Cheaper price or more amenities on future new services

[sunchaser]

Since this is fantasy, what kind of amenities are you thinking? Dome cars on all trains that can use them? More Parlor Cars? More routes? Jacuzzis? I would be happy with mattress/bedding upgrades! Sometimes the food could be better and more choices too!

I'm talking about a step up from what qwe have now, so instead of adding new intermediate classes, I'm talking about things like better food, round-end obs cars, drawing rooms, maybe master rooms, dome cars, basically stuff like that.

I voted for higher price and more amenities. I would like to see first class lounge cars ala PPC added to all LD trains. I would like to see upgrades in the diners, ie return to china, glassware and more scratch prepared items. I dont know what percentage or dollar amount increase would cover those costs so I dont know how much higher the fares would be, but the ridership numbers are there. Amreica is returning to train travel. I'd gladly pay the price (and no I'm not a 1%er)

These stuff and some others are what I'm talking about.

In that case, the first things to do would be to upgrade linens and mattresses in the sleepers.

They should also return to real china and glassware, it actually 'more green' than using plastic and paper.

The same could be said for the meals-instead of prepackaged foods, return to cooked to order. Better menu, more regional and more selection.

Now for the expensive, therefore unlikely amenities/upgrades to be added:

I would love to see first class lounge cars on the LD Trains-like the PPC, but specific to each train.

Bring back Dome cars!

Addition of some type of 'slumbercoach class' in addition to the 'sleeper class'.

Reconfigure the bedrooms to allow for a larger bottom bed, add a small fridge. Stocked, of course.

The addition of a smoking lounge car, or a car at the end of the train that has a door you could open to a 'platform' or 'porch' to go outside and smoke. I know that's not the right words for it, but if you look at pics of old trains you'll get the idea. They used one for President Obama's train ride to the Inauguration.

Last, but not least, reinstate some of the old routes where there is no service. I can only speak to my area, but the two I would love to see reinstated would be the Pioneer and the Desert Wind. Both are north/south trains, which we don't have here since they are gone.

The word you are looking for is Observation car. There were two kinds, the old type with a rear platform which you describe and the newer kind==a rounded end car such as still operates on the Canadian. The reason you do not know the name is that the word "observation car' is gradually being changed to mean the sightseer lounge and some people also mistakenly thought the dome cars were observation cars.

Now, you may ask why is it a mistake to refer to domes and sightseer cars as observation cars since you can see much more from them.....because true observation cars are as old as trains--- the domes were not invented until the late 40s and sighteer much later than that. The name was already taken, in other words.

I fully know that I am fighting a losing battle and someday I, too, will be compelled to look at a sightseer lounge and say "observation car'

But there is something else.....our coach reservations were screwed up on the first train I rode at age three (1947}. And we had to ride in the observation car----like the kind on the Canadian but without the dome. Maybe that is why I am still picking that nic. I fell in love with Canadian style streamlned obs cars on my first ride.

Thank you for the explanation and answer. I did not know that was considered an observation car. I thought it had a separate name! I know they have one for one of the Alaska Rail line routes, and I know Rovos has them too. On the Alaska line, you can smoke out there. I think you can on the Rovos too, but they also have a smoking car AND you can smoke in your cabin too. I highly doubt I will ever get to ride the Rovos. It's in Africa. I would like to ride the Ghan, though!

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

You know, I first got this idea when I heard that the Erie used to offer decent service from Hoboken to Chicago, yet offered cheaper fares due to slow travel times and the use of heavyweight equipment.

Think the same kind of thing is worth a try again?

What are you thinking of, exactly? Most of the Heritage equipment was scrapped, and it was too expensive to convert to non-dump toilets to boot (not to mention that the maintenance costs were probably rising), so that's not really an option anymore. On the other front, there seems to be little reason to run trains to Hoboken when you have access to Penn.

I am afraid there might be a misunderstanding here.

The heritage equipment which Amtrak inherited was lightweight, NOT heavyweight. The lightweight is also called streamlined and is the kind of equipment which started slowly in the late 30s ad then blossomed and grew in the 40s after World War 2.

