Amtrak’s Acela Express, 2000-present

Fred Klein, 2012, 2013

Amtrak has always needed high-speed trains in its electrified northeast corridor between Washington, New York and Boston. The Acela is faster, more expensive, but makes fewer stops than the Northeast regional trains running the same route. When the metroliner trains were getting old and harder to maintain in the 1990s (they ceased operation in 2006), Amtrak sought a high-speed train with tilting capability to lessen the discomfort of making turns at high speed. The Acela equipment was made to Amtrak specifications by a Bombardier-Alstom consortium.

 

From Wikipedia: “Acela Express trains are the only true high-speed trainsets in North America; the highest speed they attain is 150 mph, though their average is less than half that speed. The Acela has become popular with business travelers and by some reckoning has captured over half of the market share of air or train travelers between Washington and New York. Between New York and Boston the Acela Express has up to a 54% share of the combined train and air market.”

 

The Acelas are fixed trainsets with a locomotive at each end, and simply reverse direction without changing cars at the endpoints. Twenty trainsets entered operation starting in 2000. In 2012, Amtrak ordered 40 new coaches to ease overcrowding on trains. The trains are exciting to ride, even though mechanical failures plagued them in the early years

 

The train is easy to model in N scale because Bachmann makes all the cars. The train is sold both as a set and most cars are also available as individual cars. Unfortunately, the set has one of each car type (with both a front and rear locomotive) and is not a full prototype train. Thus to make a correct train, you have to buy two more business cars, which were the first to sell out and are now hard to find individually. As a substitution, I have a second end-business car in my train next to the first-class car.

 

The Bachmann cars have special hook-and-bar-type locking couplers that keep the train sturdily coupled. Cars have a hook at one end and a bar at the other. You can’t mix in other type cars, but Amtrak doesn’t do that either. The café car has the motor for the train: powering the train from a middle car seems to track fine because the cars are heavy enough to be pushed as well as pulled, as long as your track work is good.

 

The consist is the standard Acela express trainset. The prototype train is one from Boston on December 27, 2000, soon after Acela service started.

 

 

 

A December 2, 2010 photo of Amtrak’s Acela express in Guilford Connecticut. The first two cars are business class (the first of which is an end car with only one vestibule and is usually the quiet car), then the café car, next are two more business class cars, and finally the first class car. Photograph by Mark Schenking.

 

The Acela in Old Seybrook Connecticut in summer of 2011.

 

Acela, first part

 

This is a standard Acela train with a locomotive at each end, and 3 business class cars together at one end. Business class cars have light blue spots. The car at the bottom is turned to show the other side, note the hook is at the wrong end and can’t be run this way.

 

Acela, second part

 

The café car is near the middle of the train, followed by a business class, a first class car with dark blue spots, and the other power car. The business car in this photo is an “end” car with a door at only one end. I do not think that is prototypical, but that is the model car I have.

 

    

 

REFERENCES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acela_Express

Amtrak, Brian Solomon, MBI railroad color history, 2004.

Warner, David and Elbert Simon, Amtrak by the numbers, A comprehensive passenger car and motive power roster 1971-2011, White River Productions, 2011.

 

BACK TO THE PAGE OF AMTRAK TRAINS

 

.