America's Failed High Speed Train - Budd Metroliner

[Music] [Music] [Applause] in the 196 S as High-Speed Rail travel started to revive the fortunes of the Iron Way the National Train operators of the world scrambled to implement their own methods of making rail Transportation a viable alternative once again to the likes of motorways and domestic air travel while Mainland Europe busied itself with the early development of dedicated highspeed lines as per the tgv and Great Britain sought to implement tilting technology by way of the ill- fated Advanced passenger train the first Venture of theed United States into high-speed train travel would be with the bud metroliner a highly ambitious attempt to provide the Northeast Corridor between Washington DC in New York with 160 mph electric rail cars sadly the bud metr liner was a concept doomed from the start as through a lack of investment an absence of government interest a restrictive time scale outdated infrastructure and a Severe deficit in terms of technological knowledge by the rail Manufacturing Company the intention of creating America's answer to the shinkansen would fail to be solved and the Metrolina would become but a footnote of rail travels fight back against cars and Airlines the bud metrin was essentially a long-standing answer to the question of declining Railway popularity during the mid 20th century as with the widespread adoption of faster multi-lane highways and domestic Air transport the once dominant place of the American railroad to top the market for CrossCountry travel was rapidly eroded with prestigious expresses and vital local corridors all being stripped of their passenger numbers in some instances various railroad companies were quick to note the threat that domestic air travel and highways posed to their market share and undertook ambitious experiments as to how train operations could be made both affordable to operate but also comparable in speed and efficiency especially when compared to cars the bud rail diesel car or RDC was one such method as introduced from 1949 and comprised a single stainless steel self-propelled coach that could work in multiple and would replace the use of locomotive and coaches on Lower capacity Branch lines across the Northeast United States putting up a stiff fight against the car on various Regional workings however long-distance trains such as the 20th century limited and the Super Chief were completely at the mercy of domestic air travel as the arrival of turbine powerered airliners such as the Vic's VI count and the Boeing 727 meant a journey that had previously taken a train either one or more days to complete could now be done in a matter of hours and the railroad companies had no viable means to combat such a stark difference in speed this did however lead to some outlandish ways to fight back against airliners with 1966 seeing the New York Central Railroad take a leaf from the book of jet airliners by fitting an RDC car with General Electric J 47-19 booster jet engines from the conveyor b36 Peacemaker strategic bomber creating the m497 black beetle which was able to attain a record top speed of 183 mph but was by no means a practical option for routine work a solution presented itself though during 1964 when Japan inaugurated its high-speed shinkansen line between Tokyo and Osa the world's first dedicated high-speed Railway that was both capable of achieving speeds of over 100 13 mph but was also completely divorced infrastructurally from other railway operations thereby creating a self-contained high-speed system that did not need to contend with slow moving freight trains or commuter Services the arrival of the Shing Canen prompted figures in the American government to act in order to save the railroad industry with Senator Clayborn pel and president Lynden B Johnson Working to develop legislation for a high-speed demonstration project in the United States with with late 1965 seeing Congress passed the high-speed ground transportation act this act authorized $90 million of State funds for the creation of an office of high-speed ground transportation which would support the research Development and Construction of a highspeed demonstration project on the Northeast Corridor the primary main line between Washington DC New York and Boston this project being initially based at the Department of Commerce before moving to the US Department of Transportation from April 1967 development of the pioneer American highspeed train project would be the culmination of several major players starting with the Commerce department and later do as the primary instigators and partial financiers who would contribute $1.5 million to the scheme while the Pennsylvania Railroad which owned the trackage to the Northeast Corridor and was the largest American passenger rail carrier agreed to contribute $44.5 million the other major players in the scheme were those parties awarded a contract of $21 million to deliver the project the bud company general electric and Westinghouse while Lewis T clauder and Associates a consultant firm populated by rail industry veterans developed the specifications which were used to inform what would become the as yet unnamed HSR sets in total the bud company as the primary firm that would assemble in commission the HSR sets was awarded $26 million during 1966 from the Pennsylvania rail road to deliver 61 self-propelled electric Passenger cars that could reach speeds of up to 160 mph thereby opening up a brand new high-speed Corridor between New York and Washington DC this service to be Christen the name metroliner for the government the HSR project would be a significant factor in the future Industrial Development policies of the state with regard to Transportation the main goals of the scheme being to divert travelers from congested airports and highways reduce fuel consumption and to improve air quality while also encouraging economic stimulation via new jobs for the construction and operation of the system for Bud whose rail operations were centered in the red line plant in Philadelphia the program potentially offered a significant anchoring system to sustain its manufacturing capacity in the longer term with the fate of the company being important on both a regional and National level due to Philadelphia's status as one of America's industrial hearts with Railway vehicle Construction being one of its primary sectors the bud company was one of America's most prominent Railway