Railfans of my age, born in 1944,were extremely obsessed over which train was streamlined,i.e.and which was not. Many trains had a mixed of both.I assure you we were as hung on that as some are on the color phases today.

But you can be very sure that Amtrak bought nothing but pure streamlined lighweight equipment. There actually may have been a few extensively redone very disguised heavies cars bought but not much. What I have in mind is some Illinois Central cars but I never worried about them. They knew how to build and run quality passenger trains.

The questioner I am sure had in mind the equipment generation just before Amtrak, and not the heavyweight generation back in the 20s and 30s Actually some of the heavies in use in my generation had even originally been built without air conditioning though that had been taken care of by the time I came along.

 

[railiner]

You know, I first got this idea when I heard that the Erie used to offer decent service from Hoboken to Chicago, yet offered cheaper fares due to slow travel times and the use of heavyweight equipment.

Think the same kind of thing is worth a try again?

I 'get' what you are saying, but it just doesn't apply nowadays.... first of all, much of the routes no longer exist. Secondly, Amtrak can run trains pretty much where they see fit. Back then, the weaker carriers did what they could to compete with the stronger ones. So since there is no intra-rail competition, there is no reason ro run trains anywhere but the best available routes based on market and operating conditions.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

I've always the thought the return of something like the slumbercoach would be nice. I'd gladly pay less for a bed even if meant I didn't all of the amenities of full sleeper class.

Please refresh my memory, did they offer full sleepers and slumbercoaches on the same train?

I think regardless of what extra amenities would be offered, the price overall would definitely go up!

The Crescent had both sleeper and slumbercoach between New York and Atlanta according to timetables in the early 90s as did the Boston section of Lake Shore Limited.

Almost any train which had slumbercoaches also had 4 or 5 or sleepers.Very few trains had slumbercoaches only.

Now, I am sure the railroads at one time owned several thousand cars.

Guess how many slumbercoaches were ever built

Are you sitting down?

About 22 or so!!!! Plus a few railroads rebuilt some cars into various kinds of budget names.

Slumbercoaches were built relatively late, about 1956,yes that is recent in railroad history.

Many people loved them, myself included. The double room was ideal for me, a heavier person traveling alone.

But it was too little too late to stem the tide of declining passenger train business.

 

[jis]

About 22 or so!!!! Plus a few railroads rebuilt some cars into various kinds of budget names.

Bill, it appears that the Slumbercoach moniker may have been used with different meaning at different times. Amtrak acquired 36 Slumbercoaches (Amtrak number 2000 to 2035) variously from PC (ex NYC), BN (ex CBQ and NP), SCL (ex B&O). They were all originally built between 1949 and 1959, the oldest being the NYC ones. They were also all converted to HEP by Amtrak. The ex B&O ones, which had Duplexes (16DX/4DB) were also used in First Class service before retirement.

I am quoting this from Amtrak by the Numbers by David C. Warner and Elbert Simon published in 2011 by White River Productions, ISBN 978-1-932804-12-9. This is a pricey book, but well worth acquiring if you are into such things.

 

[sunchaser]

About 22 or so!!!! Plus a few railroads rebuilt some cars into various kinds of budget names.

Bill, it appears that the Slumbercoach moniker may have been used with different meaning at different times. Amtrak acquired 36 Slumbercoaches (Amtrak number 2000 to 2035) variously from PC (ex NYC), BN (ex CBQ and NP), SCL (ex B&O). They were all originally built between 1949 and 1959, the oldest being the NYC ones. They were also all converted to HEP by Amtrak. The ex B&O ones, which had Duplexes (16DX/4DB) were also used in First Class service before retirement.

I am quoting this from Amtrak by the Numbers by David C. Warner and Elbert Simon published in 2011 by White River Productions, ISBN 978-1-932804-12-9. This is a pricey book, but well worth acquiring if you are into such things.

Did Amtrak increase the Sleeper Cars after they quit using the Slumbercoaches?

