Metroliner (train)
As Metroliner 61 in the years 1967 to 1971 by were railway company Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), Penn Central and Amtrak at the Budd Company purchased electric railcars designated. The US railroad companies Penn Central and Amtrak used these rail vehicles from 1969 to 1982 for fast train connections, also known as Metroliner , on the Northeast Corridor between New York and Washington, DC . Some of the vehicles were converted into control cars in the 1980s , which Amtrak still uses today.
development
In September 1965, the United States Congress passed the High Speed Ground Transportation Act to encourage high-speed travel on American railways . It formed the basis for the Northeast Corridor Demonstration Project , a public-private partnership between the US Department of Transportation and several railway companies to accelerate passenger rail traffic on the Northeast Corridor Washington-New York- Boston . While the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) was commissioned with the development of the gas turbine powered multiple unit TurboTrain , which was intended for use on the New York – Boston connection that was not fully electrified at the time, electrically powered vehicles were to be procured for the southern section. After the Ministry of Transport had agreed to subsidize the purchase of the vehicles with almost $ 22 million, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) initially ordered 50 Metroliner railcars from the Budd Company that could be used in pairs . After 1969, the order was increased by eleven copies. In addition to Budd, companies with General Electric and Westinghouse Electric applied for the order, which Budd eventually selected as suppliers.
Structure and technology
When developing the Metroliner vehicles, the Budd Company drew on the experience it had gained in the construction of multiple units and passenger coaches since the 1930s . In particular, the electric Pioneer III multiple units designed for the PRR in the 1950s and the successor series Silverliner II were incorporated into the design of the Metroliner . These were built as 25.7 meters long, one-piece units made of stainless steel, depending on the design, weighing around 75 tons. In principle, they worked separately, but each had only one driver's cab , as it was intended to be used in pairs. Several two-part units could in turn be combined to form longer trains as required. Since the driver's cabs did not occupy the full width of the vehicles, but only the third on the right in the direction of travel, a transition option could be provided that enabled a continuously accessible train even with several coupled two-part units.
All four axles of a single Metroliner vehicle were driven separately by a 221 kW pawl bearing drive motor each. These were supplied by a common main transformer, which in turn was fed with alternating current (11 kV 25 Hz) via the overhead line . The maximum possible nominal speed was 160 mph (256 km / h), which, however, was never reached during scheduled operation.
The passenger compartments and driver's cab were air-conditioned . 31 vehicles were designed as open- plan cars with originally 76 seats, ten more had a drinks bar as "club cars" in addition to 34 seats . Smaller meals could also be served in 20 “café cars” with 60 seats. The number of seats was slightly changed from the end of the 1970s by converting around two thirds of the vehicles; In the modified standard cars, for example, four seats were omitted, while 14 were added in the “Club Cars”.
commitment
Budd and the PRR decided to start delivering series vehicles directly in 1967 and to forego building a prototype . The first delivered railcars were conspicuous by a number of technical problems, so that the PRR initially only took over six units. It was not until January 16, 1969 - almost two years later than planned - that Penn Central, which was created by the merger of the PRR and New York Central Railroad , was able to start scheduled use of the first Metroliners between New York, Philadelphia and Washington. Initially, however, only a few connections were made with the new trains. Only after completing a conversion program was Amtrak , operator of Penn Central passenger traffic since May 1, 1971 , able to offer nine pairs of trains per day with Metroliner trains at speeds of up to 95 mph (153 km / h) in 1971 and 14 in 1972 . Individual journeys also led beyond New York to New Haven , and Metroliners were also used on the Keystone Corridor between Harrisburg and Philadelphia (and in some cases as far as New York).
After reliable operation of the vehicles was achieved, they became very popular with passengers thanks to their comfortable equipment and the improvement in the timetable achieved with the use of the Metroliner . On July 29, 1971, the three millionth passenger was welcomed in a Metroliner train. The marketing of Amtrak, which now named the express train connections New York – Washington as an eponym as well as the Metroliner trains used there , also contributed to the popularity of the vehicles . This designation was retained when the Metroliner vehicles were replaced in the early 1980s by AEM-7 electric locomotives and new Amfleet cars (based on the Metroliner , but not motorized) .
After the end of the operations in Washington, the services to Harrisburg initially remained. However, all Metroliner vehicles were parked up until the mid-1980s . In about half of the railcars, the drive systems were then removed and further modifications made so that they could be used as control cars on various routes in California and in the northeast and midwest of the USA. Some of these driving cars will continue to be used by Amtrak in 2008.
Individual evidence
- ^ High-Speed Ground Transportation Act; Pub. L. 89-220, Sept. 30, 1965, 79 Stat. 893
- ^ A b c Brian Hollingsworth, Arthur F. Cook: Handbook of Locomotives . Bechtermünz Verlag, Augsburg 1996, ISBN 3-86047-138-4 , p. 348-349 (English: The Illustrated Directory of Trains of the World . Translated by Manfred Sandtner).
- ^ A b Brian Solomon: Amtrak . MBI Publishing, Minneapolis 2004, ISBN 978-0-7603-1765-5 , pp. 150-151 .
- ^ Anthony Perl: New Departures: Rethinking Rail Passenger Policy in the Twenty-First Century . University Press of Kentucky, Lexington 2002, ISBN 978-0-8131-2211-3 , pp. 142 .
- ↑ Late Arrival Of The Fast Trains in Time Magazine on January 3, 1969