manufacturers having first entered the market for train vehicle construction during the 1930s with its crowning achievement being the creation of the first all stainless steel vehicle in 1934 in the form of the pioneer zepha a huge Commercial Success that gained an international reputation most notably in Japan in developing high-speed bullet trains for their shinkansen line Japanese national Railways entered into a technical agreement with Bud from 1958 to 1985 which included technology transfer for the design of stainless steel Vehicles as well as Technologies related to plastic working welding and quality assurance with stainless steel Railway Vehicles ultimately accounting for 3- fths of Japan's Fleet therefore Bud on paper appear to be by far the most appropriate choice for the development of the metroliner trains when it came to a domestic American rail equipment manufacturer with choices from overseas being immediately dropped as early specification work began on what would be the most advanced Express passenger train in the United States the general underpinnings of the bud metroliner would come about through a series of compromises between the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Department of Transport with both bodies through the medium of Lewis T clauder and Associates setting specifications as to what the resultant highspeed train would look like the first matter was the proposed top speed with the Pennsylvania Railroad stating that should travel at 125 mph in order to exceed the existing 100 mph top speed of their gg1 electric locomotives while the do seeking to create a train that was ostensibly competitive with the Shing canon in terms of image demanded 150 to 160 mph for the upcoming units the higher speed eventually being chosen next came the design of the body shells with the Pennsylvania wanting single car units with cabs at both ends that could allow for maximum flexibility when it came to formation changes while the do desired four car fixed rake sets with two cab cars and two trailer coaches a compromise eventually being reached that each metr liner unit would be formed of two car sets with extendable nose-mounted gangways to connect each individual unit in the end the order for the metr liner units would comprise 20 coaches fitted with Westinghouse propulsion systems alongside 20 snack bar coaches and 10 parlor cars fitted with General Electric propulsion systems with Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton announcing plans to purchase 11 additional rail cars for upgraded 80 mph Services between Philadelphia and Harrisburg and would be ordered through Philadelphia commuter agency scepter as the state was not permitted to contract directly with the Pennsylvania Railroad the state scepter and the pr would eventually reach an agreement on November 3rd 1966 for these Regional units that amounted to $2 million being contributed by in the state government of Pennsylvania this being funded mostly by mass transit grants from the newly formed Department of Housing and Urban Development while the Pennsylvania Railroad would receive a free 15-year lease of the cars however the Pennsylvania Railroad would withdraw from this aspect of the project soon afterwards following complaints from the red arrow lines and capital Trailways bus companies which operated non-subsidized services in competition with the railroad with the HUD grants being later found not to be applicable to inter City service though the order was still placed regardless problems though were quick to emerge as the Metrolina design moved into the Prototype stage as while the company had previously provided vital input into the Shing Canen project the domestic and international contributions of the company had essentially not progressed since the last of the zepha units had been delivered prior to World War II the company focusing instead on Carriage construction as the railway industry of the United States faced its precipitous post toward deine in terms of technological advances Bud's research and development departments have been focused on three primary projects disc brakes for Freight cars air spring suspension for coaches and the RDC multiple units of 1949 while despite the company priding itself on the creation of lightweight Vehicles the average car weight of Bud's products far exceeded that of any equivalent highp speed train in this regard Bud had little to no experience when it came to building a true life weight Carriage such as which would be the Lynch pin of a successful High-Speed Rail vehicle a lower weight meaning a higher speed could be attained by the train while not requiring inefficient levels of power to be input into the vehicle in order for it to accelerate this lack of experience in lightweight car construction was one noted by the famously conservative Pennsylvania Railroad management who had their doubts as to the company's ability to deliver a competitive high-speed train compounded further by the Limited Supply capacities in both Bud's manufacturing shops during the mid 1960s caused by the amount of business The Firm was receiving at that time which also constrained its ability to service demand another problem was that bud desperate to win the HSR project heavily underbid its contracts thus creating further Financial pressure when delivering the train though the most egregious concern for the bud company was its overall lack of innovation and inability to work with the complex electronic systems that were now becoming commonplace across the American Transport scene having won the new government contract Bud was required to undertake serious advances in its current technological prowess in order to meet the demands of the HSR scheme perhaps the biggest leap in the company's Innovative portfolio since the iconic Pioneer zepha sets of the 1930s which itself was a major step forward in technology from the Builder's previous remit of motocar assembly Railway Carriage work and a brief stint in aircraft experiments for the development of the HSR the complexities of traditional car body assembly and design had been superseded by the need to fit new train car models with Cutting Edge micro Electronics a system of operation that was still largely unknown territory but was essential to ensure that the upcoming electric sets would be capable of achieving their 160 mph top speed efficiently transistors and amplifiers emerged as the primary spearhead of microelectronics