Comments on: Colorado Railcar Gone: What is next?

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 23:16:48 +0000

About regulations. FRA is so tight on US passenger not only because of interacting on freight railways… but also on burn-ability of materials. The flamability of materials allowed in contruction of US passenger railcars is more stringent than other countries.
Also, the US is greatly behind in design and speed of passenger railcars. US is slowest and is only allowed to exceed 70 mph on the eastern corridor tracks. So, CRCMfg had an outdated design that really utilized engine drive, brakes, trucks that were designed the same way over a hundred years ago. Nothing about CRC’s design was cutting edge. All those other mfr’s have better designs. CRC did have superior marketing and connections in the Good Ol boy network, so it played politcal hard ball and won a few fights, but was so poorly run (into the ground) by insane egomaniacs, that it hopefully will never surface again.
The future of passenger railcars should be magnetics, not DMU’s.
Lightrail has a lot more instore. These ‘other’ companies that want a slice of the open market niche should be busy coming up with highbred designs that can save energy, use a smaller carbon footprint, and run on the US infrastructural railways.

Jon Shepard
ASHRAE Committee member
Acceptable Ventilation Rates for Passenger Railcars
USA
(former CRC design contractor)

By: Reg Mitchell

Reg Mitchell — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:46:09 +0000

The Budd Rail Diesel Car used a diesel-hydraulic transmission similar to an automobile’s. The cars had two Detroit two cycle 6-110 engines under the floor rated at 275 HP each. Each engine drove one axle with two powered axles per car and the car could be run with a single engine in an emergency.

I understand the Colorado Railcar DMUs in Portland use a pair of Detroit 300 HP engines and direct drive. The sound going through the gears and total noise level is much like the old RDC. Top speed on the Beaverton-Wilsonville line is 60 MPH. The large picture windows and soft seats make for a pleasant commuting experience.

By: barry fromm

barry fromm — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:13:49 +0000

I understand that you have an interest in the CRC DMU. We purchased the assets of the company. If you stil have an interest, please let me know, as well as what your interest might be.

By: Jonathan M. Feldman

Jonathan M. Feldman — Mon, 04 May 2009 22:41:47 +0000

Hello, I would be interested in learning more about your experiences as I am doing research on this topic. Here is a recent article that I have written. Regards, J. Feldman

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=from_mass_transit_to_new_manufacturing

By: Jonathan M. Feldman

Jonathan M. Feldman — Mon, 04 May 2009 22:40:11 +0000

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=from_mass_transit_to_new_manufacturing

A new industrial policy and supporting finance, R&D, and production support institutions are needed. We can’t just keep losing companies right and left and
expect the market to solve the problem without coordinated federal assistance.
There are groups in the Midwest, New York, Oregon and elsewhere concerned about creating a new policy.

By: Mike Pracht

Mike Pracht — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 21:31:21 +0000

The US only has different rules than EU on tracks that are shared with large/heavy 150 car+ freight trains. These mixed-use corridors regulate the crash-worthiness of passenger trains that would run with mixed freight traffic in order to provide safer equipment for passengers in the event of a colision with a freight train. The EU does not have simular situations (for the most part) and also has positive train control in addition where train movements are better protected by onboard signaling/train control.

By: Allan MacLaren

Allan MacLaren — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:11:08 +0000

I’ll speak to France. For years the only internal airline was Air Inter whose fares were dictated by the government to be some percentage, I think 20%, over that of rail travel. It was a conscious government decision to foster rail travel. The TGV network is one result of this policy. Also, over 50% of French electricity comes form nuclear power plants thus an advantage for running electrified trains.
Acela is a somewhat reasonable “TGV like” example for the U.S. Unfortunately this is (except perhaps for Philadelphia to Harrisburg) the only trackage that does not carry a huge amount of freight traffic.

By: Keep Houston Houston

Keep Houston Houston — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 06:58:14 +0000

Not that we were ever considering anything other than full loco-hauled CRT (most likely MPIXpress/Bombardier), but this news makes me very, very sad.

The CRM DMU demonstrator was a unique design that incorporated the “luxury” view windows of their passenger car products into a vehicle built for the daily grind. I always wondered why TriMet didn’t order the same windows as the demonstrator.

