Yes, there was a train with a swimming pool. Do you remember the televison show "Super Train" (or something like that) of 20-30-years ago? As I recall, it was wide gauge (ran on two parallel tracks?), and ran out of Grand Central Terminal (and one episode had the announcement of the arrival of the Silver Meteor at the same station).
Johnny
oltmannd John WR sno-catI think the other half of all baggage cars should be set up with exercise equipment. I think you have an excellent idea. And more cars could be added. A car with a barber shop and beauty salon, a library car, a theatre car that would show movies. A billiards car. With a little time I could think of many more. Swimming pool, hot tub, bowling, racquetball court, etc, etc.
John WR sno-catI think the other half of all baggage cars should be set up with exercise equipment. I think you have an excellent idea. And more cars could be added. A car with a barber shop and beauty salon, a library car, a theatre car that would show movies. A billiards car. With a little time I could think of many more.
sno-catI think the other half of all baggage cars should be set up with exercise equipment.
I think you have an excellent idea. And more cars could be added. A car with a barber shop and beauty salon, a library car, a theatre car that would show movies. A billiards car. With a little time I could think of many more.
Swimming pool, hot tub, bowling, racquetball court, etc, etc.
Casino! (but that would make it revenue space...sorry.)
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Are you jesting, here, or are you offering these suggestions in all seriousness. It is sometimes hard to tell with the absence of the smiley face icon. At the risk of being pedantic, I shall address your remarks in seriousness. My serious response is that what you are proposing has been tried before.
There was this Robert Young fellow, a fiancier and entrepreneur with grand dreams of saving the railroad passenger business. He purchased a controlling interest in the C&O and later the New York Central. The whole concept of a passenger railroad "corridor" is one of many spin-offs of his plans and ideas in the 1950's.
One of his ideas was "The Chessie", and all-new day-train streamliner from D.C. to Cincinnati, OH. The Chessie was chock-a-block with various passenger amenities -- dome cars, child day-care sections, you name it. It even included an aquarium for tropical fish. It was also to be propelled by an innovative (read complicated) coal-burning steam-turbine electric locomotive.
The locomotives never did work properly, and the story I heard was that the vibration or sloshing of the train ride killed the fish. Your billiards car idea, is a joke, no, otherwise, how would the balls stay put on the table between turns, or maybe judging by other remarks made here, we are to take the idea seriously?
To the extent that steel wheel on steel rail mode can move tonnage for very low cost, one would think that one of the comparative advantages of a train is to make it like a cruise ship where a lot of space is devoted to making the journey more pleasant in relation to the sardine cans of buses and airliners.
But if you want to operate at passenger train speeds and with passenger comfort with respect to ride quality and air conditioning, is tonnage, but more importantly passenger space provided at lower cost on trains than on the other modes? During the WW-II traffic boom, passenger trains were sardine cans, but after the war, the effort was to compete by making the trains much more pleasant -- dome cars, private room sleeping a accomodations, lounge cars, etc. Those post-war efforts didn't work out financially for whatever reason, but the idea of trains offering lots of space seems to be "baselined" in many discussions of the merits of passenger trains.
Maybe another analogy was how the British government post WW-II put its aviation funding into the Bristol Brabazon. Look it up -- the Brabazon was jumbo-jet sized, but it carried a mere 100 or so passengers in a style recognizable to train enthusiasts -- lounges, state rooms (meant for long, slow trips to the far reaches of the Empire, India and other places). It never went into production, and aviation switched over to small, fast transport -- the Comet and later the 707 and DC-8 jets.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Those are nice, but i think the future of passenger rail is far better served by having faster trains and real service in the corridors.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
schlimmPriorities!!
Would you care to join me for a game of chess in the new recreation car? Or if we can find two more for bridge there is another car for card games.
Priorities!!
I think the other half of all baggage cars should be set up with exercise equipment. For a reasonable charge the passangers could work off some of the calories they conusmed from the dining car. I could go for that!
Very interesting ideas. In all the train rides I've taken, never checked any baggage. We always hauled it on the coaches and they fit OK in the overhead racks.
On Amtrak LD, I've had the deluxe bedroom and kept my cases inside the room with me. Learned to travel as light as possible from taking TWA tours to Europe and being limited to two bags.
My parents and I did ride in a combo coach/baggage car on the ACL in FL, had never seen that type of car before. At the time, they did not have newer equipment, some of the coaches had fans mounted at the ends of cars, which meant they had been built before a/c.
carnej1 You have pointed out in another post the issue of the host railroads objecting to Amtrak essentially competing for freight business.
You have pointed out in another post the issue of the host railroads objecting to Amtrak essentially competing for freight business.
In fact Amtrak was in the express business at one time so they must have come to an understanding with the freight railroads. Amtrak got out of the business because it was not sufficiently profitable. I don't know whether Amtrak incurred a loss or not.