Technology during the 1960s replacing Cass some mechanical relays and energy consuming valves respectively though these new forms of control still very much in the Youth of their existence required Railway companies to rise to the challenge of installing such facets into the systems of their Railway Vehicles a far cry from the comparatively simplistic mechanical steam engine therefore in order to assist in Bud's implementation of this Cutting Edge technology into the HSR multiple units a premium would be placed on new financing Innovation and Industrial coordination an indirect result of which was a new industrial policy emerging wherein economic support was provided but government political risks were reduced with companies such as Bud relying on resource transfers from sectors such as Aerospace Auto and defense fire economies of scope this lack of innovation capacities would ultimately lose Bud millions of dollars as staff and Engineers were trained to use the latest technology in the marketplace without having sufficient background knowledge as to their correct implementation board electric multiple units with pneumatic and electrical systems of this caliber being a completely alien concept to the designers at the redline plant nevertheless Bud achieved some success in systems integration by developing four test cars for the Northeast Corridor dub T1 to T4 which ran on a test track in New Jersey during the Autumn of 1966 with each of these rail cars being developed to measure individual aspects of the Train's mechanical and electronic operation T1 would be used to measure and record the interaction between the Pantagraph and the cenery at high speed T2 would measure the track geometry T3 would provide enough power to meet the performance requirements and T4 would measure truck performance and ride quality the testing of these cars being a valuable step forward in terms of track geometry measurement and the study of Pantagraph CER interaction however the T1 to T4 test cars also had their limitations that meant they were not completely viable in setting the standard for the production models each of these cars having been converted from regular commuter vehicles and thus did not have the highly complex control systems that were to be used in the eventual Fleet coaches therefore the T1 to T4 were largely considered by the bud engineering team as no prototype of the eventual Metrolina trains but more demonstrator units that could prove their ability to attain a top speed of 150 mph while running on the 21m test track with 100 of changes being required between the test cars and the production vehicles through meetings between Bud the government the Pennsylvania Railroad and its major suppliers in the end the bud Metrolina cars that would result were perhaps the most complex self-propelled vehicles ever developed in the United States to that point but due to Bud's failure to create prototypes that were generally comparable to the eventual production versions the outcomes of the tests conducted during 1966 gave little to no impression as to how the final sets would perform in Mainline service each metroliner set would comprise approximately 3,000 electronic components that were extremely maintenance heavy with a design requiring increased Pantagraph contacts with the cenery and close spacing of these contacts which created difficulties in maintaining good electrical current collection at highest speeds with the associated wiring system compounding wider integration challenges Bud's haste to develop prototypes that were but a fraction of the eventual product was somewhat pmic of the Builder's declining Fortunes in the rail car industry at the time of the Metrolina project as while the company was able to Garner stainless steel assembly business elsewhere the collapse of the rail market during the post-war era robbed the firm of one of its primary sources of income as railroads had not the capital to order new coaching design furthermore bud did not produce locomotives while the Metrolina contract did not generate any export orders which itself is a key part of the commercial success for a high-speed train vehicle design as per the later French tgv the German ice Italian pendolino and various Japanese bullet train models nevertheless with the T1 to T4 prototypes demonstrating an absolute top speed of 156 mph during tests in April 1967 progression of the production metr liners could begin in Earnest these new rail cars having high floor boarding with only one door on each car able to serve low platforms these Trains being among the first High Flor only rail cars in Mainline service in the United States development of the metr Lin units was done at an incredible Pace primarily due to the demands of the state to reach the same level as the Shing Canen in terms of performance in a fraction of the time with bud and its supplies being kept to exceptionally strict deadlines that required cut corners or technical development that was nowhere near perfected by the time of its implementation while French and Japanese Engineers enjoyed the luxury of having up to a decade to test multiple prototypes of their HSR projects initially the team behind the metr project were held to a delivery date of 1968 in order for the HSR scheme to be used as a major political topic by the Johnson Administration during that year's election though once Johnson had opted not to stand for re-election as president of the United States due to increasing opposition to the war in Vietnam the time scale was lengthened marginally but deadlines kept unsympathetically tight regard regardless in May 1967 an initial service date of October 29th of that year was announced followed a month later by the official adoption of the metrine of moniker for the trains and their services with the first complete unit being displayed at the red line factory in July 1967 only 13 months after the initial order had been placed under the high-speed ground transportation project the first westing house powered metr liners were delivered to the testing location at jenin Town station in the Philadelphia suburb BBS in September 1967 and immediately began testing on the reading company's West Trenton line though from the start these units suffered multiple failures of the control and propulsion systems at just 70 mph and the Pennsylvania Railroad called for the proposed October 1967 introduction of the sets to be delayed thus January 1st 1968 would be the new service