.
