Amtrak Begins Service to Norfolk
ON DECEMBER 11, 2012, AMTRAK RAN A SPECIAL TRAIN out of Richmond, Va., to commemorate the beginning of Northeast Regional service the following day between Norfolk, Petersburg, Richmond, and Washington, D.C., and points on the Northeast Corridor to Boston. The special was led by P42DC No. 156 in Phase I heritage paint and office cars from CSX, Norfolk Southern, and Amtrak in addition to five Am- fleet coaches. A single daily round trip is scheduled to and from Boston
All Aboard America
HIGHWAY RIGHT OF WAY GETS OK: In December 2012 the Florida Department of Transportation agreed to negotiate with All Aboard Florida for the construction of a new, passenger-only rail line between Orlando In- ternational Airport and Cocoa, where the line would join the existing Florida East Coast main line. AAF, a unit of Florida East Coast Industries, wants build its track in the four-lane BeeLine Expressway right of way, which is jointly owned by FDOT and the Or- lando Orange County Expressway Authority. The railroad is expected to obtain permission to build as long as the new rail alignment will accommodate future expressway expan- sion, including additional lanes and new in- terchanges. The company has said it expects to launch hourly passenger service between Orlando and Miami in late 2014 or 2015 using 400-seat, diesel-powered trains on a three-hour schedule. Many observers consid- er that timeline optimistic, given that loco- motives and cars have not yet been ordered, stations have not been built, and the new trackage has not been started.
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RAILFAN.COM
from the new station, which is located on the eastern edge of downtown Norfolk adjacent to Interstate 264 and the Harbor Park baseball stadi- um. Connections can be made with the Tide light rail system as well as local buses. The new trains use NS trackage between Norfolk and a new connection with CSX near Collier Yard south of Petersburg, then CSX to Richmond and Washington, and then Amtrak to Boston. The new connection was built between Crater on NS and BX on CSX.
Amtrak
BIDS SOUGHT FOR NEW ACELAS: On December 13, Amtrak announced that in early 2013 it would issue a Request for Infor- mation to start the design process for new, second generation high speed trainsets to re- place the 20 existing Acela Express trains while adding equipment to expand capacity and provide for more frequent service on the Northeast Corridor. Amtrak President Joe Boardman said the previous plan to purchase 40 new Acela coaches with newer technology and add cars to the older train sets was a stop- gap measure, posed technical challenges, and was determined to not be cost effective or suf- ficient to handle ridership growth projections. Boardman told the Congressional Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure that “Moving directly to new high-speed train sets is the best option to create more seating ca- pacity, permit higher speeds, and maximize customer comfort, all while improving equip- ment reliability and reducing operating costs.” In a related development, Amtrak wants the Federal Railroad Administration to relax
its crashworthiness standards so that the rail- road can acquire existing European or Asian high speed trainsets. FRA buff strength stan- dards are reflected in equipment like Am- trak’s Acelas, which are much heavier than their foreign counterparts and so are less en- ergy efficient and accelerate more slowly. The FRA standards are intended to protect occu- pants in collisions with heavy equipment such as freight trains; Amtrak thinks that the im- plementation of Positive Train Control on the Northeast Corridor will prevent collisions in the first place.
NEW YORK TURBO SAGA ENDS: New York State sold off its derelict collection of Rohr Turbotrains and their parts supply at two auctions in December 2012. On December 11, a warehouse full of parts in Rotterdam, N.Y., went for $137,000 while another batch of material had previously been sold on eBay. On December 13 the train sets themselves, stored at the Glenville Business and Technol- ogy Park, were sold to two scrappers for a total of $212,000. N.H. Kelman Scrap paid $16,000 apiece for the eight turbine power cars, while Metro Metal Recycling bought the
JASON UNDERWOOD
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