entry deadline for the Metrolina project and the first two cars began testing on the Pennsylvania's main line on November 18 the initial mechanical and Technical Gremlins being ironed out to the point that the sets could achieve 125 mph with one example even being pushed to 164 mph near Princeton Junction in New Jersey 6 days later however testing also revealed that the cars would not be able to operate anywhere near that speed in Revenue Service primarily due to the phenomenal power drawer of the metrol liner units when running at speeds over 140 mph the biggest problem overlooked by the designers being the fact that the state-of-the-art technology proposed for the metroliner had to be operated on infrastructure that was built in the 1930s by the late 1960s the electrical infrastructure of the Pennsylvania's mainline from New York to Washington DC was largely unchanged from when it had been originally erected in 1935 with the overhead wiring together with substations being designed only to accommodate the comparatively simplistic GG ones of that era rather than the power hungry metr liners sets that were at The Cutting Edge of Railway technology for the United States on December 17th 1967 the metr liner's ability to run at full speed was dealt another blow when these high-speed train sets came into contact with the Pennsylvania's mp54 electric rail cars from 1915 when due to the pressure drop between a 130 mph Metro lineer set and an mp54 resulted in the latter's windows being ripped out meaning the new trains would be forced to sacrifice their speed advantage in favor of working around the older multiple units on February 1st 1968 in a bid to save itself from imminent collapse the Pennsylvania Railroad chose to pull its capital with another major Railway firm in order to keep both companies afloat its partner being long-standing rival the New York Central thus creating the Penn Central Transportation Company a hopelessly flawed amalgamation of railroad businesses that did little to complement each other and would ultimately fail to achieve WID spread cooperation with no work being done to improve the existing situation in the passenger sector as the pen Central's management continue to perceive itself as two separate railroad companies The Firm would find itself losing $100 million per year on passenger Services by the end of 1968 with no clear Direction in sight for the testing of the Metro liners this continued with ongoing flaws while into 1968 a major issue with the scheme being the problematic partnering of Bud with General Electric and Westinghouse as the government's rationale in marrying these three firms together in the project were potential assurances that there would be two viable suppliers going forward Bud through their previous record of working alongside General Electric or Westinghouse to provide propulsion systems for their vehicles were confident that these two suppliers could present technology that would perform without fault as it had done before regardless of the fact that both companies were just as inexperienced with the technology as Bud was as an example the metroliner cars fitted with the Westinghouse propulsion system represented one of the first applications of phas control thyer propulsion systems but this created problems of electrical interference with the control circuits of the thyers combined with a poor initial Pantagraph design that would bounce along the Aging 1930s cery and often brought down the wires thus the Westinghouse cars once this fault had been discovered were withdrawn from testing as the supplier worked to redesign the circuits at their Pittsburgh facility while from March 2nd 1968 the first cars fitted with General Electric propulsion systems were delivered for testing and presented a superior Pantagraph design that successfully overcame The Bouncing issue against the wires however the General Electric units were also riddled with major problems with the design and build of their components though not ones identical to those experienced by Westinghouse the outcome being that bud was chained by contract to two component suppliers who had barely The Experience necessary to develop a fully functional propulsion system in light of the cumulative problems with the Metro liners and with these machines being no closer to completion than they had been 6 months prior March 12th 1968 would see the service entry for these trains delayed indefinitely followed by testing being fully suspended from June 24th to Mid July of the same year with six car test trains demonstrating severe issues with electrical arcing finally after months of work resolving the issue of the General Electric and westing house propelled cars failing to work together properly the first test train using these proportion systems in combination undertook its Maiden Run on August 8th 1968 while June 1968 had seen an agreement reached between the State Transportation assistance Authority and Penn Central for a combined $4.5 million order for 11 Metro liners for the Harrisburg service the remainder of 1968 was spent overh calling and preparing the Metro liner and the main line for their service entry with demonstration runs for officials being conducted in four car formation throughout the summer while substation modifications were carried out during the autumn in order to ensure the infrastructure was capable of handling the metroliner units up to 135 mph in early October several test trains proved the viability of the planned sub three-hour schedules for Metrolina diagrams between Washington Baltimore Philadelphia and New York York and a legal settlement between bud and Penn Central was thus made in November 1968 for the Handover of the units for service entry December 20th seeing the railroad company announced January 16th 1969 as the start of Metro Liners in public use the day prior to Public Service entry a Washington to New York round trip for VIPs was operated on January 15th 1969 with the initial schedule for regular operations seeing a single daily roundtrip leaving New York in the morning and Washington in the afternoon the original one-way fair for the service being $12.75 in coach class and $19.90 in first class or $1 107 and $168 in 2024 respectively however due to numerous circuit breaker trips and cery outages the proposed use of eight coaches on Rush Hour trains was scaled back to six cars that comprised two club cars and four snack bar coaches while MP5 4S on Washington to