Silver Meteor Question

[Anonymous]

Why does the Silver Meteor have 3 Sleepers in the winter but in the summer it only has 2 wouldn't more familes be traveling in the Summer to Disney World? thats a big waste of equitment why can't they just have 2 Sleepers in the WIner or give them to the Cardinal and have 1 protection in Chicago and another one in Miami?

[kenneo]

Why not ask AMTRAK. They have their own website and when I was last there, they had a place you could ask them questions like that.

To me, the answer is simple. More travelers going from the frozen north to the very thawed south that have the money and inclinition to use sleepers. I would suspect that if AMTK had more sleepers, they would have 4 or more on the train.

Families have the tendency to either drive or go coach when traveling on the ground. Money. Believe me, when you have kids, it is really hard to earn sufficient wages so that you do not have to be very concerned about what something costs.

[daveklepper]

A lot of the winter travel to Florida is empty nesters and elderly singles who won't fly. Much of the Florida winter resort business caters to the elecerly . Dave Klepper

[jchnhtfd]

Amtrak is real short on sleepers[:(] (like: it's a daily struggle to find enough Viewliners to cover all the eastern trains!). They try to assign them on the basis of probable ridership. Summertime is much lower traffice for the Silvers -- who on earth wants to be in Florida in July[:D]? -- so they divert one of the Meteor's Viewliners to trains with more summer ridership.

It would nice to have the money to have more sleepers...[:)]

[AntonioFP45]

Well, I know I'm going to get fried for this but.....................

Why did Gunn move to retire more of the Heritage Fleet Budd sleepers when some of them were still in decent shape? There weren't enough Viewliners to replace them. Don't get rid of cars until they are truly replaced!

As I've stated before, the demand for the Silver Service trains today is still high with customers having to reserve seats early! Yet while during the 80s, the Meteor was usually 10 to 15 cars long during peak season, now Amtrak considers a 10 car train....... long due to their shortage of cars!

VIA seems to have no problem in willing to use their Heritage Fleet cars.

O.K, I'm finished ranting!

[edbenton]

Blame the EPA for Amtrack having to retire the Hertiage fleet of cars since they did not have retention toliets along with congress and the President of the USA for not giving the funding needed to retrofit the cars with the toliets needed to keep running. The EPA in 1995 basically declared the system of getting rid of the waste on those cars was a health hazard and said either retrofit them or replace them. Gave them I think 5 years to due it in. Canada on the other hand funds VIA as needed and does not have the restrictions on older cars. I think a Amtrack said it would have cost roughly 200 mil to upgrade to the right toliet system on the whole fleet but could not get the money to do it. Now there are not enough sleepers to go around along with coaches.

[jchnhtfd]

The summer/winter equation is driven by demand. Anyone been to Florida in July lately? And stood around outside? Pretty horrible... so folks go in the wintertime (often snow birds or relatives thereof) and not so much in the summer.

[jabrown1971]

Supply and demand................three sleepers to Florida in the winter and I bet they are all full. I'm suprised there are 2 sleepers in the summer, figure one could do the job right nice. There are Viewliner sleepers here at Beech Grove that need repaired, that is where the car shortage takes place. Not enough manpower to fix the cars, not enough money to bring laid off workers back or hire new ones because the cars are laid up and can't run revenue miles. Just got back from Florida last month-flew. Not enough time to take the train and flying was cheaper than gas. I wouldn't have retired the Heritage cars so quickly either, could help ease the burden.

[daveklepper]

In the old days, the Florida Special was an ACL train that ran only during the winter. Except for the diner and the feature lounge car, with its bingo games and radio, most of the equipment was borrowed from the UP and other western lines that had fewer passengers in the winter. Similarly, the SAL ran the Tidewater and the Silver Comet as separate trains during the winter, but combined them for most of the joint mileage during the summer. The SAL kept some modernized heavyweights only for winter service, while the ACL borrowed other railroads' lightweight equipment. Some winters the SAL actually operated two sections of the Silver Meteor, one for Florida East Coast to Miami and one West Coast to Tampa and St. Pete. Similarly, some summers the ACL's East Coast and West Coast Champions were combined into one Champion. So there is a long history to this.

[Anonymous]

Its the same with sleepers everywhere..... Amtrak does not have enough..... One must book at least a month in advance to get a standard accommodation, even more in advance to book a deluxe accommodation.... Amtrak could book easily twice as many sleepers today if they had them.....

[conrailman]

Amtrak is buying more Viewliners about 25 of them, half for the crew and half for reg. people and 25 new dining cars in year 2005 or 2006.[8D][:)]

[AntonioFP45]

QUOTE: Originally posted by conrailman

Amtrak is buying more Viewliners about 25 of them, half for the crew and half for reg. people and 25 new dining cars in year 2005 or 2006.[8D][:)]

Some good news for a change.

Forgive my ignorance. For the crew?

I thought that crew members only worked so many hours and either got off the train at a station, and stay at hotel accommodations until it was time to report for duty for the trip in the opposite direction.

What's the routine now for crews?

[oltmannd]

QUOTE: Originally posted by conrailman

Amtrak is buying more Viewliners about 25 of them, half for the crew and half for reg. people and 25 new dining cars in year 2005 or 2006.[8D][:)]

This is in their capital plan, I suppose, and contingent on funding, no?

[jabrown1971]

Antonio-They are meaning on board service folks. Waiters, Car attendants, and LSA's, these folks are in it for the long haul-literally. Midwest to West long haul folks can be gone 6 days on one trip. There is one who lives here in Indianapolis and she is gone for a week, home a week and gone again. They do stay in hotel accomodations while they are on layover like in Oakland. Only conductors, A.C.'s and engineers change out on a regular basis. But while on board service staff is on the train they need a room to stay iin as well. That is why they have crew dorms on Superliner Trains. Transition Sleepers fulfill these same functions on Superliner II cars. On Viewliners I would assume, as on the Heritage cars, the crew members will just use regular accomdations.

[conrailman]

Amtrak needs to order more Viewliners like say 200 more cars and 500 New Superliners in Sleeping Cars, Dining Cars, Lounge Cars, Coaches, and Crew Dorms cars. [8D][:)]

[Anonymous]

Vait a minute...On all these other threads about Amtrak I thought the notion was no one is using the trains long-haul anymore. But look...Here's a train that could use 4 more sleepers. Betcha there's a few more un-used long distance trains with technology from the '40s that could use more cars. And I'm sure there's a few long-distance routes that could use more trains. Or we could just extend the Chicago Rapid Transit west to meet the future Omaha El, and extend that to Denver then we can change trains all night.

Excuse me but it's the turpentine fumes in the studio.
Mitch