At long last, Amtrak announced a replacement railcar order for its Amfleets and Metroliner cab cars which date back to the late 1960’s. However, the order will not add capacity to Amtrak’s busiest route and Amtrak made odd choices of locomotive power.
In April 2021, Amtrak announced that Siemens Mobility had been selected as the preferred bidder and signed the contract in July for 83 trainsets. Any route which uses Amfleet or Metroliners will receive this new equipment. Siemens has built almost all of the new intercity passenger equipment in recent years including all of Amtrak’s locomotives and has just begun delivering equipment to California and the Midwest. The new equipment will be from the Siemens Venture line which is also used by Brightline in Florida and is being delivered to VIA Rail, Amtrak's Canadian equivalent. The Venture Coach is based on the Viaggio Comfort series used by ÖBB for intercity service in Austria. ÖBB primarily operates locomotive-hauled trainsets semi-permanently coupled together which is exactly what Amtrak plans.
Details about the order have been scarce but thanks to the efforts of Worldwide Railfan, we now know more about the trainsets’ consist and estimated delivery dates. Here is a chart I made using his very helpful video. Since Amtrak has not released its seating configuration, I estimated using the Midwest and California order.
Phase I
The Cascades service will receive the first delivery because Amtrak wrecked one of their Talgo Series VI’s in 2017. Combined with Oregon’s two Talgo Series 8 trainsets, this order will double the number of trainsets in service today (5>10) and compared to the Talgo Series VI, add about 100 seats per trainset. More seats on the same train allow for more passengers and potentially lower ticket prices, making the train more attractive than driving. The 2009 stimulus-funded infrastructure improvements to allow two additional daily round-trips and their 2017 schedule required two additional trainsets for a total of seven. The order provides some additional flexibility to add some round-trips without new rolling stock or allows Oregon to retire its two Talgo Series 8’s (although the grant it used to purchase them may require the trainsets to remain in service or reimburse the federal government for early retirement). Since the 2009 stimulus also provided new locomotives which entered service four years ago, no new locomotives are planned as part of this order.
Phase II
This order replaces most of the Amfleet equipment which runs in the Northeast.
Locomotives
The Siemens ALC-42E is the most significant change as it can run on electric catenary and on diesel power. Since diesel locomotives cannot operate into Penn Station, Amtrak must change locomotives ever time it wants to run outside of electric territory, which adds 15-30 minutes to each trip. While in 2018 Siemens began offering a dual-mode locomotive for freight service, I could not find any other order for a passenger version. New Jersey Transit has Bombardier's dual-mode locomotive although Amtrak previously found it too heavy for use on its lines. Ordering dual-mode locomotives for corridors with no plans for electrification makes sense. Of the Northeast Regional's 20 daily round-trips, 7 extend past the electric corridor and 7 more are planned to extend into Virginia by 2030. The Vermonter, Pennsylvanian, Carolinian and Palmetto also extend past the electric corridor so using dual modes on those routes makes sense.
Consists (number of cars per trainset)
Although Amtrak has not released their specific seating configuration, I have used the soon to be in service Midwest seating configurations to estimate.
The Keystone trains will receive 10 sets of five coaches each, one of which is a cab car. The current configuration is about 350 seats and new configuration will be about 314 seats. Most of the Keystone trains are not filled to capacity anyways so a slight reduction is not a big deal.
The Vermonter will receive 2 sets of six coaches including a cab car, matching it's current seating capacity.
The Carolinian, Palmetto, and Pennsylvanian both carry more than 200,000 passengers per year and occasionally sell out. Yet, Amtrak plans to order just six coaches on trains where more capacity would be well used. Instead, Amtrak should make these sets eight coaches instead of six.
The Downeaster and Piedmont will receive 6 coaches with about 354 seats. Today, the Piedmont uses refurbished cars with about 250 seats. The SE HSR study found this route would generate a lot of riders when fully built out so the extra capacity is welcome. The Downeaster has about 314 seats today. Given the shorter distance between stops and lower passenger volumes, a diesel multiple unit would be a better fit here.
The Northeast Regional is the busiest route Amtrak operates, carrying more than twice as many passengers as the next highest route (8.5 million versus 3.65 million). Despite being billed as a cheaper alternative to Acela, ticket prices are high and this route cries out for more capacity in terms of longer consists and more frequent service. Yet, this route will get neither, receiving the same 8 car consists with about 494 seats today. While Amtrak likes to point out that its Northeast routes carry more passengers than airlines, its most frequent route (about 50 daily round-trips) between New York City and Philadelphia has just 11% of the travel market with private automobiles carrying almost all of the rest.
Boosting the size of some of these trainsets to 12 or even 16 cars would provide more revenue with the same frequency, even with lower ticket prices. Since demand is highest on the electrified Northeast Corridor and the dual-mode locomotives probably cannot haul more than eight cars anyway, the longest trainsets would only operate on electricity using the ACS-64's which can haul up to 18 cars.
Phase III
The last set of equipment to be replaced is the Adirondack, Empire Service, Ethan Allen and Maple Leaf between 2029 and 2030.
In terms of consist, Amtrak plans six car trainsets with no cab cars, carrying an estimated 390 passengers, about 100 more than today's trainsets. The lack of cab cars is odd because they allow trains to reverse direction without uncoupling the locomotive and turning it around, a feature which would be well-used on short runs between Albany and New York City and allow fewer trainsets to make more trips. To run to Burlington in 2022, the Ethan Allen Express will require a cab car to reverse out of Rutland. The 17 trainsets Amtrak has ordered will replace the existing trainsets without adding any frequencies.
To operate into Penn Station, Amtrak diesel locomotives use the 3rd rail to operate on electricity at low speeds, a feature pioneered by the FL-9 locomotive in the 1950's. Metro North commuter railroad recently ordered 27 Siemens locomotives which can operate on third rail and have a small battery pack to power the train over gaps in the third rail. While the Metro North contract has options for New York State DOT to order the locomotive for Amtrak, Amtrak instead plans to operate the ALC-42E even though there is no catenary except for the last mile or so into Penn Station.
Even more odd is the trailer car of batteries that Amtrak plans to tow behind each ALC-42E. While battery-powered trains are used on experimental shorter routes, they are not proven on mainline operations and I cannot find any railcar which operates a trailer car exclusively of batteries. This unproven technology should be dumped and instead, the line electrified with catenary between New York City and Albany.
Conclusion
Ordering new railcars based on a proven design is a good thing as is ordering some dual-mode locomotives. But Amtrak ordered too many dual-mode locomotives for no benefit, repeating the same mistake it made with the ACS-64. Most importantly, Amtrak has not ordered enough capacity for the Northeast Regional which will leave ticket prices high and not meet growing demand in the Northeast for cheap, carbon-free intercity transportation.