Baltimore commuter Services still had their Windows sucked out by passing Metro liners metr liners were also tested during February 1969 on the mainline north of New York to the then extent of the wires at New Haven Connecticut though these trains once again led to power drops due to the Aged overhead wiring of the route the general electric cars showing the greatest promise in terms of reliability while Westinghouse fitted coaches still saw electrical issues that resulted in their storage at Trenton awaiting rectification as more cars were brought into use the service patterns gradually increased including a Non-Stop round trip on a 2 and 1/ half hour schedule which was added from April 2nd 1969 and from mid August the first Westinghouse coaches were brought into regular use and tested up to 160 mph though during the same year the maximum speed of the Metro liners was temporarily dropped from 120 mph to 110 mph due to ongoing power issues eventually due to the condition of the track and signaling system the Federal Railroad Administration never allowed Metro liners to go faster than 120 mph between Washington and New York regardless of the incredibly favorable profile and general track layout of the Northeast Corridor including long sections of straight track in New Jersey and numerous four track stretches that could sideline Freight of commuter trains nevertheless the bud metr liner was still by far the fastest passenger train in North America providing speed comfort and amenities who could easily compete with domestic Airlines including Easton's famous shuttle service between New York and Washington with half of metrin passengers within 2 years of service entry having switched from other modes while 70% of customers were men on business trips the average cost per car mile for metr sets being 77 cents to maintain from February 25th 1970 the 11 westing house powered cars intended for the Harrisburg service completed their performance testing but the pen Central refused to accept these cars due to numerous technical issues and their General and suitability for the service presenting slower acceleration than the current Fleet of silver liner commuter units while also suffering from overheating problems due to their frequent stops and had difficulty climbing the grade out of Suburban Station additionally the corridor lacked high level platforms to effectively use the cars and 15 substations would require expensive modif ations thus leading to these 11 coaches being placed into storage before being leased by the pen Central to help bolster the mainline New York to Washington run these being dispatched to Bud for modifications in April while the Harrisburg Corridor would instead see an investment of $100,000 to upgrade silver liner sets though the bud Metro liner was settling nicely into its new role as the premier high-speed train for the United States the continued reliability problems even as new sets continue to come online me the do and Penn Central from May 1970 began early arrangements to modify one car of each propulsion type to try and iron out these ongoing issues with out of service rates reaching 40% and higher within the first 18 months of operation in June Senator Clifford case of New Jersey began pushing the do to devote $5 million towards the metroliner rebuilding program in order to increase reliability with an official 2-year demonstration program beginning from October 1st 1970 a feasibility study of upgrading the cars for higher sustained speeds being initiated all while the top speed of the service sets was reduced further to 100 m hour from February 1971 due to wear on the equipment and infrastructure on May 1st 1971 in order to try and save the ever deteriorating American rail passenger Market through direct State funding the Nixon Administration established the government-owned National Railroad passenger Corporation as marketed under the name Amtrak and would take over the loss making Inter City passenger rail services from the pen Central and the other private railroads thus 49 initial metr liner sets were leased from Penn Central through a reimbursement by Amtrak followed in September by the leasing of the remaining 12 sets that had yet to be commissioned by bud at their Redline plant or while the dot in contract with General Electric and Westinghouse commissioned further research into electrical modifications for the train sets during June 1971 with detailed plans made a month later by November metrin Services were operating 12 daily round trips including some trains that continued to New Haven but a permanent 100 mph speed restriction on the units was maintained which meant they were no better than the near 40-year-old gg1s they were intending to replace with Amtrak considering deactivating the Metro liners and simply having them locco holded by gg1s on corridor trains during early 1972 however as the cars were the only new Rolling Stock in Amtrak's Possession It was decided to continue efforts to increase their operating reliability instead and from February 1972 one GE powered car was shipped to eie Pennsylvania for the dot funded rebuilding program with the intention being to modify all cars by 1976 this being followed by the first Westinghouse power car in March of the same year in late April Amtrak accepted six of the least cars for Revenue Service while the first two rebuilt cars emerged from Erie in November of that year with the remediation work including the dynamic braking resistors and the air intakes being relocated to a streamlined bump on the roof reducing overheating and snow ingestion issues that had occurred when they were mounted under the car body the rebuilt cars had a maximum speed of 130 mph while following the completion of two further cars in February 1974 testing of a full four car set up to 150 mph was achieved during May prior to their return to public use in July this rebuilding program being largely successful with the exception of continued rough riding concerns and the fact that the program itself cost $500,000 per car $100,000 more than it cost to build them originally Amtrak pressed on with this work to see the Metro liners modified as per the original test cars with units that had logged over 11 million miles in Revenue Service being prioritized though in the end few cars were actually repaired and by 1975 the out of service rate was still sitting at alarming 27.5% with sets often running short of available cars during periods of highest