The May issue shows the new sleeper bedding practice that we experienced for the first time last month on the Silver Meteor. Room attendants no longer fully make up your bed but leave the blanket sealed in a plastic bag. Trains says it is to assure passengers that the blankets are unused. What? So these blankets are all new? So what do they do with all of the used ones? This practice makes no sense. Make up the beds, guys! We are paying for better service.
Another sleeper practice that I do not like is that when you arrive your pillow is placed on the seat. So the nice clean pillow that you will later put your face on for the entire night is sitting on the dirty seat that thousands of other passengers have put their butts on and put their feet up on and God knows what else has happened on those seats. This is not sanitary, Amtrak. Please find a better way.
Probably "unused" means cleaned and sealed in plastic to show that, not brand new.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Yes, the blankets are clean; not necessarily brand new. In the past, there were times when the blankets were not cleaned as often as we may have wished, and the new policy is a means of assuring the passenger that the blanket is clean. Of course, the sheets that come into direct contact with the passenger's body have always been changed. I understand attendants will still make your bed for you in the old way if you request it.
When I was an Amtrak onboard service attendant, I would change pillow cases for passengers whenever they requested it. I am sure your attedant will do the same for you today.
I think you are projecting problems that don't really exist.
Tom
BostonTrainGuy The May issue shows the new sleeper bedding practice that we experienced for the first time last month on the Silver Meteor. Room attendants no longer fully make up your bed but leave the blanket sealed in a plastic bag. Trains says it is to assure passengers that the blankets are unused. What? So these blankets are all new? So what do they do with all of the used ones? This practice makes no sense. Make up the beds, guys! We are paying for better service. Another sleeper practice that I do not like is that when you arrive your pillow is placed on the seat. So the nice clean pillow that you will later put your face on for the entire night is sitting on the dirty seat that thousands of other passengers have put their butts on and put their feet up on and God knows what else has happened on those seats. This is not sanitary, Amtrak. Please find a better way.
Of course I defer to ACY on this but I am pretty confident they steam clean those sleeping compartment seats at some point. If they didn't the room would really smell and I would find it hard to believe the health department would let that fly for long.........bedding or not. In fact I will go out on a limb here and say Amtrak sleeping compartment seats are probably cleaner than airline seats because Amtrak layovers are far longer, it would seem to me the train would get a fairly decently cleaning.
I have concerns about the carpeting however as I have seen that stained pretty well, so more attention needs to be paid to the carpeting but I think they do a good job on the seats.
Yes, I have met with the new practice on two trips this year. At least the passenger does not have to get the pad (I will not call it a mattress) for the lower berth down from the upper. I do have to make sure that the pad is set so that my right side is on the outside (for a medical reason, I sleep on my right side and face the outside of the bed). Some attendants will leave two blankets on the berth--and my last attendant left a second blanket, which I did not notice, on the little shelf above the uncomfortable single seat (the padding on that seat has always seemed thin to me).
When I last traveled last year, the practice was to use small bottles of water, and no more than one person per day. When I have ridden the Zephyr this year, there were three pint+ bottles in the room when I boarded--and I was provided with one of the larger bottles when I boarded the Capitol in Chicago on this trip. What will I find when I start back home?
Johnny
Since I retired 22 months ago, my info isn't necessarily 100% current. However, I do talk with my former co workers, so I'm not completely out of the loop.
As for the cleaning process between trips, that's not in my field of expertise.
Did Amtrak actually receive complaints about the blankets? Maybe Amtrak is the one solving problems that don't really exist. This is just a bad solution and looks tacky - certainly not "First Class".
If this is an internal issue the blankets could certainly be placed in the sleepers sealed in plastic and then the attendants could make up the beds as usual. The passenger wouldn't be any wiser.
I think Amtrak has this backwards. They should make up the beds as usual and put the pillows in plastic bags for the passengers to use when sitting and then removed by the attendant when the beds are made up.
BostonTrainGuy Did Amtrak actually receive complaints about the blankets? ... This is just a bad solution and looks tacky - certainly not "First Class".
Did Amtrak actually receive complaints about the blankets? ... This is just a bad solution and looks tacky - certainly not "First Class".
This does have the look of something resulting from a consent decree or sufficiently-strident complaint, particularly since as you note it doesn't apply to pillows. I further wonder why there isn't some organized 'promotional spiel' provided to the attendants to 'talk up' in fulsome detail why Amtrak is spending the money for the bagging and then bag disposal just for blankets...