Actually I don't see any conflict with freight railroads unless they were to decide to go back into the express business themselves.
John WR PS. Maybe it is time to reconsider Amtrak Express Service. I know the idea was tried and abandoned as it was not profitable. But perhaps with more careful planning the idea could be profitable.
PS. Maybe it is time to reconsider Amtrak Express Service. I know the idea was tried and abandoned as it was not profitable. But perhaps with more careful planning the idea could be profitable.
How do you propose getting around that?
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
Or perhaps, to look at this another way, take a leaf from history and provide amenities in PART of a car otherwise dedicated to conventional baggage, the amenities being something otherwise not available on the train. (The example that sprang to my mind was a rolling Burger King or Subway franchise... but that's just my sense of humor) What are some other examples of this? (ISTR that crew dorms associated with baggage cars were used, but don't have references at hand...)
Both deck-height and possum-belly storage on the same 'baggage' car, with baggage loaded appropriately to destination...and some procedure to pull the train past the platform if access to baggage in the 'wrong' place becomes necessary in emergencies? ...
RME
Paul MilenkovicWith the expense of new rail passenger cars along with the seemingly high maintenance costs to keep those cars rolling, maybe this pattern of a train car for every function is dated.
But there was a time when there were even more special use cars. The New Haven even in its poorest days ran real dining cars but now there are none on the Northeast Corridor Line.
Which is not to say that Amtrak should return to library cars and similar amenities.
oltmannd schlimmLuggage racks are overhead on Amtrak and DB. A space at the end of the car for heavy and oversized luggage doesn't take that much space. Certainly less time-consuming than having someone retrieve bags from under cars at each stop. Best to have people handle their own bags. Don't need checked baggage or baggage car at all! But, if you do have to offer it, why not use space that is currently wasted?
schlimmLuggage racks are overhead on Amtrak and DB. A space at the end of the car for heavy and oversized luggage doesn't take that much space. Certainly less time-consuming than having someone retrieve bags from under cars at each stop.
Best to have people handle their own bags. Don't need checked baggage or baggage car at all! But, if you do have to offer it, why not use space that is currently wasted?
WIth respect to the high-level platforms, I think the idea of cutouts to access the baggage racks is too complicated.
But you essentially have two Amtraks -- the high-level platform Amtrak with clearances that prevent Superliners, Auto Trains, etc., and the low-level platform territory where the Superliners and California cars roam. So I guess if you want checked baggage on the Florida trains into Penn Station, yes, you will need some kind of single-level baggage car. By the way, a Superliner into Penn Station would not work, even if you could get into through the tunnels, because it doesn't support boarding from high-level platforms.
But these alternative ideas should be considered for the everything-but-entry-to-Penn-Station territory. But the way things are going, you are largely talking about Superliners or California cars, the latter seeming to be the new standard for other-than-the-NEC corridors.
But there is this kind of railroad philosophy that every function has a car. You need fuel and water for a (steam) locomotive? There is a tender. Baggage? A baggage car. A place to eat? A dining car. Someplace else to sit and maybe eat a snack because a long distance train trip is too uncomfortable to sit in one place for the duration (even intercity bus lines take you to McDonalds and let you stretch your legs)? A lounge car. A place for mandated rest of on-board crew? A crew dorm (ocean crossing airlines need crew dorm space, but they make do with curtaining off a few coach seats).
With the expense of new rail passenger cars along with the seemingly high maintenance costs to keep those cars rolling, maybe this pattern of a train car for every function is dated.
If Viewliner sleepers had shelves at one end of the car where passengers could stow the baggage that will not fit in the roomettes or bedrooms, it might not be necessary to check baggage. However, if you are taking an extended trip it may be necessary to have one or two more bags than will fit in your space. Even the shelves on the lower level of a Superliner may be filled with such baggage.
I was astounded the first time we rode in a Viewliner to learn that there is no such space; the 10-6 sleepers that I had ridden had shelves at one end.
I think of seeing a family of (I think) a couple and two young children boarding a Viewliner in Washington. It seemed that each one had two large suitcases. I did not stay around to see how they arranged their baggage.
oltmannd schlimm Couldn't single-level coaches have a somewhat larger storage area at the end of the car? DB does that for luggage that is bulky or too heavy to put in overhead storage. Seems to work just fine for them on trains with much heavier passenger loads and very short dwell times at stops, usually only 2-3 minutes. BTW, couldn't Amtrak improve point to point times considerably (outside NEC) by reducing station dwell times, even with no improvement in top speed? Want to maximize revenue space per car. Put the baggage where you can't put people. If you went to bi-level equipment, which would improve revenue even more, you'd have to do a luggage rack. The California cars do it this way.
schlimm Couldn't single-level coaches have a somewhat larger storage area at the end of the car? DB does that for luggage that is bulky or too heavy to put in overhead storage. Seems to work just fine for them on trains with much heavier passenger loads and very short dwell times at stops, usually only 2-3 minutes. BTW, couldn't Amtrak improve point to point times considerably (outside NEC) by reducing station dwell times, even with no improvement in top speed?