demand this led from February 1976 to Amtrak cutting metr liner diagrams from 15 to 13 roundtrips per day due to the lack of serviceable cars while from April 1st of the same year the bankrupt Penn Central along with a slew of additional failed railroad companies were nationalized by the Ford Administration into Conrail and thus the existing leasing agreements on the Metrolina trains was passed over to this new company with the Metrolina project having been an overall failure for amtr the company sought various means of replacing these Troublesome multiple units starting with the General Electric E60 locomotives of 1974 which were derived from an existing design for Freight engines built by the black meser and Lake power railroad of Arizona though these proved to be completely ill suited for high-speed passenger work and were speed restricted following a series of derailments from 1976 Amtrak looked to foreign suppliers as a means of providing a lightweight electric locomotive for Metrolina diagrams the result being the testing of a Swedish SJ aw1 rc4 and a French sncf Class CC 21,000 locomotive on the Northeast Corridor with the rc4 proving to be the superior design and would thus lend itself to an american-built variant capable of 125 mph at the same time amra considered a potential new Fleet of metr liner units toop the metr liner 2 which would be heavily modified to iron out the faults of The Originals 118 cars initially being ordered but this was soon cut back to 50 and later fully cancelled all while ontime performance for the metr line of Fleet fell from 81% to 46% throughout 1976 in the face of this falling performance consultant leis T clauder and Associates was commissioned during November 1976 to provide a report on the future of the metroliner trains with this report highlighting that the rebuilt cars had half the maintenance cost of The Originals and recommended an aggressive overhaul program to be initiated with Amtrak announcing on February 6th 1977 that $24.4 million would be spent on overhauling all 61 cars as part of a larger Fleet renewal program this led on September 28th 1977 to an order for eight of the American built rc4 locomotives dubb the A7 while 16 Metro liners would be overhauled Amtrak releasing a specification for overhauling the 57 unmodified cars and awarded a $20 million overhaul contract to General Electric during November the first unit being dispatched to GE for overhaul in March 1978 while gg1s hauling coaching stock and reared to 110 mph operation would cover the shortfall on a slower schedule on April 30th 1978 the once 2 and 1 half hour schedule was increased to 3 hours and 20 minutes as more locco Hall diagrams were introduced to cover for the out of service Metro liners while the first rebuilt cars entered service on May 17th 1979 the overall metr scheduling layout by July 1979 being three round trips operated by rebuilt cars four by unrebuilt cars and four by coall trains by January 1980 rebuilds covered six of 14 daily round trips followed during the middle of the Year by the first A7 locomotives coming online this new traction easily demonstrating that it could match metroliner diagrams while delivering reliability that was far in excess of the multiple units their arrival allowing for an increase in Daily round trips from 12 to 14 by October 1980 while the most unreliable Metro liners were taken offline the transfer from multiple units back to Loco hold operation was quick and from the first arrival of the a7s in mid1 1980 the last unrebuilt metrin units were taken out of service on April 1st 1981 followed by the venerable gg1s in May and finally the very last of the bud metroliner units on October 23rd leaving the future of Mainline traction between Washington DC and New York in the hands of a7s and speed restricted e60s some survivors would continue to see work on the Harrisburg Corridor going into the mid 1980s these metr liner units being renamed Capital liners and would work between New York and Harrisburg on the Keystone service usually in three car formations though once again the reliability concerns that had doomed their original introduction on this route under the Penn Central in 1970 came to light and from January 1988 all sets would be Loco hauled ultimately the bud Metro lers withdrawn from use were found to be much better performing as coaching stock and throughout the late 1980s and into the early 1990s the survivors were stripped of their running gear and put to work as pushpull cap control cars across various corridors a task that they still performed to this day on services such as the Keystone service Valley flyer and Hartford line though new coaches from Seaman intend to see these retired from 2025 however though the bud metrol units were an overall failure and never met the targets they were hoping to achieve their sturdy and comfortable body shell design was generally praised and during 1975 Amtrak would order a feet of 492 amp fe1 cars based on the bud metr liner Shell at a cost of $192 million this being followed in 1980 by an order for 150 am Fe 2 cars at150 million the am Fleet becoming the backbone of Amtrak's operations across the continental United States another application for the metr liner's body shell came with the SPV 2000 as announced in 1976 which would comprise single car diesel multiple units that would replace the older RDC coaches of the 1940s and 50s being powered by 360 horsepower General Motors diesel engines and being capable of a top speed of 120 mph the SPV 2000 being designated for both Regional commuter and inter city services across America the SPV 2000 prototype began testing in Pennsylvania on December 8th 1977 with the state of Conneticut placing the first order 9 months later for use on the Danbury Branch while the other 12 units would be leased to Amtrak to replace their rdc's between New Haven and Springfield Massachusetts with 50 con dot units entering service from April 23rd 1980 sadly much like the bud metr liners the SPV 2000s would again suffer a Myriad of problems with regard to their traction equipment specifically due to the dedication of two 8 cylinder engines solely to propulsion while the lighting air conditioning control voltages and other ancillary loads were handled by a separate four-cylinder power unit built by Perkins which was provided an insufficient cooling radiator that was often clogged with Leaf debris the result was that the Perkins unit would routinely overheat due