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| Flexliner (was:Re: R179 Specs) (662338) | |||
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Flexliner (was:Re: R179 Specs) |
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Posted by WillD on Wed Aug 6 17:46:01 2008, in response to Re: R179 Specs, posted by JournalSquare-K-Car on Wed Aug 6 17:35:34 2008. You're dead wrong, when they toured the US in 1997 they were fully FRA compliant. The only waivers required were for different braking systems and some other minor system differences. The rubber does not serve any crashworthiness role, it is there to substitute for a diaphragm between coupled trainsets. Behind the rubber diaphragm is a full collision post arrangement the equal of any contemporary EMU design. Were it not for Amtrak's funding problems in the late 1990s it is likely we'd have Flexliners running the Inland, the Hiawatha, and maybe even the Cascades now. Hell, back in '97 it would have made more sense for NJT to buy Flexliners than more ALP44s and push pull cars. We could have had direct trains to Bay Head and Hackettstown from NYC before 2000 by combining diesel and electric trainsets.Before the ABB/Daimler Transportation merger there had been an IC5 design on the drawing board to comply with more stringent European requirements and with an eye toward the US market's increasing crashworthiness requirements. It sounds like it was supposed to be a universal design capable of accomodating diesel or electric traction equipment equally well. Unfortunately it was dropped due to increasing weight, lack of flexibility, and the eventual merger with Bombardier. |
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