Amtrak consists 2024

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Cal said:
Nobody wants to spend 36-65 hours in one car + trips to the cafe with no seating.
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They've been doing something like that on the Crescent and the Cardinal for a few years now.

Anyway, the vast majority of passengers on Amtrak long-distance trains are not traveling "36-65 hours." In fact, there's no Amtrak long distance train that has a 65 hour running time (at least as scheduled.) Only 3.5 percent of passengers are traveling 2,000+ miles, in fact 54% of Amtrak long-distance passengers are traveling "corridor distances" of 500 miles or less.

https://www.railpassengers.org/site/assets/files/3435/ld.pdf


Maybe they could contract with someone like Princess Cruises (who run their own cars on the Alaska railway) or Belmond (who do the Hiram Brigham in Peru) to run deluxe passenger PV sections that would have all the classic bells and whistles. The basic traveling public is probably more concerned about affordable reliable transportation, and we know that people are perfectly content to pay good money to fly 8, 10, 15 hours in airlines, where even the first class passengers don't have table service, and can basically only get up to go to the toilet.
 
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Whenever I have ridden Amtrak LD trains the Sightseer or Amfleet Lounge is usually filled with happy relaxed passengers. Whatever happened to the "experiential" vibe promised by Amtrak? This is such an important part of train travel.

On the other hand I think Amtrak is doing well with the other car ideas. The sleeper cars look pretty well thought out with interesting unique accommodations, but the lack of coach lounge space is a blaring omission.
 
MARC Rider said:
They've been doing something like that on the Crescent and the Cardinal for a few years now.

Anyway, the vast majority of passengers on Amtrak long-distance trains are not traveling "36-65 hours." In fact, there's not Amtrak long distance train that has a 65 hour running time (at least as scheduled.) Only 3.5 percent of passengers are traveling 2,000+ miles, in fact 54% of Amtrak long-distance passengers are traveling "corridor distances" of 500 miles or less.

https://www.railpassengers.org/site/assets/files/3435/ld.pdf


Maybe they could contract with someone like Princess Cruises (who run their own cars on the Alaska railway) or Belmond (who do the Hiram Brigham in Peru) to run deluxe passenger PV sections that would have all the classic bells and whistles. The basic traveling public is probably more concerned about affordable reliable transportation, and we know that people are perfectly content to pay good money to fly 8, 10, 15 hours in airlines, where even the first class passengers don't have table service, and can basically only get up to go to the toilet.
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Yeah, don't forget the Silver Starvation before it got the Diner back either.

My impression is that even when there is a Lounge car a very significant proportion of passengers don;t actually use it, except perhaps on the scenic routes, and of course to go get food from the Cafe Counter and bring it back to their seat. That seems to be the prevalent case on the Silver service as far as I can tell. And then there is the small group that goes to the Cafe/Lounge and spreads out their stuff on a table and stays there working on a laptop or small groups playing cards or such.

It occurs to me that in a way the lack of mass usage of trains specially in the LD sector may be a blessing for those who like the bells and whistles. I have noticed that in general success in attracting larger ridership tends to gravitate towards reduction of bells and whistles. Afterall how can you meaningfully provide Lounge service that can be used by a significant proportion of riders in a 24 car train each car carrying 75 Sleeper passengers in a dormitory setup? That is the equivalent of Coach passengers in the US.

OTOH, if the train length can be limited to six or ten cars it becomes more feasible. At the end of the day it is indeed a balance between basic transportation and experiential. When a basic transportation need of huge numbers of people is actually address, experiential goes out the window, and vice versa. It is a question of striking the right balance. That is one reason that often Experiential trains and Transportation trains are kept as separate operations under separate departments. And then there is always the question of to what extent should taxpayers be subsidizing the operation of heavily experiential stuff. Ultimately the discussion has got to center around what is the "telos" of the passenger train operator and national policy regarding passenger trains.
 
MARC Rider said:
They've been doing something like that on the Crescent and the Cardinal for a few years now.

Anyway, the vast majority of passengers on Amtrak long-distance trains are not traveling "36-65 hours." In fact, there's no Amtrak long distance train that has a 65 hour running time (at least as scheduled.) Only 3.5 percent of passengers are traveling 2,000+ miles, in fact 54% of Amtrak long-distance passengers are traveling "corridor distances" of 500 miles or less.
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Eastern trains are all single night and relatively short, which is why I used 36 hours (Starlight) to 65 hours (Texas Eagle). And yeah, a lot of passengers don't do the full length, but I usually do see the SSL on western routes fairly full, even when there's not dramatic scenery outside. I do think having cafe seating is pretty essential on long-distance trains, especially western ones, even if it may not be used by everyone.
 
cocojacoby said:
And just a side note on your consist. Amtrak has just about reconfigured all long distance trains to coaches up front and sleepers to the rear. The baggage is the last car. Supposedly this improves the ride quality for first class passengers by eliminating fishtailing and also makes the ride quieter for them.
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A clarification please. Are you referring to existing trains or to future plans (the subject of this thread). As one example, the Capitol Limited not only has its two (as of early May) sleepers up front, but there are no noise buffers such as second engine, baggage car, or transdorm. This makes for a very unpleasant ride IMO.
 
PaulM said:
A clarification please. Are you referring to existing trains or to future plans (the subject of this thread). As one example, the Capitol Limited not only has its two (as of early May) sleepers up front, but there are no noise buffers such as second engine, baggage car, or transdorm. This makes for a very unpleasant ride IMO.
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I just rode the California Zephyr (last week, this week) full length both directions. Sleepers are at the front - baggage- transdorm- sleeper-sleeper-diner-ssl-coach coach....
 
