NATIONAL RAILROAD PASSENGER CORPORATION
1400 South Lumber Street, Chicago, IL60607
MEMORANDUM
From: Dale F. Engelhardt
Subject: PRIIA Trainset Definitions
At the conference call of January 20th a several questions were asked concerning definition of the term train set. This is my attempt at defining this term.
A train set is a collection of passenger cars which are semi-permanently coupled to create a fixed group of cars to be used for a particular train application. Train set passenger car configurations are generally specified before being purchased taking into consideration expected number of passengers and matching passenger amenities to expected demands.
Train set cars can be separated and configurations of train sets modified but require specialized tooling and generally performed within a maintenance facility.
Train sets can include a set of integrated cars including a power car or can be a set of passenger cars that are pulled by various types of locomotives. This specification will be for train sets that are pulled along by any type of locomotive (electrical or diesel).
Questions were raised concerning the configuration of the truck/ suspension systems. Current train set manufacturer’s provide a myriad of options for this aspect of a train set design. Alternatives include:
Tilting versus non tilting (optional per requirements document)
Articulated (shared truck) versus conventional trucks (2 trucks per car) (optional)
Continuous axle wheel set versus separate wheel axle and wheel assemblies
Truck equipped versus no conventional truck
Articulated with tilt, articulated without tilt
The development of a PRIIA specification was to allow all these optional alternatives. The idea was not to limit the requirements in such a fashion to exclude particular existing suppliers. Obviously this raises concerns over the standardization goals which are a requirement of PRIIA.
Passenger requirements were another question brought to these discussions:
Each potential customer is expected to define the size of their train to meet the expected passenger volume. Thee number of seats per car is largely dependent of the size of the passenger cars. Depending on the particular train set specification the number of cars required will be effected by necessary passenger capacity requirements.
I hope this clarifies questions being asked by the PRIIA team members to better facilitate the development of this specification.
Dale F. Engelhardt
PRIIA Technical Sub Committee Vice-Chairman