Moreover, the CRM DMU was Diesel-ELECTRIC. (i.e. the Diesel engine powers a generator, which in turn powers electric motors). The US has historically been Diesel-Electric, everything from Budd RDC’s F7′s to Dash 9s and SD90MACs is all diesel-electric.

The Siemens Desiro is Diesel-HYDRAULIC (i.e. the Diesel engine powers a transmission, like a bus or a semi truck). This design has more in common with post-WWII British Rail than anything that ever plied American rails. Diesel-Hydraulic is noisier upon acceleration than either the CRM DMU *or* a well-maintained RDC, and it’s incapable of the same acceleration that a well-powered Diesel-electric unit is.

So no, I’m not in any hurry to see us adapt our standards to allow the same frigging Desiro that has blandified the entire Central and Eastern European short-haul rail network. While the FRA standards should make exception for standalone systems (i.e. high speed rail on dedicated tracks), they’re perfectly sensible for 79mph commuter service in truly mixed-use corridors.

When M-K and Budd died a major chunk of the IP went to Bombardier. They already build all of our commuter coaches – how much of a stretch would it be to assemble a DMU in Vermont? I mean really…

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:52:40 +0000

I doubt that would be done, Budd and Pullman Standard weren’t rescued by the USDOT, I hardly expect CRM to be rescued.

Far more likely at this point would be for Tri-Met to give the CRM IP they own along with a construction/maintenance contract to Oregon Iron Works.

Tri-Met is going to need a source of parts and new cars, Oregon Iron Works has shown an interest in diversifying into the rail vehicle market. Oregon Iron Works is also in a much better financial position than CRM ever was and has lots of experience in doing low-volume fabrication/manufacturing profitably.

By: Jan van Eck

Jan van Eck — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:03:24 +0000

One rather obvious solution to the conundrum of CRM is for the USDOT to simply take over the assets by eminent domain. The lender is paid for the value of the assets as determined by their declarations on the local property tax rolls. the money available from the economic stimulus act is used to make certain that we do not forfeit a domestic railcar manufacturing capability. the USDOT then issues an Order for 1,200 trainsets. Production begins apace.

By: CRM employee

CRM employee — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:54:50 +0000

As a former employee of CRM, I can tell you this company had many problems. The product we produced was of good quality and serviced a unique market, but unfortunately, the company was severely undercapitalized and with the recent downturn of the economy, several municipalities that had pending orders with CRM placed them on hold, thus, the company was doomed. Other problems were poor organizational structure and a dyfunctional engineering department. There was a incredible amount of time lost in regard to awaiting a resolution to simple problems from the engineering department as well as workers waisting time walking long distances from their stations to the railcars just to perform a simply task. In essence, this was not a modern factory by any stretch. This all added up to cost overruns and time delays on orders.

If the company had the proper capitol investment, they may have had a chance to right the ship, but it was not to be.

By: Colorado Railfan

Colorado Railfan — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:48:07 +0000

As a Coloradan, I feel sorry to see such an inovative company dissapear from our area. In fact, my uncle who works for CRM, got laid off in December, and he’s not the only one. Also, it is wrong of the Denver transit agency, RTD, to not pucrchase the locally-made DMU. Considering the economy, it was a bad move. Unfortunantly, just one DMU costs one million dollars, and that doesn’t include shipping and handling. However, RTD would have bought them if they were electric. But last, people should have been buying these for their cities years ago.

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 22:11:42 +0000

I’d love to see North America (from what I understand the Canadian and Mexican rules are very similar to the FRA ones) adopt sensible performance based standards. However I don’t see that happening any time soon. The best bet at the moment other than FRA compliant vehicles is to adopt ATCS/PTC for everything running on a given line. I believe the NJT River Line using the Stadler vehicles is able to do semi-mixed operation (rather than a strict time separation) due to ATCS.

The big question is if vehicles like the Stadler cars would be allowed by the FRA in mixed operation on a busy mainline even if every train has ATCS/PTC and the line signaling has been upgraded to take advantage of it.

By: Wolf Harper

Wolf Harper — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 10:18:30 +0000

Simply put, because America isn’t Europe.

