Amtrak Takes Horizon Car Fleet out of Service

Where are the manufactureres Budd and Pullman when you need them?

haven't seen too many of them on the NEC here in NJ, so apparently their end-of-life has been coming.

NJ transit still uses a few.

Just thinking about this.  

When I was a kid, in the 1950's, watching trains at the Fullerton station, there were basically three passenger trains:  The Grand Canyon; No.7, the Fast Mail & Express; and the multiple daily San Diegans.  The San Diegans were all stainless steel cars, mostly Budd.  The Grand Canyon had a mixture of heavyweight and lightweight cars.  The mail train was almost all heavyweight, with some boxcars and a small number of lightweights.

The heavyweight cars on those trains were built in the 1915-1935 era, making them 20 to 40 years old.  The San Diegan cars were older than I imagined, all being built between 1937 and 1941, already 15-20 years old, although I innocently thought they dated from around 1950.  That made them only 5 years newer than the late heavyweights, and 25 years newer than the older heavyweights.  Lightweight cars on the Grand Canyon dated from 1938-1948, making them 7 to 17 years old.

There were still a few automobiles on the road from the mid-1930's to then modern times, but most from before 1935 were too obsolete to be used any longer.  So, 20 years was the age of the oldest autos, with a few exceptions.

The passenger car shops had maintained all of those cars, repairing cracked frames, broken trucks, steel side panel replacement, and wreck damage.  They air conditioned the cars built before that feature became standard.  And the cars all rode well, looked fine, were comfortable, and had reliable heating and cooling.

Today, all Amtrak cars are streamlined, but they are longer in the tooth than most of the equipment that I watched in the mid-1950's.  In 1976, I was down at the yard office, checking my position on the extra board, when 4 F40PH's and about 25 Amfleet cars pulled up and changed crews for Los Angeles.  They were all brand new, heading west to replace the weird collection of cars on Amtrak San Diegans, which included former Burlington Budd combines and ex-SP Daylight articulated chair cars.  That was 49 years ago.

So, that puts the oldest Amfleet cars at about 50 years of age now, and the Horizon and Superliner cars are, what, between 20 and 40?  Now, they have reached the age of the heavyweight cars of my youth, but there is a big difference in the amount and quality of the maintenance they have received.  Some are wearing out, others have deferred maintenance and sit in the weeds, awaiting a day when they might be repaired, and others soldier on, with varying degrees of good repair.  Of course, there are some newer sleepers and diners, and some medium distance coaches on the state-supported trains, but the passenger car fleet overall is not very new.  What now?

It appears that the Amfleet cars were one of Amtrak's best investments in equipment.  They just keep going, and going.

It will really be a sad day when the Amfleet cars are taken out of service.

Amtrak acquired Horizon cars in 1990 to fill the equipment shortage of that era as the Heritage Fleet was being retired and state funded regional services were becoming more popular.  35 years in service is not a terrible service record, but we are so used to seeing some of the Budd equipment run 50 years or more.  Earlier Bombardier Comet II cars based on the same carbody don't seem to have the same issues operating for New Jersey Transit, Metro North, Septa and ConDOT.  However, I can't speak to the comparative duty cycle of Amtrak's use of the design versus the various commuter agencies and many of the Comet cars have been since rebuilt by Alstom to extend their service life. 

Amfleet I cars turn 50 this year.  Superliner I cars will average 45 years of age this year.  Amfleet II cars are not far behind at 44-42 years.  Superliner II cars are the babies of the fleet in some ways being introduced in 1994.  All in all, Amtrak has received good value for their investment.  It will be interesting to see if the Horizon fleet will be repaired at some point or if the hope is the new Airo sets that are supposed to start coming online next year will resolve the short and mid-range coach challenge.  All but a few sets of the Cascade cars are out of service currently too so service from Portland to Vancouver looks to be one of the more affected routes as Horizon sets were being substituted for whole trains.  In other locations such as the Downeaster, only one car was a Horizon coach.  While that will reduce the capacity of the train, it won't completely affect the frequency of service. 

Utah just recently retired the Comet I cars built by Pullman Standard in 1972-1973 for NJDOT and Erie Lackawanna.  I wonder if they might end up being leased back to Amtrak for a short-term fix.  Pure fictional speculation on my part, but from a railfan perspective, the start of a new "Rainbow Era" could be interesting to watch.  On a more serious note, Amtrak saw its two highest years of ridership in 2023 and 2024 so this issue could not have come at a worse time.  Amtrak is actually popular with the riding public now and by all accounts very healthy on the corridor services they provide.   

I am reminded of PRR's decision to purchase many of their P85 coaches from ACF.  Mostly built in 1947 they too suffered corrosion issues and were withdrawn from service by the mid 1960's.  Not an enviable service record by any means and certainly deferred maintenance played a role there as well.