to debris Ingress thus meaning that control of the unit's functions Beyond propulsion was lost thus rendering the car inoperable while the general design including suspension and body shell was completely overdesigned for the role it was intending to fill the 120 mph top speed being highly optimistic in consideration of the SPV 2000's General employment on winding Regional Branch lines thus the SPV 2000 proved to be another major failure for the bud company and its attempts to Branch out the metrona design to other potential uses Beyond a non empowered passenger coach the SPV 2000 spending a majority of their careers being haed by locomotives before falling out of use by the middle of the 2010s in the end the failure of the bud metr ler project came down to the fact that High-Speed Rail in the United States was of a lower priority when compared to International equivalence with Japan having invested vast sums of State funding into the Shing Canen as a means to ensure economic growth going into the 1970s while France had Central ized government control over the transportation system and could thus inject funds where appropriate for schemes such as the tgv by contrast the priority of the American government was military industrial policy due to the ongoing Vietnam war with the four years of development for the bud metrol Linus scheme 1966 to 1970 seeing Federal expenditures for defense department research and development total $3.7 billion furthermore research and development M Investments by railroads for their passenger operations were either too Limited in scale or too remote to help sustain Bud as a rail manufacturer with the period between 1950 and 1960 seeing the total net investment by the railroads in Road and Equipment property by classes 1 and two Lin Hall railroads and leasers standing at $6.9 billion during 1961 a study noted that the railroads made $14 billion in New Capital Improvements after the end of world war I with productivity increases being driven by research projects that included a rail laboratory and Research Center which worked on various projects including continuous welded Rail and Alloys for lightweight car construction or areas of Technology Synergy between Freight and passenger Services while some post-war Innovations were explicitly aimed at passenger service in general the railroads experienced a long Hiatus in research and development within this field which made it difficult to assimilate the advanced technology of the 1960s and70s into underpinnings that had not evolved since before World War II with major rail producers in the face of an increasingly Bleak market for passenger trains doing little to modernize their pre-war designs at most the last major investments in passenger rail equipment came during the late 1940s and early 1950s though this was primarily targeted at low capacity long-distance coaches that were aimed at a market where the railroads were losing out most significant ly against domestic Airlines thus rendering this new Rolling Stock obsolete almost immediately after their entry into service by 1967 the Pennsylvania Railroad was losing 24 cents on every dollar received from Passenger tickets and with its significant investments in new passenger equipment and existing infrastructure such as The Magnificent Penn Station in Manhattan alongside the catastrophic collapse in both passenger and Freight Demand on the railways the company was being bled dry at an alarming rate this extreme lack of Harmony within the primary Railroad Company backing the Metrolina project combined with an apparent failure to invest in new technology on an industry scale within the United States meant Bud was forced to rely heavily on external suppliers to provide the latest electronics and mechanics to help get the new train running these outside sources ultimately grabbing a greater share of profit from Bud from Bud's once simple but sturdy ability to provide Mainline Long Haul passenger equipment with a majority of the costs being represented by the company's own design manufacturing and assembly operations the firm's dependence on external suppliers for electrical components in subassemblies meant this amounted to over 70% of the total costs of the self-propelled Transit cars and commuter cars by the late 1960s these developments meant the company's design engineering and tooling costs had to be paid off by just 30% of each unit cost while at the same time making Bud vulnerable to disruptions from its suppliers as was the case with General electric which suffered a strike during 1970 delayed rail car production while the bud Metrolina project should have been the high commission government-backed scheme that all major Railway Builders hoped they would win the reality was that the culmination of factors including limited R&D investment by the railroads over the previous decades an inability to keep up with the demands of the latest technology and the fact that this all had to be delivered within half a decade nearly pushed Bud to exit the railroad business altogether with sales in the railway division of Bud having fluctuated from only 1 to 13% of the company's total annual sales during the period between 1966 and 1969 a strong consideration was for the firm to instead focus on supplying the ever expanding automobile business added to further by Bud's later rectification works on the metrin sets after delivery which amounted to $26 million amounting to a total overall loss of $20 million on the entire scheme buds to suppliers also suffered by not having a sufficient supporting R&D program to launch a new generation of systems though while Bud amid talk of their never taking on the role of a primary contractor for a railroad project ever again ultimately did not exit the Railway business though the fact that they made public motions as to doing so was a clear sign of how unsustainable this Market sector was viewed in truth Bud's calamitous development of the metr ler was essentially an outcome of the American indirect industrial policy that was aimed primarily at providing a transportation service rather than sufficiently funding rail car producers at the scale necessary for entering a new production Paradigm with Congress opting for a free market orientation rather than the more State interventionist country such as France the main objective of the metroliner program was to prevent the total demise of Passenger rail by providing service that was only marginally faster