Dining Service without a Diner

[Anderson]

Wasn't that what Management said when they got rid of the Heritage Sleepers, Slumber Coaches and the Domes?

Different issues, aren't they? The heritage sleepers, and especially the slumbercoaches went because of the retention toilet issue. WRT the heritage diners, those are awfully long in the tooth. I wonder how much extra it costs to maintain a heritage diner vs., say, a Superliner diner.

On the other hand, the Temoinsa rebuilds weren't done that long ago, were they? It would be a shame not to get maximum use out of them.

For some reason, I'm thinking we're getting close to ten years ago on the rebuilds. I found a post referring to them as having already happened dated 2005 on Flyertalk, so Amtrak is probably going to get 10-13 years out of them. Not ideal, but I figure 20 would be the best that could be hoped for, and I suspect that a few of these will still be doing "protect" duty until at least 2015 or so.

With that said, I'll agree that it is a shame that something can't be done to keep a few of these around a bit longer...but that's partly my sense of nostalgia and admiration for those cars. And by the way, I'm at 15 of the 20 in my little derby.

 

[AlanB]

Hope all the New Diners get finished on Schedule and Amtrak will consider putting a few of the best Heritage Diners onto the Cardinal and not selling or scraping them!

Amtrak has no plans to keep any of the Heritage diners around. And frankly, unless they add more trains, they have no need to keep them around. Right now Amtrak manages with 20 dining cars, 21 if you include 8400. They're getting 25 Viewliner II dining cars, which will leave them with 26 Viewliner diners.

That should be more than enough to add dining cars to the Cardinal, if indeed Amtrak wants to do so.

Wasn't that what Management said when they got rid of the Heritage Sleepers, Slumber Coaches and the Domes? "We'll have Plenty of Equipment" with the new Viewliners and Amfleets etc. I know you know your stuff Alan, but still think they should keepa few of the Heritage Diners if nothing else for "Specials" and in case of Wrecks, Bad Orders and even, hopefully, a Daily Cardinal, a Single Level CONO freeing up Superliner Equipment for the Busier LD Trains, and even a Diner for the Penn if the proposed run through Sleeper in PGH ever happens?? Broadway Limited Redux anyone?

Actually, I'm hoping that Amtrak can exercise at least one of the options on the Viewliner order and therefore build a few extra diners, sleepers, and maybe even some new cafe cars.

That said, perhaps wiser heads will prevail and Amtrak will keep one or two in working order to pinch hit when equipment gets bad ordered, while cannibalizing the others for parts to keep the spares in working order. But I wouldn't hold my breath either.

 

[AlanB]

Wasn't that what Management said when they got rid of the Heritage Sleepers, Slumber Coaches and the Domes?

Different issues, aren't they? The heritage sleepers, and especially the slumbercoaches went because of the retention toilet issue. WRT the heritage diners, those are awfully long in the tooth. I wonder how much extra it costs to maintain a heritage diner vs., say, a Superliner diner.

On the other hand, the Temoinsa rebuilds weren't done that long ago, were they? It would be a shame not to get maximum use out of them.

For some reason, I'm thinking we're getting close to ten years ago on the rebuilds. I found a post referring to them as having already happened dated 2005 on Flyertalk, so Amtrak is probably going to get 10-13 years out of them. Not ideal, but I figure 20 would be the best that could be hoped for, and I suspect that a few of these will still be doing "protect" duty until at least 2015 or so.

With that said, I'll agree that it is a shame that something can't be done to keep a few of these around a bit longer...but that's partly my sense of nostalgia and admiration for those cars. And by the way, I'm at 15 of the 20 in my little derby.

The Temoinsa rebuilds have been around longer than that. I think that they first started appearing in 1999 and they were certainly around in 2000. So we're definitely already over the 10 year mark and quickly approaching the 15 year mark.

 

[cirdan]

Wasn't that what Management said when they got rid of the Heritage Sleepers, Slumber Coaches and the Domes? "We'll have Plenty of Equipment" with the new Viewliners and Amfleets etc. I know you know your stuff Alan, but still think they should keepa few of the Heritage Diners if nothing else for "Specials" and in case of Wrecks, Bad Orders and even, hopefully, a Daily Cardinal, a Single Level CONO freeing up Superliner Equipment for the Busier LD Trains, and even a Diner for the Penn if the proposed run through Sleeper in PGH ever happens?? Broadway Limited Redux anyone?

+1

Heritage equipment is extremely useful for "testing" new services without having to actually order the equipment before you can prove that you can make it work.

There should always be some surplus equipment around to provide that flexibility.

 

[Anderson]

Wasn't that what Management said when they got rid of the Heritage Sleepers, Slumber Coaches and the Domes? "We'll have Plenty of Equipment" with the new Viewliners and Amfleets etc. I know you know your stuff Alan, but still think they should keepa few of the Heritage Diners if nothing else for "Specials" and in case of Wrecks, Bad Orders and even, hopefully, a Daily Cardinal, a Single Level CONO freeing up Superliner Equipment for the Busier LD Trains, and even a Diner for the Penn if the proposed run through Sleeper in PGH ever happens?? Broadway Limited Redux anyone?

+1

Heritage equipment is extremely useful for "testing" new services without having to actually order the equipment before you can prove that you can make it work.

There should always be some surplus equipment around to provide that flexibility.

