ACS-64: First peak at Amtrak's newest locomotive
- Thread starter PerRock
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It's being built at Siemen's California plant employing american workers so it conform's with "Buy American". And who has heard from GE or EMD what their Traction R&D has coming, oh wait, neither has a traction R&D Dept. That's why we have to go with foreign builders. U.S. builders apparently see no money in "Electric's". Love to see one in a Milwaukee Road paint scheme.
All loco's are beautiful to someones eyes and all that sheet metal begs for a elaborate paint job.Hrm
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Not for long, unfortunately. I understand that ACS-64 is intended to eventually replace all AEM7s and HHP-8s. The latter was pretty unreliable too.
Lets see how much time do take these engines to fail, if you remember so many years ago the ICE rode the NEC and that's all. The same thing happens here and in almost all europe, with the Traxx, Vectrons, our Vossloh's 334/335s and Euro4000 engines, those last are the slowest in starting to run. And i bet that some of these ACS-64 will fail and will be useless. Why would need Amtrak to have more engines in his roster as there are no problems running passenger services along the US with the AEMs and Acelas, the Hippos fail a bit
And i dont want to see how AEM-7s, HHP-8s and other engines are scrapped by Amtrak, i like the AEM-7 but not in the Sepa Scheme. And the old always can still be running without problems, if not see our AVE train served by our AVE S-100, running since 1992 with no problems, and that shares electrical components with the TGV, like the Acela, so that demonstrates that it still can be running for years, and here we dont have plans to replace it
Greetings
And i dont want to see how AEM-7s, HHP-8s and other engines are scrapped by Amtrak, i like the AEM-7 but not in the Sepa Scheme. And the old always can still be running without problems, if not see our AVE train served by our AVE S-100, running since 1992 with no problems, and that shares electrical components with the TGV, like the Acela, so that demonstrates that it still can be running for years, and here we dont have plans to replace it
Greetings
Engineerkenny
New member
I hope those AEM-7's are not replaced those are awesome i agree but the HHP-8 those always looked awesome to me because that was the first acela i had ever saw an HHP-8 about maybe 2008 we were driving home from my great grandfathers funeral and i saw what I had found out 2 years later was an HHP-8 and that was the one engine that made me start liking the Amtrak Acela's
AMTRAK PLEASE DON'T KILL THE HHP-8 OR AEM-7'S :'(
AMTRAK PLEASE DON'T KILL THE HHP-8 OR AEM-7'S :'(
I'm actually surprised. I thought they would turn out worse, the artist's rendering made me skeptical. But the final products looks good. For some odd reason though, I had assumed it would be a mono-cab locomotive. Glad to see they aren't mono-cabs though. They look heavy at the front towards the bottom though.
What's disturbing is that the taxpayer is paying more for locomotives with an ever-shorter service life. The PRR GG-1 lasted close to 50 years, and probably would have stayed in service longer than it did had the former PRR lines not de-electrified (BTW, thanks, Amtrak, another good one!) The AEM-7's service life will be 35-40 years, depending on exactly when they are retired. The E-60's service span on Amtrak was 29 years - and, actually, quite a bit less for much of the fleet. If Amtrak is indeed going to fully replace the HHP-8 with the new locos, that'll mean the HHP-8 will have had a service life of less than 15 years. I've had cars that lasted longer than that.
But, it's only taxpayer money Amtrak's playing with. Who needs good design, when the taxpayer will be forced to buy replacements every couple of years?
But, it's only taxpayer money Amtrak's playing with. Who needs good design, when the taxpayer will be forced to buy replacements every couple of years?
If Wikipedia is anything to go by, the HHP-8 is not exactly the dependable workhorse of the 20th century, requiring maintenance once every 12 days on average. Still, sad to see that even big machines like trains are going the way of cheap consumer products: more expensive, more ugly and less reliable.
There are only 15 HHP-8s on the roster anyways compared with 47 AEM-7s and with the HHP-8's issues those AEM-7s probably end up bailing broken down HHP-8s half the time anyways. You have to consider the benefits of fleet standardization too so you only have to train crews to operate and repair one type of locomotive versus two. I was just reading some rumor mill stuff that seemed to suggest the retired AEM-7s will go the way of the "cabbage" car for Northeast Regional trains terminating in Virginia.
It's a pretty nice-looking locomotive, especially looking at all the other crap that's come out recently. (see: Metrolink cab cars, new Talgo driving cabs, that awful rendering of the F125, etc.) I'd venture to say that it's the only "modern-looking" locomotive that's run in the U.S. in decades. As much as we'd all like to see an E-unit with a pantograph slapped on the back, that's just not tenable with modern crashworthiness requirements.
If uh, anyone is interested in anything beyond the aesthetics, there's some pretty cool mechanical aspects to these locomotives. For instance, the locomotive lacks any kind of dynamic braking grid, so that when the dynamics are applied, all the power goes directly to the catenary every time. This is in contrast to the HHP-8 and the AEM-7, where dyamics would only put power into the wires when there was a load on the wires nearby (i.e. another train), and burn the power off in the braking grid (like a diesel locomotive) at all other times.
