An outfit that owns about 50 old Amtrak bi-level cars proposes to rehab them then lease the cars to the state of Michigan. This would give more seat capaacity from Detroit - CHI. These may be the old AT&SF hi level cars that Amtrak (in Congress's infinite wisdom) had to get rid of ??
http://www.mlive.com/business/index.ssf/2013/07/with_michigan_costs_rising_rai.html
These cars may have been one originally offered to All Aboard Florida ??
The article talks about higher capacity and refers to old commuter cars. Me thinks that sounds like ex-Chicago bi-levels. That type has been used for regional service before, in the CNW 400s. A picture in the article would have been nice.
The bi-level gallery cars from Chicago are an old, not very pleasant design inside and are noisy and do not ride well. it is unfortunate Metra continues to buy new cars that use the same basic 60+ year old design.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
The Great Lakes Central Railroad mentioned in the article is storing dozens of old stainless steel bi-level commuter cars in their Cadillac north yard. I think I saw a blue Metra sign on one of them. I vaguely remember hearing they were for a proposed commuter operation in the Detroit area, but maybe the media confused commuter car with commuter service.
schlimm The bi-level gallery cars from Chicago are an old, not very pleasant design inside and are noisy and do not ride well. it is unfortunate Metra continues to buy new cars that use the same basic 60+ year old design.
As a daily Metra rider (Southwest Service), I hardly find the current gallery coaches to be a less than pleasant design. They are utilitarian and without an interior refit would not be very suitable for intercity service. On the other hand, the intercity bi-levels (10 coaches plus others) that C&NW used for the "Peninsula 400" and "Flambeau 400" worked quite well and lasted into the Amtrak era.
As far as the age of the gallery coach design, how would you improve on it?
In the US, the Bombardier cars used by San Diego's Coaster and GO transit, among others, are much more pleasant. Even better are the double deck cars used in Germany and Israel, manufactured by Bombardier at their Görlitz plant. http://www.bombardier.com/en/transportation/products-services/rail-vehicles/commuter-and-regional-trains/double-deck-coaches.html
As for intercity double deck trains, the SNCF has some real gems used for some of their TGV's, the TGV Duplex:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNCF_TGV_Duplex
I've spent plenty of time in German double deckers, as well as in Chicago bi-levels. Love the double deckers, both up and down. Constructed to allow easy passenger flow and they are pretty comfortable to ride in.
While the Chicago bi-level design looks like a double decker, it's not. Based on the requirements that went into the design, I think the design is successful: One conductor can easily check tickets at both levels in one pass. The car is built all at normal floor level, with no part sunk lower, so the car design is pretty traditional.
The fact that there is only one (wide) entrance with steps up slows down passenger exchange.
I've thought about capacity and the bi-levels do as well in that area as a double decker. The double decker can use the upper level much more effectively, but some of those gains are lost in having 2 entrance doors per car.
Fundamentally, until Chicago decides to use a different system to check tickets, they will probably stick with the bi-level design as it takes twice as long to check tickets in a double decker (one walk through upstairs, one downstairs).
On rush hour trains on Metra, the conductors don't check between every station stop anyway. And although not exactly the same as the Bombardier German double-deckers, San Diego seems to have no problem with the Coaster ticket checking. I think the reason Metra persists in reordering gallery cars (some call them cell block cars) is habit: "Just doing what we have always done."
The cars were stored in Wisconsin at one point by Great Lakes Central they are former C&NW long distance bi-level cars and were still in C&NW paint, not the ones used in commuter rail service but the ones that were used on the former 400 trains to Northern Wisconsin. I don't think Metra ever owned them but not 100% sure on that.
My recollections is the long distance bi-levels had more comfortable seats with higher backs, however yes they have the same open gallery plan the commuter bi-levels use.
The "Bi-level Streamliner Fleet" had better seating but otherwise were the same and the commuter cars.
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