I love seeing Amtrak continuing to step up their game with more NEC service! Keep demanding more from your passenger railroads, people. Faster and more frequent, until you wouldn't even consider driving to your destination.
They're doubling ACS-64s on trains as much to prevent delays due to breakdown as to improve service. These engines started out great, but they have aged very poorly - like most foreign equipment that gets brought to the US, it can't handle the abuse or operating conditions.
It’s a great time for rail, provided the projects across the country remain funded and on schedule. In a couple of months I’ll be taking my first interstate train trip on Amtrak.
@@GintaPPE1000 Since the US is without a domestic passenger rail (or electric traction) industry, isn't all electric or passenger car equipment foreign designed and just assembled here?
@@CTSLRailfanNo, the double Sprinter sets on these trains are permanent. The Keystones went back to Metroliner cab cars because Siemens finally fixed the MU issues.
It’s about time. Never understood why the NE Regional trains weren’t in push/pull mode. That said, this same day Amtrak added four additional NE Regional round trip service as well as two on the weekend, so the increase in travel frequency necessitated the push/pull mode to reduce time between trips.
There simply weren't enough locomotives. Prior to buying the ACS-64, the peak NEC electric fleet prior to this was 47 AEM-7s and 13 E60s, a total of 60. There were fewer miles to cover since north of New Haven wasn't electrified yet, but Amtrak was also running Clockers and other quasi-commuter trains that NJT and SEPTA have since taken over which made up the difference. The HHP-8s only replaced the E60s on a 1:1 basis, and Amtrak lost a few to wrecks over the years, so the fleet was around 55 locomotives when the first Sprinters started arriving. Amtrak also opted to have the ACS-64s replace older locomotives first, so it wasn't until 2016 that there was actually any increase in the electric locomotive fleet - prior to that, whenever a new Sprinter got certified they would pull an AEM-7 or HHP-8 out of the active pool, not helped by 2 ACS-64s being written off in wrecks either. Unfortunately, by the time Siemens had delivered the 62nd unit, they'd also broken the software so their MU capabilities didn't work properly - some units were able to MU with other diesels, some with Metroliner cabs, and some with each other, but there was no engine that worked with everything. It took those numbskulls 8 years to fully debug the issue.
Good to get some practice in for the HHP-Cs and the Airos I guess. faster turnaround times are definitely needed for corridor services, and this seems like an alright stopgap. Kinda love to see how the acceleration could be with both engines powering it up.
The 2nd loco certainly helps the acceleration haha. Not that acceleration was ever a problem for the ACS-64, they get up to speed pretty quick for loco hauled.
Great footage, and very interesting operations of this new service. Interesting how some sets include 9 cars instead of 8, with one of the coaches likely being relocated from another service in the midwest.
faster turnarounds. quicker acceleration, and a spare loco if the front one breaks down. and since some if not most will be replaced due to the ALC-42E/DE
With a good chunk of Keystone services already in push pull, now select regionals. The ACS-64 fleet is really getting a work out. Do they really have that large of a availability gap they can stretch them out like this?
Assuming those cabs are working; until recently, a majority of keystones were running with electrics on both ends because the cab cars were broken in some way or another.
They’ve got plenty of surplus power. Before this new schedule, it wasn’t uncommon to see a string of up to 5-7 Sprinters sitting on a track in DC lower level. I believe out of the ~67 electrics they have, they only need ~50 to make service or something around there. It’s passenger cars they’re short on.
I'm guessing this won't apply to trains from Virginia? Not that they couldn't slide an ACS64 to the back of the consist, but it would add some time to the Engine change
If only the Metroliner cab cars could've lasted a little bit longer... Sandwiching Sprinters on every train just sounds like a recipe for equipment shortages.
That’s why they’re not doing it on every train, just the ones in the description… they wouldn’t be doing it at all if they didn’t have the equipment for it.
They do wye or loop the trains. But now that they aren’t always going to do that, they can’t have cars with seats facing all one way, otherwise for a trip, an entire car might be facing backwards.
I caught 133 today, eventually Amtrak will start to use the cars on both sides of the train. For more time instead of keep backing out and changing engines instead.
About time Siemens gave the ACS-64s the ability to MU again. Never understood how you can deliver a locomotive with that capability, break that capability through software bugs, and then take 6 years to put it back in.
Does Amtrak have a surplus of ACS64s to be able to put 2 per train? or is this just a pilot project on one or two trains? Will they reverse the seats in coaches or make people travel backwards like in Canada ?
Thanks. very sad that half the passengers will be travelling backwards. When VIA first introduced the LRC in 1981, it was done that way and the backlash was horrendous, forcing VIA to set all seats facing forwards and turn trains around. It tried again during COVID and there was no backlash, and its siemens trains are like that. But at least its reseravtion system nwo shows which seats face forward and which don,t. But it doesn't warn passengers that car 5 has the train horn inside the car, not outside so when car 5 is at the head (cab first, loco in back), passengers n car 5 have terrible experience. I suspectAmtrak will have rotating business class seats. @@FanRailer
100% not a fan of the Amfleets not getting turned. I get why they're doing it, but I already have a hard enough time finding a forward-facing seat on the Keystone. Riding backwards makes me sick very quickly, less than a minute riding backwards I have to stand up and face the other direction or I'll throw up. I know the Virginia trains won't be doing push/pull but they're likely going to leave the Amfleets in 50/50 configuration so half the seats will be backwards. Northbound won't be a problem because the train's empty when I board. But southbound the train's packed when I board. The thought of 7+ hours in a backward-facing seat is enough to make me return to I-95.
You can always ask a conductor when you board to help you find a forward facing seat. As I mentioned in the description, all of the new trainsets that are scheduled to be delivered later this decade will have fixed seating arrangements like on brightline and Amtrak Midwest services. This is here to stay, but if you really must face forward, there are options.
With speaker of the house Johnson Amtrak will have to go back to their sit down,shut up and hang on service...their over financed and they may have to back to the older locomotives or driver slower
You can look out the rear of amfleets. That being said. If you wanted to do that now, you would need to have purchased a business class ticket since the last car is a business class car. You can still do that anyway by riding any of the trains not listed in the video description. At any rate, once the Airo fleet is fully delivered, that rear view will be a thing of the past, since all trains will have a cab control car at one end and a locomotive at the other.
