(The Associated Press circulated the following article on May 11.)
WASHINGTON — Cracks on the brake disc rotors of Amtrak’s Acela Express trains were detected as long as three years ago but the railroad was never notified, Amtrak’s inspector general said Wednesday.
Pennsylvania-based ORX, which maintains the Acela’s wheelsets, told Fred Weiderhold Jr., Amtrak’s inspector general, that some cracks in the spokes were found, but it did not report them.
”We are trying to confirm and determine the existence of these reports, who may have received those reports and what action was taken,” Weiderhold told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s railroads subcommittee.
Amtrak pulled its entire 20-train Acela fleet out of service April 15 after finding millimeter-size cracks in 317 of its high-speed rail fleet’s 1,440 disc brake rotors. Each Acela train has 72 brakes.
The railroad was not aware the brake manufacturer recommended inspecting the rotors for cracks every 12,422 miles, Weiderhold said. The Acela fleet’s mileage ranged from 300,000 to 600,000 miles. Amtrak President David Gunn has said the brakes were supposed to have a five-year life span, or 1 million miles.
Still, the cause of the cracks remains under investigation, Weiderhold and others, including the companies that made the Acela trains, told the panel.
Amtrak plans to bring the Acela back into service gradually starting this summer. Meanwhile, Amtrak has substituted slower trains to operate its Washington to Boston trips.
Weiderhold said the cracks were hard to detect with the naked eye and that the wheelsets had been inspected numerous times.
But the cracks were not noticed until April 14, when Federal Railroad Administration Safety Specialist Rich Thomas found them while performing a routine inspection after a high-speed run to test whether Amtrak could speed up the Acela trains slightly on curves in New Jersey between Trenton and Newark, he said.
The cracks were found on all 20 Acela trains, he said. Some discs had two or three cracks, while a few had four and four cracks, which was ”close to a very, very serious problem,” he said.
The Acela trains are made by Montreal-based Bombardier, Inc., and Alstom SA of France. William Spurr, president of Bombardier’s North American operation, said the cause of the cracks may not be known until the end of the month.
Bill Crosbie, Amtrak’s chief operating officer, said the Acela problem is costing the railroad more than $1 million a week in net losses.
Acela Express began operating in December 2000 and was billed as Amtrak’s answer to high-speed rail. The trains run only along the Northeast corridor, with top speeds of 150 mph.
The problems come just as President Bush is proposing to cut off all federal funding of Amtrak. It’s getting $1.2 billion this year and requested $1.82 billion for 2006.