That might be true, but I suspect the bags may also make it 'easier' to get the blankets out of stowage and distribute them (as opposed to whatever the previous delivery format, presumably folded in some sort of transfer tub or box, would have been). Tom (ACY) is the logical person to discuss this in detail.
The thing is that if you're 'showing off' an attention to some kind of sanitary emphasis -- whether or not you want to invoke bedbugs, dust mites, or various other allergens or ickies -- you'd want to be consistent with presentation. That would involve bags ... but perhaps reusable bags, with space-bag-like vacuum ports and ziplock reclosure ... for all the bedding items that are distributed to passengers, and perhaps for the items 'in store' that the attendants are going to use. Nice prominent overprinting with the Amtrak logo and perhaps some 'collateral' about why sanitary attention is necessary or nice. I have to wonder whether a vacuum bag would be a useful way to reduce the stowage space for 'soiled' linens and used blankets afterward, too, especially in light of some of the previous discussions about prospective amenities on Amtrak trains being limited for reasons of available space on the cars...
There are two parts of the pillow 'issue': the 'core' of the pillow, and any slipcase or cover that goes over that. Both of them would need to be 'sanitized', but only one of them (the slipcase) would 'need' to be presented to the passenger at bedtime (or whenever the passenger has the need for 'their face to contact the pillow that has just been resting on that seat...' On the other hand, a far bulkier or fluffier pillow could be handled with the vacuum stowage - this is one of my complaints with 'transportation pillows' in general, and this might be the opportunity to cure it.
I do concur that it would seem pillows are more important to 'show to be sanitized' than the blankets would be.
If attendants are no longer making and unmaking beds, what are they there for?
Their conductor duties and rare meals served could as well be handled by other staff. Ditto their rare emergencies. Otherwise, the only thing I've ever needed from them is attending to the bed.
I see a further degradation of first-class service, to some end we probably won't like.
dakotafredIf attendants are no longer making and unmaking beds, what are they there for?
I think that the only thing the attendants are 'not' doing is taking the blanket out of its bag and spreading it on the bed after they put the linens on. And reading between the lines, they take the pillow off the seat or wherever and put it on the bed when they make it up. I think by extension to what ACY said about pillowcases, if you wanted the blanket 'made up' too the attendant would do it. I can think of a number of ways a particular passenger might be able to have that done 'by default' without the formal need to request it, and I think Amtrak (or NARP etc.) could work up a 'convention' for that (like how you handle bath towels in a hotel) that establishes it for 'savvy travelers'.
There are still a wide range of 'concierge' perceived-value-added services a car attendant can 'earn their keep' with that don't require *that* much aggregate time to offer or provide. One of which is a consistently positive attitude. I'd hope that tack would be taken before putting attendants effectively on attrition for 'core functionality'...
I have no inside information, but I understand there were complaints, and inconsistencies.
Making a bed with sheets only, takes about the same amount of time and effort as making it with sheets and a blanket. So the amount of time the attendant spends preparing for service (often before any passenger boards) is about the same. If the passenger wants the blanket added after the fact, this does not necessarily involve as much effort as remaking the bed from scratch, but it does involve additional work. This means a repeat of the usual reaching and stretching across the bed to properly prepare it. I realize there are those who will say this is a small additional effort; but it should be remembered that a Superliner has 42 passenger beds, and it all adds up.
As I recall on a recent trans-Atlantic flight, the airline supplied all passengers with a plastic wrapped blanket. This may be Amtrak just trying to keep up with trends.
MidlandMike As I recall on a recent trans-Atlantic flight, the airline supplied all passengers with a plastic wrapped blanket. This may be Amtrak just trying to keep up with trends.
The other item of course is airline passengers are free to use the blanket during the day to stay more comfortable......they don't have to sit around and wait for bed time to see a blanket. So it is a more flexible approach on the airlines as well. I remember when the airlines used to store all the blankets and pillows in one of the overhead bins and you had to ask a stewardess for both, they were not kept at the seats.
My last trip on the Lake Shore Limited featured the new blanket-in-a-bag development referenced here. I didn't over-think the implications of this potentially portentous situation; stuffing the plastic envelope into the tiny wastebasket, I just used the silly thing. Plastic bags & envelopes somehow connote "clean" in today's culture, whether it's true or not.
Besides, we shouldn't anyway use the term "blanket" when we're discussing these current Amtrak textiles, which more resemble a large, thick blue tissue. If we are talking about real blankets on trains, then I can't think of a better example than that which was furnished to my wife and me about 1983 in our upper and lower berths by VIA, as we traveled overnight from North Bay to Cochrane, Ontario. Those thick, woolen, real Canadian blankets might just as well have been genuine Hudson Bay Blankets, given how warm and luxurious they felt.
