Although Amtrak has set in motion the process to replace aging Superliner, Viewliner and Amfleet equipment used in its long-distance network, many decisions have yet to be made as to the attributes that that equipment will have.
The passenger carrier this week announced it sent a request for information to various rail passenger car builders.
Amtrak said it expects as many as 10 companies to express interest in the project.
A formal request for proposals is expected to be sent to interested builders by the end of this year.
Among the unanswered questions are whether the replacement cars will be single level, such as Amfleet and Viewliners, or bi-level, such as the Superliner fleet.
Likewise the designs of the cars have yet to be determined and it remains uncertain when production of the new equipment will begin.
A report on the website of the Rail Passengers Association said answers to questions such as these are expected to emerge in the answers that Amtrak gets from interested car builders.
Funding for the acquisition of the new cars is expected to come from the Investment in Infrastructure and Jobs Act.
Amtrak’s 14 long-distance routes are served with a mixture of equipment. Routes operating primarily east of Chicago are assigned Amfleet and Viewliner equipment whereas routes west of Chicago use Superliner cars.
Some of the newest Viewliner dining, sleeping and baggage cars seem likely to be used alongside the new equipment Amtrak wants to develop. Some Viewliner cars have been in service less than a decade.
The request for information Amtrak sent to the car building industry was only a few pages and designed primarily to solicit ideas for what is possible and desirable in a future fleet of passenger equipment.
Amtrak has had mixed experiences acquiring new equipment. The new equipment for Acela service in the Northeast Corridor is two years behind schedule and yet to go into service.
The most recent order of Viewliner equipment built by CAF USA was several years behind schedule.
More recently, the Venture cars built by Siemens Mobility for corridor services, particularly in the Midwest, has entered revenue service in fits and starts as cars have been removed from service to fix various mechanical issues that cropped up in service.
Last month Amtrak provided information about the Airo equipment to be built by Siemens that will replace Amfleet cars in corridor services.
Production of the Airo fleet is just now getting underway.
How IIJA’s Rail Funding is Being Allocated
November 14, 2021Second in a three-part series
If you’ve ridden an Amtrak long-distance train lately, you know why the passenger carrier could use some new equipment.
It will take awhile but new equipment to replace the Superliners, the first of which entered revenue service in 1979, may be on the way thanks to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
IIJA is a way for Amtrak to capture capital funding it has coveted for years but been unable to get approved by Congress.
Much of the $66 billion for rail in the IIJA will be used to rebuild existing infrastructure and buy new equipment to replace passenger cars and locomotives that are long in the tooth.
As for how the money in the IIJA for rail will be divided, the Northeast Corridor gets $30 billion with $6 billion going directly to Amtrak and $24 billion being funneled through the Federal Railroad Administration for federal-state partnership grants.
Amtrak’s priorities for this funding include replacement of the Portal Bridge over the Hackensack River in New Jersey; construction of new tunnels under the Hudson River between New Jersey and New York City; rehabilitating a tunnel under the East River in New York City; replacing the B&P Tunnel in Baltimore; and planning to rebuild or replace bridges over the Susquehanna and Connecticut rivers.
The national network gets $28 billion of which $16 billion goes directly to Amtrak and $12 billion to FRA federal-state partnership grants.
Aside from buying new equipment, this funding will be used for infrastructure work on select national network routes, including Amtrak maintenance facilities and passenger stations.
Much of the latter involves bringing stations up to date in meeting standards of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
The federal Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements grant program gets $5 billion but this money is not restricted solely to passenger rail projects.
The FRA’s grade crossing elimination program gets $3 billion, which can be used for Amtrak-owned lines, such as the one in Michigan, or for freight and commuter rail lines.
The bill reserves $50 million for an FRA Restoration and Enhancement Grants program, which is the funding mechanism for new service on routes Amtrak does not now serve.
There is also $15 million set aside for the FRA to conduct a study of routes operated “less often” – think the Cardinal and Sunset Limited – as well as restoration of previously discontinued long-distance routes or new long-distance routes.
All that is guaranteed to happen is the FRA will conduct a study that might recommend changing tri-weekly trains to daily operation,
The FRA study might recommend adding new long-distance routes or restoring trains that vanished decades ago such as the North Coast Hiawatha, Lone Star or Broadway Limited.
It will be up to Congress to appropriate the money to pay for those trains and Amtrak would need to negotiate operating agreements with the host railroads.
It will be years before the potential of the IIJA is fully realized.
Amtrak is in the very early stages of designing new cars to replace the Superliner fleet.
Even when new cars and locomotives roll off the factory floor it can be months before they begin revenue service.
The new Siemens Venture cars to be used in Midwest corridor services have yet to begin revenue service despite having been on the property for months.
The first new Siemens ALC-42 Charger locomotives are still undergoing testing. For that matter Amtrak has yet to put into revenue service all of the Viewliner II equipment it has.
Many of the improvements the money from the IIJA is expected to pay for will occur behind the scenes, such as modernizing the reservation system.
As has been demonstrated many times during Amtrak’s 50-year history, the wheels of change turn slowly and sometimes they don’t turn at all.
A host of obstacles lie in the path of new and improved rail service over which Amtrak and the Biden administration little to no control.
These have the potential to thwart new services and even reduce the effectiveness of the IIJA.
Next: The challenges facing passenger rail will dictate how transformative the IIJA turns out to be.
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