than the existing Rolling Stock with the entire project being more a demonstration rather than a fully committed effort by Washington to address the balance of the transport sector and with its limited geographical and time Horizon did not warrant significant government investment this overarching hesitancy to provide substantial government R&D program support for the passenger rail industry meant financing for the railroad was primarily private with the exception of funds being injected for safety related schemes the Federal Railroad Administration created in 1966 supporting improvements in passenger trains but had no long-term programs due to the small scale of the market and the lack of political will to push for such projects a testament to this imbalance of State funds into a project that was ostensibly of national importance came in the fact that the bud company General Electric the Pennsylvania Railroad and its successor Penn Central and Westinghouse would spend over $60 million of private funds on the metrol liner while the government would only provide $12.9 million of public money this was essentially a tacit admission that the state had no interest in serving passenger rail demonstrated by the fact that other sectors of the transportation industry were able to Garner huge government subsidies During the period between 1961 and 1970 with company financed R&D investment during 1961 standing at $6.2 million for railroad carriers $50 million for railroad equipment manufacturers and $379 million for aircraft and part suppliers as the decade progressed by 196 two this would shift by only 0.06% for railroad carriers 1.7% for railroad suppliers based on company funds and 24% for the aircraft and parts manufacturers with 2.4% company funds and 21.6% government funds while full-time equivalent R&D scientists and Engineers per 1,000 employees were 101 in the aircraft and missile sector 52 in electrical equipment and communication 48 in professional and scientific instruments but only 16 in motor vehicles and other Transportation equipment while indirect industrial policy mostly hurt the American railroads there was one case wherein the investment of the state into the Aerospace industry helped solve a problem with the bu metrol liner that being when John maretti a scientist with an electrical background and a figure in the Cold War aviation industry worked with the Department of Transport to help retrofit the Metro liners once they had entered service through his extensive experience Mar Chetty was able to identify several key problems with the metroliner electronics through test programs that measured and recorded specific performance elements to guide the retrofit program with real world data thereby giving the project critical electrical and electronics expertise that was severely lacking within the ranks of Bud and thus solving many problems the company faced in fulfilling its procurement contract with the government however maret's contribution to the metrin scheme was very small in The Wider context of the entire project with the general consideration being that had an engineer of his expertise in Acumen been employed from the start of the trains development back in 1966 many of the lingering electronic faults could have been rectified long before the units ever entered Public Service furthermore while the metr scheme was generally a failure with regards to its inability to provide major improvements to The Wider Northeast Corridor as well as being but a small part of the American passenger rail industry as a whole its position is the first major innovation in the rail sector that was pushed through to completion since the end of World War II was a significant stimulus for future development of wider projects it was also instrumental in keeping the bud company afloat in the face of falling orders in the passenger rail sector with its only other sustained work during this period being the delivery of 600 cars for the R32 subway train as ordered by the New York City Transit Authority in June 1963 these subway trains also being assembled at the red line factory alongside the Metro liners to conclude the bud Metro liner was a wrong-headed concept for what the government was hoping to achieve insisting that a state-of-the-art high-speed Express passenger train that could match the performance of the Shing Canen be delivered in as short a time as possible using Railway infrastructure that was over 30 years old while at the same time being built by rail manufacturers with a severe deficit in technological prowess and strangled in terms of funds as was proven by Europe and Asia in the decades to come the only way to create a sustainable high-speed Railway system would be through the building of dedicated lines segregated from regular commuter and freight services a matter that could not easily be overcome on the Northeast Corridor due to the expansive Urban Development that surrounded the course of the route therefore the government was attempting to force a square peg into a round hole when it came to creating the bud metroliner a machine that was far too over-engineered for its own good and should have had technical Ambitions that were but a fraction of what bud General Electric and Westinghouse struggle to obtain in the highly constrained schedule of the project with Decades of innovation needing to be learned in the space of only 2 to 4 years in the end had the Bud metr liner simply been built to a more reasonable 125 mph top speed while continuing to maintain the winning body shell design and interior that saw greater use in the non-powered AM fleet cars than it may have been possible for America's first Fay into the realm of high-speed trains to have been a success and the Cornerstone of future projects for the United States going into the 1970s and 80s

Channel: Ruairidh MacVeigh

Views: 70,698

Keywords: emu, diesel, express, multiple unit, rail, train, electric locomotive, passenger, shunter, trains, dmu, branch, diesel locomotive, class, engine, mainline, railways, locomotive, freight, railway, track, Budd Metroliner, Metroliner, Budd, General Electric, M-497 Black Beetle, President Lyndon B. Johnson, High-Speed Ground Transportation, Shinkansen, Japan, TGV, France, GG1, Amtrak, Penn Central, Pennsylvania Railroad, PRR, AEM-7, E60, Westinghouse, Northeast Corridor, SPV 2000, Amfleet Car, Amfleet, USA, America

Id: yMb0F1CSw_k

Length: 52min 55sec (3175 seconds)

Published: Sat May 11 2024