PaulM said:
A clarification please. Are you referring to existing trains or to future plans (the subject of this thread). As one example, the Capitol Limited not only has its two (as of early May) sleepers up front, but there are no noise buffers such as second engine, baggage car, or transdorm. This makes for a very unpleasant ride IMO.
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Capitol Limited's baggage car is back, I believe.
 
Around a year ago there was active discussion around several sites about the consist change. Comments like this:

"I have watching Virtual railfan webcams in Galesburg, Ill. the last few days and it looks like they have reversed the order of #3/4 and # 5/6 with the consist reversed?"

"The sleepers at the back, the diner and lounge cars reversed and the coaches up front."

"Is the going to be permanent?"

"Just wondering???"

Many commented that they noticed the same thing.

Down here in Florida, the Silvers were definitely reconfigured a while ago with the sleepers on the rear and the baggage at the end which looks odd but supposedly reduces "fishtailing" of the last sleeper. Also it's quieter back there and there are less fumes.

Maybe Amtrak has decided to reverse the consists again at least for the Superliner trains? I don't know.
 
Before the consist layouts became fixed it was quite routine for them to be seasonally flipped. There has not been a constant single way of doing things either on a single train and much less so on all trains for obvious reasons.

That said, I don't believe that the Eastern trains are changing anything at this time, and the Western trains never went consistently to Sleepers in the rear year round IIRC.
 
Historically for Amtrak, it's important to remember that among the Western trains the Southwest Chief was the only train where the sleeper positions could alternate. All others had consists that were split enroute - the Sunset's sleepers were always forward with the Eagle's on the back for obvious reasons, as were the Zephyr's to accommodate the Desert Wind and Pioneer*, and Empire Builder with its Portland section. The Coast Starlight always had the sleepers to the rear until the demise of the PPC. The "flexibility" of sleeper placement has evolved with the loss of some services, and one has to wonder if sleeper position is sometimes the result of lateness and short turnarounds at either end.

* The order of the Desert Wind and Pioneer sleepers (and coaches) changed through the years owing to periodic splits at Denver instead of in Utah, but normally the DW was at the end of the train.
 
They just seem to keep flipping the consists back and forth with little or no consistency. But it seems similar to the situation we had in Seattle until recently where they'd send a Horizon car here for the Cascades, then send it back to Chicago maybe a week or two later. I assumed that Seattle probably found a problem it couldn't handle that Chicago had simply overlooked.

It seems to me that Amtrak is trying to do way too many car types, thus complicating matters unnecessarily. I can't see why they're can't be one sleeper type and one coach type. And I can't believe there's a need for that many ADA rooms. I also think that at least some of the cars should have step-down design. By the way, your work in setting up diagrams for us is remarkable and I for one am very grateful.
 
Harmon Shay said:
It seems to me that Amtrak is trying to do way too many car types, thus complicating matters unnecessarily. I can't see why they're can't be one sleeper type and one coach type. And I can't believe there's a need for that many ADA rooms. I also think that at least some of the cars should have step-down design. By the way, your work in setting up diagrams for us is remarkable and I for one am very grateful.
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I agree with this.
 
Cal said:
For many years, at least in the 21st century, sleepers were at the front with the PPC following them (then the diner, then business, then SSL, then coach).
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My last trip was Summer 2018, Northbound, and consist was baggage, coaches, diner functioning as lounge (no SSL), actual diner and 3 sleepers bringing up the rear. We were in the middle sleeper.
 
Last LD trip this May. Cardinal and SW Chief both had sleepers at the front. Its is always a pain when you board at a station along the route. You set yourself up preparing for where the sleepers will be and you end up have a long run at the last moment. At times the lounge attendants at PHL don't even know or are wrong.
 
jiml said:
My last trip was Summer 2018, Northbound, and consist was baggage, coaches, diner functioning as lounge (no SSL), actual diner and 3 sleepers bringing up the rear. We were in the middle sleeper.
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Hmm that's odd, I don't think I've seen a Starlight with sleepers on the rear. I wonder how long they did that for. Looking at a Youtube video, spring and fall 2018 had sleepers in the front.
 
turtlypo said:
Still a better photoshop job than this one.

View attachment 37021
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What I find strange about this photoshop rendering is that the one on the right is an F59PHI with a pantograph (or maybe it's the passenger cars behind it acting as EMUs). Does MARC even have F59PHIs? I know that this is a fake, but scratching my head on the thought process on this.
 
Cal said:
Hmm that's odd, I don't think I've seen a Starlight with sleepers on the rear. I wonder how long they did that for. Looking at a Youtube video, spring and fall 2018 had sleepers in the front.
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I never experienced the Starlight with Sleepers on the rear of the consist in all my years of riding, but as the PPCs aged, did see that CCCs and Regular Superliner Diners were substituted occasionally .
 
Cal said:
Hmm that's odd, I don't think I've seen a Starlight with sleepers on the rear. I wonder how long they did that for. Looking at a Youtube video, spring and fall 2018 had sleepers in the front.
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Like the poster above, I have pictures from the "railfan window" and only had to walk one car back to get them. Given that we didn't get into Seattle until 2am I have to wonder how often the consist is not turned, decreasing the odds of a "normal" configuration.
 

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