Also, if they added a 'lie flat' option in coach, wouldn't they have to totally reconfigure the seats? They would be LOSING seats, and wouldn't they have to charge more for the newer 'lie flat' option? Then wouldn't they need more coach cars to hold the same amount of people as before?

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

About 22 or so!!!! Plus a few railroads rebuilt some cars into various kinds of budget names.

Bill, it appears that the Slumbercoach moniker may have been used with different meaning at different times. Amtrak acquired 36 Slumbercoaches (Amtrak number 2000 to 2035) variously from PC (ex NYC), BN (ex CBQ and NP), SCL (ex B&O). They were all originally built between 1949 and 1959, the oldest being the NYC ones. They were also all converted to HEP by Amtrak. The ex B&O ones, which had Duplexes (16DX/4DB) were also used in First Class service before retirement.

I am quoting this from Amtrak by the Numbers by David C. Warner and Elbert Simon published in 2011 by White River Productions, ISBN 978-1-932804-12-9. This is a pricey book, but well worth acquiring if you are into such things.

We are saying much the same thing, you are just using more detail and I am using sweeping generalizations.

The NYC cars, at least some of them, were called sleepercoaches. It is a terminology game. My real point was to show how few of them there were.I get the sense that some think they were all over the place like regular sleepers. Not so.

Again,without going into a lot of detail,some railroads even took some heavyweight cars and gave them names like Thrify sleeper, budget eleepers.etc

Google has a nice article on them.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

About 22 or so!!!! Plus a few railroads rebuilt some cars into various kinds of budget names.

Bill, it appears that the Slumbercoach moniker may have been used with different meaning at different times. Amtrak acquired 36 Slumbercoaches (Amtrak number 2000 to 2035) variously from PC (ex NYC), BN (ex CBQ and NP), SCL (ex B&O). They were all originally built between 1949 and 1959, the oldest being the NYC ones. They were also all converted to HEP by Amtrak. The ex B&O ones, which had Duplexes (16DX/4DB) were also used in First Class service before retirement.

I am quoting this from Amtrak by the Numbers by David C. Warner and Elbert Simon published in 2011 by White River Productions, ISBN 978-1-932804-12-9. This is a pricey book, but well worth acquiring if you are into such things.

Did Amtrak increase the Sleeper Cars after they quit using the Slumbercoaches?

Also, if they added a 'lie flat' option in coach, wouldn't they have to totally reconfigure the seats? They would be LOSING seats, and wouldn't they have to charge more for the newer 'lie flat' option? Then wouldn't they need more coach cars to hold the same amount of people as before?

No they did not increase sleepers. The sense in which Amtrak quit using slumebers is becase they did not convert them to HEP.

 

[jis]

About 22 or so!!!! Plus a few railroads rebuilt some cars into various kinds of budget names.

Bill, it appears that the Slumbercoach moniker may have been used with different meaning at different times. Amtrak acquired 36 Slumbercoaches (Amtrak number 2000 to 2035) variously from PC (ex NYC), BN (ex CBQ and NP), SCL (ex B&O). They were all originally built between 1949 and 1959, the oldest being the NYC ones. They were also all converted to HEP by Amtrak. The ex B&O ones, which had Duplexes (16DX/4DB) were also used in First Class service before retirement.

I am quoting this from Amtrak by the Numbers by David C. Warner and Elbert Simon published in 2011 by White River Productions, ISBN 978-1-932804-12-9. This is a pricey book, but well worth acquiring if you are into such things.

Did Amtrak increase the Sleeper Cars after they quit using the Slumbercoaches?

Also, if they added a 'lie flat' option in coach, wouldn't they have to totally reconfigure the seats? They would be LOSING seats, and wouldn't they have to charge more for the newer 'lie flat' option? Then wouldn't they need more coach cars to hold the same amount of people as before?

No they did not increase sleepers. The sense in which Amtrak quit using slumebers is becase they did not convert them to HEP.

They did convert all their Slumbercoaches to HEP, but they did not convert any to retention toilets.