How Brightline Reveals the Big Problem with New US Rolling Stock

Chargers, F125s, Ventures, they all have huge issues that no one has seem to have truly cracked. Well as it turns out the solution is far more simple than you think and it can all be solved by taking a look at Brightline

[airbus]

The third thing is that Brightline operates in the warm state of Florida, where it just about never gets cold enough to where the chargers start having many of their problems.

[Zy]

In fairness to Amtrak, they SPECIFIED their requirements to Siemens. They told Siemens going in exactly what their norm was, how hard they pushed their engines, and what they expected them to do. From what I've heard, Siemens basically assumed that Amtrak was exaggerating to get something over-built out of excessive caution. Nope. Supposedly, the problems on the Empire Builder occurred because Siemens didn't believe that it could actually get that cold up there.

Its really not fair to blame Amtrak and co. when they have a limited budget for maintenance, and specifically noted their needs ahead of time only to be dismissed by Siemens.

[andrewwetzel]

Another reason why Brightline is so successful in not having maintenance issues is that they've paired with the Florida East Coast to upgrade and maintain... the track. Find another railroad that's upgraded their track, their bridges, their sensing infrastructure. When Brightlines expanded to Cocoa for the connection to their new Cocoa to Orlando line, BL and FEC doubletracked and upgraded the whole line from Miami to Cocoa. Widened turns, rebuilt everything, replaced many switches with newer and longer ones.

And then Brightlines built their new line from Cocoa to Orlando with all the same attention to detail. All of it is ready for doubletracking, though it's single track so far.

Not having crappy track and bad trackbed helps, a lot. Having way more sensors than anyone else has per mile of track helps, too.

[michaelwasiljov]

Worked for Amtrak on the Capitol Limited out of the DC Crew Base between 1993-1997. I was actually a coach attendant on the first trip of the Capitol with Superliners. The Superliner II's were very nice, but they were plagued with problems too when they were new. We would write stuff up and told that it wouldn't be repaired until Bombardier sent people down to do it. Give you an example of things they did plan right. All the new Sleepers had a hot water dispenser at the Beverage Area at the top of the stairs. These worked for a couple of weeks because they didn't install a switch to turn them off and when the tank was empty, the heating element melted. Eventually, they worked everything out, but it was frustrating.

[GP_Foamer]

Moral of the story: Take care of your trains

[murdelabop]

You mean, if you don't cheap out on maintenance, and maintain your equipment properly, then it lasts longer? Who knew? I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you! SHOCKED!
;-)

[kyle]

Brightline is an awesome feature to Florida, and I cannot wait for the Tampa connection as someone who lives in the Tampa Bay Area. We took it to Miami last summer and it was an awesome experience.

[thenostalgiaman]

In short, Amtrak operates the Siemens Chargers like how they operate the GE Genesis

[mrvwbug]

Siemens does make diesel locos in other markets, but they use MTU engines on the diesel Vectrons. The diesel Vectron which the Charger is loosely based on also puts out barely 3000hp. They don't run mile long freight trains in Europe and even the modest by US standards 3200hp of the British class 66 is considered a beast of a diesel loco in Europe. The closest Europe has to a Charger or F125 is the British class 68 which is built by Stadler and uses the CAT C175 engine in 16 cylinder form with 3600hp (and sounds absolutely amazing).

[afs]

To sum up the difference between Amtrak & Brightline one works on the principle of "fix when fail", the other maintains equipment to manufacturers specifications, its does mean a higher cost in routine inspections & maintenance but also leads to higher availability/reliability, where as the other is low cost in maintenance but higher expense when the unit fails to repair the damage, as well as poor reliability.

[justarandomyoutubeperson]

Basically, Brightline's mindset is work smarter not harder

[Pensyfan]

Great to see another video stating why once again, Brightline is the single greatest thing to exist since sliced bread. I also heard that in addition to the amazing maintenance practices that you mentioned in this video, Brightline also had enough money to go with different contractors for the internal components of the Ventire coaches. Because Amtrak has much less funding, they had to settle on different contractors who built Venture coaches that had mechanical flaws including but not limited to: stiff and uncomfy seats, stairs and doors that won't open, lead in the sinkwater, and my personal favorite, table magnets that completely boot and crash laptops.

[spotterjack]

Oh boy my favorite video, it’s almost like I’ve edited this masterpiece.

[freight.train.Railfanner]

The part where you mentioned "metrolink had to bring back the old F59PHRs" it wasnt because of the F125 failing it was because 5 MP36s had mechanical issues that were beyond repair

[qshrek]

As a person that buys equipment for the government, the biggest problem are the procurement regulations we must follow. They are an absolute PITA and every procurement I make is not 100% of what my customer wanted because of 1, 000, 001 rules I have to follow. There are times I pay more for less of a product because of who or how I need to buy things.
I'm sure Amtrak is in a similar situation.

[harrimanfox]

TLDR: Chargers are extremely maintenance intensive compared to older locomotives.

Just a quick point of order, Rolling Stock is what is moved with a locomotive. You are talking about Motive Power.

[Ramtamtama]

Brightline isn't run like an American railroad, but a European one.

[ghost]

That's the problem with everything the government does. Nobody gets re-elected for doing maintenance, only buying new stuff.
That's why our highways and bridges are falling apart while new highways and bridges are being built.

[stephanweinberger]

So basically the part causing the majority of problems is the Cummins engine.

In Europe the Vectron DE (which the Chargers are based on) uses the MTU 16V 4000 R84 as a prime mover, which is rated for 2400kW/3218hp — I don't know of any significant problems with those.