Couldn't single-level coaches have a somewhat larger storage area at the end of the car? DB does that for luggage that is bulky or too heavy to put in overhead storage. Seems to work just fine for them on trains with much heavier passenger loads and very short dwell times at stops, usually only 2-3 minutes. BTW, couldn't Amtrak improve point to point times considerably (outside NEC) by reducing station dwell times, even with no improvement in top speed?
Want to maximize revenue space per car. Put the baggage where you can't put people.
If you went to bi-level equipment, which would improve revenue even more, you'd have to do a luggage rack. The California cars do it this way.
oltmanndIf you went to bi-level equipment, which would improve revenue even more, you'd have to do a luggage rack. The California cars do it this way.
I've never been in an Amtrak coach that did not have an overhead luggage rack. Some cars also have a place for baggage at one end of the car. It seems to me that this is reasonable as somethings cannot go in the overhead rack and some people put them on the seats.
oltmannd The platform would have to have a passageway beneath it with a 2 or 3 foot pit to all allow a person to maneuver baggage carts and baggage should do it. Or, perhaps, strategically placed cut-outs in the platform.
That seems quite possible. Typically high platform stations have baggage elevators already. The pits should be doable.
Also, outside of cities very few stations have high platforms. Even Washington, DC has low platforms. In most stations there would be no problem.
John WRBut Don, as you pointed out some stations have high platforms. How do you get to this space in, say, New York Penn Station?
You'd have to get clever with the platform design. The platform would have to have a passageway beneath it with a 2 or 3 foot pit to all allow a person to maneuver baggage carts and baggage should do it. Or, perhaps, strategically placed cut-outs in the platform.
This would not come cheap, but you wouldn't have to do all the platforms at every effected station, just the ones served by LD trains. I would think a dozen or so stations would be cheaper to retrofit than buying dozens of new baggage cars and operating them.
Not to go back into history, but if I've understood my reading, Southern Pacific's early/original Coast Daylight had a baggage car, but would handle checked baggage between endpoints San Francisco and Los Angeles (presumably to keep dwell times at intermediate stations).
But, the coaches actually had baggage elevators accessed from the outside. to easily shuttle luggage up to the luggage storage area inside each car.
schlimm Convert (or better still, change before the are finished) the new baggage cars to combines, either half coach half baggage or some other configuration, such as 1/3 baggage, 2/3 coach seating.
Convert (or better still, change before the are finished) the new baggage cars to combines, either half coach half baggage or some other configuration, such as 1/3 baggage, 2/3 coach seating.
oltmanndOn Amfleet and Horizon coaches, a huge amount {of space under cars for baggage]
But Don, as you pointed out some stations have high platforms. How do you get to this space in, say, New York Penn Station?
MidlandMikeHow much usable space is there under a passenger car, with air brake equipment, Air Conditioning equipment, septic holding tanks, etc?
On Amfleet and Horizon coaches, a huge amount - take a look some time. Although you might have to rearrange some components. (you forgot potable water tank, HEP transformer, emerg. lighting batteries, but that's about it.)
MidlandMikeHowever, if you needed the space spread out over several cars it would be a baggage handling nightmare.
In some cases it would be easier, some harder. For small stations, car attendant does it right at the platform like bus. At lager locations, not much would change - but you might have to keep track of which car has which bags.
MidlandMikeRemember the space must also accommodate the Congressionally mandated gun safe.
That goes in the compartment on the Cafe car.
If checked bags are not all in one place on the train you will drastically increase dwell time at each stop.
If you are suggesting that passengers handle their own baggage at every stop, have you ever watched the people who board the train with large bags trying to move and store them?
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
If you're going to left-field luggage stowage... why not do it with bilevel cars... following the way the sesquidecker van Hools used for the Megabus service do it. These don't have possum-bellies (the bottom 'deck' is low-floor) but the rear portion of the lower passenger compartment is currently reserved for luggage bays, and these are (even on the bus!) at what corresponds to high-level-platform height (over the rear and tag axle).
Easy to put slide-out rails and even motor assist to move the luggage outboard for ease and speed of handling, regardless of what side of the car is facing the platform, or if you are at low level...
Naturally the through-car passageway has to be on the upper level if the bay goes side to side like a possum belly -- but that's where you want free walkthrough, and maximum passenger space, anyway, and there's no showstopping reason the idea couldn't be adapted to Superliner or other high-level car design ...
Doesn't Amtrak still carry mail? I remember reading a while back that Amtrak was making a nice chunk of change carrying priority and express mail parcels.
It maybe a little off subject but when did they stop using steam heat cars (converted B units)?
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