Nevertheless, the fact that there still is a LD Lake Shore Limited, and that it still has a real dining car, let alone sleepers, shouldn't cause one to carp too much about the large, thick blue tissue in the plastic bag.
I realize I misread the original post. I thought we were now being asked to do the entire bed drill, down and up again, ourselves. Like the rest of you, I am capable of shaking a blanket out of a bag and laying it on the bed myself.
Sorry.
dakotafred I realize I misread the original post. I thought we were now being asked to do the entire bed drill, down and up again, ourselves. Like the rest of you, I am capable of shaking a blanket out of a bag and laying it on the bed myself. Sorry.
Of course we all are, but the effect is like the attendant didn't care to make up my bed. Would guests accept this at a hotel or on a cruise ship? No way. It's weird and a poor percption of service. Maybe the attendants should at least ask the passengers if they should make up the beds with a blanket or not?
On my last trip on the CONO, I fished out a fork and knife from the stowed foldaway table and handed it the the attendent shortly after boarding. A little while later I found some more stuff under the seat and handed it to him, to which I got a thanks. I wondered then why he didn't at least make a show of checking the room at that point.
I do have to wonder with modern foam materials why a thicker rolled mattress could not be provided for the seat area cover. Perhaps one that had a skirt attached to run over the seat cushion, similar to a fitted sheet. I also wonder why the carpet has to be permanently stay in the room. There could be a LVCT hard surface with a washable area carpet held to the floor with velcro.
I understand some attendants still do ask the passenger their preference, and will make the bed to suit.
I wouldn't want a carpet held down with Velcro. To understand what I'm saying, take a look at the Velcro fastenings that are supposed to hold the curtains closed. They convinced me that Velcro is one of the most overrated inventions of the 20th Century. A carpet that moves under your feet is unsafe on a moving train.
V.Payne On my last trip on the CONO, I fished out a fork and knife from the stowed foldaway table and handed it the the attendent shortly after boarding. A little while later I found some more stuff under the seat and handed it to him, to which I got a thanks.
On my last trip on the CONO, I fished out a fork and knife from the stowed foldaway table and handed it the the attendent shortly after boarding. A little while later I found some more stuff under the seat and handed it to him, to which I got a thanks.
Yeah I could be wrong here but I suspect the car attendent is only responsible for a very rudamentary cleaning of the compartment. The stuff you found was due to the cleaning crew missing it at the last turn of the equipment.
ACY take a look at the Velcro fastenings that are supposed to hold the curtains closed. They convinced me that Velcro is one of the most overrated inventions of the 20th Century.
You also found the main reason Private Car Owners avoid using Amtrak for any maintenence performed and look at Beech Grove as if it is a Butcher Shop.
Someone at Amtrak needs to learn to comb out the loose threads and lint on the Velcro fastners from time to time. 17-22 year olds in the Army do it routinely on their uniforms. So if you can teach someone in that age group to do the right thing then...
I agree that Velco wears out at some point and I agree that using it as a carpeting fastner is a non-starter. However Amtraks problem with curtain fastners in my observation is largely with not cleaning/maintaining the velcro properly OR replace them with snaps. Though I have also seen one or two worn out fastners on Amtrak that needed replacing.
The Velcro strips on the door frames/curtains are the dumbest idea possible: every time we travel on Amtrak our clothes get snagged on the damn stuff! The old snaps work well and on VIA, even the new heavy duty curtains have well aligned snaps: they work but, they have to be made correctly and installed correctly which seems above Amtrak's pay grade. I have also been puzzled by the sliding doors on Amtrak sleepers which seem to have the potential to jam in an accident. Why not doors such as used on airplane lavatories, less moving parts, no slamming into people like the swing doors on the Amtrak lavatories.
I'll be riding City of New Orleans in July so have to see how it's done. My first time to book a roomette, but it's only one night so figured I didn't need a bedroom. Cashing in points for a free trip and didn't want to use any more than needed. At least it will be quieter and more private than coach and not share the toilet with so many people. Rode many coaches with my parents "back in the day" and rarely slept, someone was always roaming around, especially since they allowed smoking in those days, a steady stream of smokers going to the lounge, my Dad was one of them. UP had the best footrests, they rolled out from under the seat and hooked over the reg footrest to make it like a bed, you could stretch out your legs and have support. Never saw that on any other railroads.
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