Amtrak AutoTrain Sleeper Fares Exploding for 2011

[Devil's Advocate]

Anyone know how Via does it on the Canadian, when in the summer months, it can run up to 25 passenger cars?

Do you know the specific dates when it gets that long? That size sounds incredible.

 

[MrFSS]

Anyone know how Via does it on the Canadian, when in the summer months, it can run up to 25 passenger cars?

Do you know the specific dates when it gets that long? That size sounds incredible.

The year I last rode The Canadian it was the month of May and the train had 27 cars. There were four dining cars (1 for coach and 3 for sleepers), 5 domes and three engines. Two coaches and the rest were sleepers of various types.

Pictures HERE if you are interested.

 

[Hanno]

We were considering an AutoTrain trip next year and as always are flexible on the dates. We usually like to vacation from early June to early Sept so I checked a few dates way out in 2011 and was surprised to see that the AutoTrain is heavily booked. High bucket sleeper fares come up for even most days in August and Sept. Judging by the heavy bookings Amtrak is probably going to make a ton of money on the AT next year. I've never seen it so busy but if TSA keeps up the ugly degrading imoral intrusion called security at airports,I predict train travel will explode next year.

We used to be able to get a decent price on the AT even 2 or 3 months out. No more!

Thanks to your post we were able to book our trip north on March 16, 2011 at reasonable rates ($287 for a Bedroom). Every day after that date for approximately the next two months were very expensive. We used Amsnag effectively. Based on the trip down to Florida at the lowest bucket rate it does appear as though the prices have risen somewhat for 2011.

 

[oldtimer]

While the engines could supply more power in theory, the cables and electrical circuits cannot handle any more power. They'd melt, or worse, if Amtrak tried to push any more power through the cables.

Anyone know how Via does it on the Canadian, when in the summer months, it can run up to 25 passenger cars?

Which brings up another question, are the Via HEP specs the same as Amtrak? That is, could any Amtrak car be coupled to a Via train, and connect with HEP? And Vice Versa?

First of all, Alan B is correct with the fact that low level cars draw less power and the other fact is that the VIA cars doe not have the same HEP system.

On Amtrak equipment all four HEP cables feed to a common bus bar box under the car body. This allows in a cable failure the emergency procedure allows that car to be what is called "short looped". this is where the cables at the end of one car do not feed the next car on that one side only, but due to the common bus bar the car still has power from the other side.

The Via system does not have a common bus bar there is a selector switch that allows the power to come to the car from the right side or left side as these do not connect side to side in the car. Thus one side is used to feed power to a specified number of cars the other side acts in effect as an extension cord to the cars behind the other cars that are drawing power.

This allows more cars to be powered through the HEP cables but does not have the redundancy to allow for cable problems on long (13+cars) trains. Having ridden many miles and "short looped" many cars I personally am glad that this system does allow this to be done.

Engines can be used on either system, but cars can be intermixed for a short train but it first of all the Amtrak cars should be next to the engine and Via cars to follow with the HEP selector switch properly positioned so that only one side is fed power.

The Other Alan B