Truth is European rails are as dysfunctional as ours – where we fail passenger, they fail freight. We have a very robust freight system that makes money, saves us money and keeps millions of trucks off our highways. Europe does not, and suffers accordingly. Result: Our trains have to be tougher because they must actually, truly interoperate with freight trains. Even so, European accidents tend to be more bloody than ours. Good dispatching can’t prevent every kind of accident.

Contrary to the anti-government arm-waving here, there is nothing wrong with our standards. That CalTrain study was written to justify light vehicles for their Caltrain specifically, where they want a relatively isolated rapid-transit system like BART. (while emphatically trying to justify why they shouldn’t simply be replaced by BART, lol!) In their study they deliberately ignore scenarios like those which have caused fatalities on Amtrak and Metrolink. They envision their system being one where those types of accidents “just don’t happen”. Heh. Suffice it to say, even CalTrain would agree that their study really only fits CalTrain, and it would be a mistake to say “all passenger trains should be like this”.

As for Amtrak Acela’s problems, every high speed rail system has problems, just look at the ICE.

It’s quite right we need ATCS/PTC, and we’re going to get it, due to the Chatsworth tragedy. But PTC won’t prevent accidents like Glendale or Eschede, which is why you still need solidly built cars. As for “crush zones”, where do you think those are on an EMU? The first few rows of coach seats!

I’m not too worried about DMU availability. Most light-rail cars are custom designs anyway, done to spec. (it’s one of the things that makes light mail maddeningly expensive and unreliable.) If somebody really wants a CRM design, the low bidder will license it from what’s left of CRM.

By: Nathanael Nerode

Nathanael Nerode — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 06:29:06 +0000

Because we’re idiots. The FRA rules date from the 1930s and 1940s, and in some cases early.

They have been literally proven to be inferior to the European rules in testing done by Caltrain — Caltrain’s non-complaint Euro vehicles protect people better in every single type of crash than FRA-complaint vehicles. But the rules still haven’t been changed.

The FRA rules simply need to be changed.

By: anonymouse

anonymouse — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:34:44 +0000

The FRA safety standards were basically pulled out of someone’s rear in the 20s or so, and derive from the need to keep cars from breaking when they have a “hard coupling” in a hump yard. The passenger safety standards were really developed for the safety of postal workers in mail cars. Anyway, to some extent there really are good reasons why the US has different standards (in various respects) from the EU: the US runs much longer and heavier freight trains over much longer distances and much more sparsely populated territory. At the same time, there are some really bad reasons: for example, US trains have to go slower around curves because of a single test done in the 30s on a car with a soft suspension resulted in some spilled coffee.

By: Brian Bundridge

Brian Bundridge — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 03:36:25 +0000

EGR: The RDC’s have already been pulled out of service and posted up for sale. They are enroute to Seattle then to Canada from what I last heard.

The ARR vehicle isn’t “complete” but the paint and such has been completed from the pictures. I think the incomplete part is the unfinished interior.

I would think that TriRail will keep theirs, they should be receiving the last one in a few days if things work out.

By: EvergreenRailfan

EvergreenRailfan — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:34:33 +0000

So, the ARR unit was finished before the demise? Good, if the Chugach service does not work out, they can use it to replace the Budd RDCs on the Hurricane flag-stop service. I heard the latter flunked inspections and have been retired. Perhaps if the ARR had ordered some of them when times were good, they might have been in better shape. That is one reason I liked this particular vehicle, it had some potential. Maybe a Stadler car can be used on the ARR in the several roles the CRC DMU could have been used up there. It had the potential for Anchorage Commuter Rail, the Chugach Service that it was going to be used for, replacing the Budds on the Hurricane, and maybe even filling in for loco-hauled stock on the winter Aurora service.

I wonder if TriRail in Miami will keep their’s.

By: The Overhead Wire

The Overhead Wire — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 22:49:58 +0000

Hawaii i believe is actually going to have an ALRT like in Vancouver, these are elevated electric trains.

Another company making DMU’s is Stadler, which Austin got its vehicles from, though rather expensive I might say.

By: Brian Bundridge

Brian Bundridge — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 22:24:09 +0000

Exactly.

And the only reason why Tri-met went with the CRM vehicles is simply because Portland and Western Railroad run many trains during the day. The original choice was the Siemens Desiro Classic vehicles (same as Sprinter) Which has hundreds and hundreds of models running around in Europe.