I believe recent catenary upgrades made this possible, and Amtrak has estimated that the locomotives will pay for themselves in power savings within 20 years.
Furthermore, they accelerate more quickly than the HHP-8s, and they should be able to go for more than 12.8 days at a time without unscheduled maintenance, unlike the HHP-8s. Hopefully this will result in shorter schedules for the NE Regional.
If uh, anyone is interested in anything beyond the aesthetics, there's some pretty cool mechanical aspects to these locomotives. For instance, the locomotive lacks any kind of dynamic braking grid, so that when the dynamics are applied, all the power goes directly to the catenary every time. This is in contrast to the HHP-8 and the AEM-7, where dyamics would only put power into the wires when there was a load on the wires nearby (i.e. another train), and burn the power off in the braking grid (like a diesel locomotive) at all other times.
I believe recent catenary upgrades made this possible, and Amtrak has estimated that the locomotives will pay for themselves in power savings within 20 years.
Furthermore, they accelerate more quickly than the HHP-8s, and they should be able to go for more than 12.8 days at a time without unscheduled maintenance, unlike the HHP-8s. Hopefully this will result in shorter schedules for the NE Regional.
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It's not even theoretically possible that they can "pay for themselves in power savings" or come even close. Let's assume for a second that there is no such thing as air, environment, entropy, friction, etc. and each locomotive used regenerative braking to slow/stop the train every time and never, ever used any other form of braking. Even under these theoretical conditions, power output (in the form of braking) cannot exceed power input (in the form of motoring). Therefore, even in theory, these locomotives cannot return more power than they consume, let alone pay the $6.64million per locomotive.
Now, of course, we don't live in an ideal world, and friction, energy loss, drag, entropy and all other problems do affect a locomotive. Plus, locomotives do need to brake using friction brakes. I'd be interested in seeing what best-case scenarios Siemens and Amtrak are claiming, but, realistically, the amount of power returned to the grid would only be a small fraction of what consumed by these locomotives.
Which brings me to another point. Regeneration is nice, but a locomotive in regen in Bowie isn't going to power a locomotive accelerating out of New Haven. As substations are placed about 8 miles apart, it's pretty safe to say that a locomotive in regeneration (i.e. acting as a power source, like a temporary substation) isn't going to be able to power anything much outside its immediate area. Whether the power grid supplying the power to Amtrak will be able to retransmit any regenerated power into the commercial grid, I don't know, but even if it does, it's not going to be a major, continuous source of power. In other words, unless a loco is nearby and in regenerative braking, any contributions to the system or to the commercial grid at large is likely to be minimal.
Now, of course, we don't live in an ideal world, and friction, energy loss, drag, entropy and all other problems do affect a locomotive. Plus, locomotives do need to brake using friction brakes. I'd be interested in seeing what best-case scenarios Siemens and Amtrak are claiming, but, realistically, the amount of power returned to the grid would only be a small fraction of what consumed by these locomotives.
Which brings me to another point. Regeneration is nice, but a locomotive in regen in Bowie isn't going to power a locomotive accelerating out of New Haven. As substations are placed about 8 miles apart, it's pretty safe to say that a locomotive in regeneration (i.e. acting as a power source, like a temporary substation) isn't going to be able to power anything much outside its immediate area. Whether the power grid supplying the power to Amtrak will be able to retransmit any regenerated power into the commercial grid, I don't know, but even if it does, it's not going to be a major, continuous source of power. In other words, unless a loco is nearby and in regenerative braking, any contributions to the system or to the commercial grid at large is likely to be minimal.
No, they don't create energy. They use less energy than the HHP-8s and AEM-7s. The energy cost savings from regenerative braking, as compared to sticking with the AEM-7s and HHP-8s for the next 20 years, will be enough to pay for the locomotives.
They're not violating the basic laws of thermodynamics, they're just converting a percentage of their momentum when braking to electricity.
This is the same as buying a slightly more expensive but more efficient window air conditioner that uses less energy than the cheapo thirty-dollar model. It pays for itself in energy savings as compared to buying the cheapo.
springtransit
What are you looking at?
Out of place in the USA?! There ain't no such thing!
US is founded on diversity! I rather think of the AEM's as American really, they're about as Swedish as the Đuro Đaković copies of the S100 are American. Now with Bombardier, that's where it gets complicated! The rail subsidiary is German-based, but the main company has always been Canadian-based. They have done several US and European-based designs either by license or buying out the respective builders. That's the consequence of globalization, there's really not much of a defined boundary between what's truly American-made and what's not...You mean rather than right? I can't imagine a 50 year old AEM-7 on the tracks. Actually I don't think the HHPs are going into retirement but the AEM-7s will be and it will be the DCs if I'm not mistaken then the ACs. Amtrak still does the maintenance of the HHP-8s that MARC uses, so we'll still see them on the corridor.
Engineerkenny
New member
UGLY!!!!!!!!! :n:
I talked with an Amtrak engineer back in April an he told me the the AEM-7's would still run on the Keystone Corridor. Even if it is 50 years old, it is still more reliable than the HHP-8.