page_title: Amfleet
section_title: Design
hierarchical_section_title: Amfleet / Design
caption_attribution_description: English: Amtrak Downeaster conductor standing in Amfleet car doorway, as the Downeaster train leaves Durham, New Hampshire.
context_page_description: Amfleet is a fleet of single-level intercity railroad passenger cars built by the Budd Company for American company Amtrak in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Budd based the Amfleet design on its earlier Metroliner electric multiple unit. An initial order for 57 cars in 1973 to supplement the Metroliners on the Northeast Corridor grew to two orders totaling 642 cars, sufficient to reequip all the services on the Northeast Corridor and many other routes around the United States. The first 492 cars, known as Amfleet I and completed between 1975–1977, were designed for short-distance service. A second order of 150 cars, known as Amfleet II and completed between 1980–1983, were designed for long-distance service. They were the last intercity passenger cars built by Budd.
  Car types include both long- and short-distance coaches, cafes, club cars, and lounges. Since the construction of the cars, multiple rebuildings have eliminated the club cars and lounges in favor of business class cars, club-dinettes, and "diner-lite" dining cars. Amtrak experimented with sleeping car conversions in the 1970s, but did not pursue the idea.
context_section_description: As designed, the Amfleet I cars could operate at speeds up to 120 mph (193 km/h). Both the Amfleet I and Amfleet II are now rated for 125 mph (201 km/h). Electric heating and air conditioning, operated by head-end power (HEP) from the locomotive, are used to maintain passenger comfort. Budd moved the air vents from the bottom, where they had been on the Metroliner, to the top of the car. The top-mounted vents were less susceptible to clogging during snowfall.
  An Amfleet car is 12 feet 8 inches (3.86 m) tall, 10 feet 6 inches (3.20 m) wide, and 85 feet 4 inches (26.01 m) long. The car body itself is built up from spot-welded stainless steel sections. The Budd Pioneer trucks have dual disc brakes on each axle; a later rebuild added tread brakes. The wheels have a diameter of 36 inches (914.40 mm). The cars meet the FRA's buff strength requirement of 800,000 pounds (362,873.9 kg).
  The interior design recalled contemporary jet airliners. In common with airliners the cars featured narrow windows, which inhibited sight-seeing. The windows on the Amfleet I cars were 18 by 64 inches (45.72 by 162.56 cm); this was increased to 22 by 64 inches (55.88 by 162.56 cm) in the Amfleet II. Another factor in choosing small windows was the high incidence of rocks thrown at train windows in the 1970s. Reinforcing the impression of traveling in an airliner, the passenger seats themselves were built by the Amirail division of Aircraft Mechanics Inc. Cesar Vergara, head of car design at Amtrak in the 1990s, criticized the choice to copy the airliner aesthetic:
  Amfleet is a totally American style that was mean to imitate airplanes. That's my quarrel!...The vision for the future of the railroad should be based on defining its own dreams, not appropriating them solely from someone else's experience.
  — Cesar Vergara, in "Amtrak's design on the future" (1992), Bob Johnston
  Amfleet I cars can be identified by having vestibules at both ends of the cars; Amfleet II cars have a single vestibule. The Amfleet I has chemical flush toilets, while the Amfleet II has retention toilets. All Amfleet cars have trapdoors, permitting their use at both high- and low-level platforms. The distance from the rail to the bottom step is 17 inches (430 mm); to the floor level is 51 ¹⁄₂ inches (1.31 m).
caption: A conductor stands in the vestibule on an Amfleet I coach. The trapdoors are in the closed position
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