I'll agree with this. The other thing is that assigning some Heritage equipment to a route and running it might, in some cases, allow Amtrak to haggle for a "booster" appropriation if they can fill the space. For example, when the Amcans start getting "cycled out", using them to run the first few years of some state corridors before twisting arms for money to get additional "long term" equipment would be a reasonable strategy. That plus a larger "surge" fleet would be good uses of older stuff.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

Heritage equipment is extremely useful for "testing" new services without having to actually order the equipment before you can prove that you can make it work.

There should always be some surplus equipment around to provide that flexibility.

Isn't that what the Viewliner Diner 8400 was used for, for all these years?

 

[Linda T]

Heritage equipment is extremely useful for "testing" new services without having to actually order the equipment before you can prove that you can make it work.

There should always be some surplus equipment around to provide that flexibility.

Isn't that what the Viewliner Diner 8400 was used for, for all these years?

Now see, I've taken the Coast Starlight, the Texas Eagle, and numerous other trains -- I can't tell the difference between them and the Cardinal. If no one told me there was a difference I'd never know. My husband's the same way about the food on the Card. Since it's a short one day trip for us we're taking her to NYP in a few weeks and then back again. I'm REALLY looking forward to the food and a roomette (even if it's not overnight). Okay, so maybe I'm just strange.

 

[Rail Freak]

Okay, so maybe I'm just strange.

Really, no way, you too!!! :lol:

Have Fun

 

[alanh]

The issue with the Viewliners is there was supposed to be a second Viewliner sleeper/diner/coach order, but it never happened, leaving them short all these years.

The old diners (and baggage cars) have simply have too many miles on them, which makes replacement urgent. If kept as spares, I suppose maintenance would be less due to not being run 24/7, but still expensive due to requiring custom-made parts. Getting rid of the heritage fleet will save a lot of money in the long run.

 

[Anderson]

The issue with the Viewliners is there was supposed to be a second Viewliner sleeper/diner/coach order, but it never happened, leaving them short all these years.

The old diners (and baggage cars) have simply have too many miles on them, which makes replacement urgent. If kept as spares, I suppose maintenance would be less due to not being run 24/7, but still expensive due to requiring custom-made parts. Getting rid of the heritage fleet will save a lot of money in the long run.

My understanding, at least, is that per the fleet strategy plans they're going to keep retired equipment around for a little while in the event that something goes haywire with the new stuff (Acela vibration issues, anyone?). With the sleepers, this isn't much of an issue since Amtrak can just keep some "extra spares" for a short bit by not maxing out the (though the fact that there's one less roomette could cause someone to get screwed in the event of an emergency substitution of a Viewliner II for a bad-ordered Viewliner I), but on the diner front I suspect that there might be a preference to keep a few Heritage diners around to reduce the chance of a repeat of my experience noted at the start of this thread (namely, bad service due in part to inadequate equipment). My understanding is that this transitional state is only likely to last a few years, but it will be there in case something goes wrong with the new equipment that short-term testing simply couldn't/didn't catch.

 

[cirdan]

The old diners (and baggage cars) have simply have too many miles on them, which makes replacement urgent. If kept as spares, I suppose maintenance would be less due to not being run 24/7, but still expensive due to requiring custom-made parts. Getting rid of the heritage fleet will save a lot of money in the long run.

As you say. If they're not running 24/7, they won't need as much maintenance as now. Also, if you cannibalise bad cars to keep good ones running, the shortage of spares is less of an issue and you can keep a reduced fleet running for some extra years.

It's always useful to have spare equipment on hand, be it in case newer cars are written off in accidents, or to meet demand peaks, be able to run special services, or short term shortages or a whole lot of other scenarios.

Of course spending inordinate amounts to keep them running doesn't make sense either. But disposing of perfectly runnable equipemnt isn't good business sense either.

Amtrak ridership has ben gradually growing year on year and it's only a matter of time that more equipment will be needed to add to trains and/or run additional trains. Lead times for ordering new equipment can be long and political games can slow it further. Using old equipment as an interim fix can help resolve that by making Amtrak more responive when demand develops faster than expected, while at the same time demonstarting that the demand is real and not just imagined.

 

[trainviews]

The old diners (and baggage cars) have simply have too many miles on them, which makes replacement urgent. If kept as spares, I suppose maintenance would be less due to not being run 24/7, but still expensive due to requiring custom-made parts. Getting rid of the heritage fleet will save a lot of money in the long run.

As you say. If they're not running 24/7, they won't need as much maintenance as now. Also, if you cannibalise bad cars to keep good ones running, the shortage of spares is less of an issue and you can keep a reduced fleet running for some extra years.

It's always useful to have spare equipment on hand, be it in case newer cars are written off in accidents, or to meet demand peaks, be able to run special services, or short term shortages or a whole lot of other scenarios.

As I understand it one of the issues with the heritage cars is that they are of different batches requiring sometimes unique spare parts for each car. So cannibalising some cars to keep others running might be of limited value, as some parts still have to be specially manufactured.

As for the Amfleets, whenever they start getting phased out, keeping some of them rolling for peak service makes perfect sense.

 

[williamflemming]

The cardinal should be OK. The cardinal runs a dining service that wasn't like the one on 92. 92 was a little bit of a rush, and though looks the same, is probably different from the cardinal.