Amtrak's plan for Acela service equipment

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  Amtrak drops plan to buy 40 Acela Express coaches By Bob Johnston Published: December 14, 2012 

An Acela Express heads south from the Wilmington, Del., station on Feb. 5, 2012 Photo by Bob Johnston WASHINGTON — At yesterday's House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing, Amtrak President Joe Boardman revealed that the company will no longer pursue a strategy to expand Northeast Corridor Acela Express capacity by buying two additional coaches for each of the 20 trainsets. Deviating from his prepared testimony, Boardman said that buying the 40 cars proved to be "too expensive." A press release issued at the same time stated that buying new Acela coaches was only a temporary solution, posed technical challenges, would prove to be insufficient to handle new ridership growth projections, and was determined not to be cost effective. At the hearing, Boardman said, "What we really need to do is to replace the Acela with a new set of [high speed rail] equipment, and our expectation is that we will have a request for Information ready by February or early next year to make this happen. I've told our folks they need to [put the new trainsets in service] by the time I'm 70, and I'll be 64 next week." The decision illustrates one of the potential pitfalls of ordering additional equipment from a single supplier, in this case, Bombardier. The company closed its Barre, Vt., assembly plant after producing the Acela Express trainsets in 2000 because of a lack of additional orders. To restart production would have required capital costs that Bombardier would've passed directly to Amtrak. Now, however, Amtrak will complete a competitive bidding process for the new trains, which have yet to be funded. Other witnesses at the hearing, titled "Northeast Corridor Future: Options for high-speed rail development and opportunities for private sector participation," were New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., U.S. Department of Transportation Deputy Secretary Karen Hedlund, Northeast Corridor Infrastructure and Operations Advisory Commission Chairman Joan McDonald, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen Vice President John Tolman, Dr. Richard Geddes of the American Enterprise Institute, and Morgan Stanley Managing Director Perry Offutt. Of particular interest in the question and answer session was Offutt's assertion that individual private entities wishing to participate in a public-private transportation partnership would likely contribute no more than 10-15 percent of the total investment. They would want "some comfort in a base level of cash flow" with the public assuming "traffic risk," and would expect a return of at least 10 percent on their investment. "Those are the kind of returns investors are looking for on a global basis," he added. Offutt noted that many groups had expressed interest in the Florida high speed rail project between Tampa and Orlando before Florida Gov. Rick Scott cancelled it. Offutt reiterated an observation made in his prepared testimony, that the private sector must be convinced there is "political will" to complete the project, and that both monetary and political support is necessary to minimize the risk of incurring due diligence costs of reaching a binding bid. The lack of political will in Florida provided a costly lesson to the eight groups who bid on the Tampa-Orlando project. From: TRAINS Magazine Newswire.