Eliminating open-plan seating and having all cars be compartments

[jiml]

I'm also a fan of this site for seating plans and consists for several countries. (Which I found, of course, through Mark's Seat 61 site)
https://www.vagonweb.cz/razeni/?&lang=en

Totally agree, and it was the source of the picture in Post #12 of this thread.

 

[west point]

We cannot hope for normalcy by then end of August. OK adults that want to will be vaccinated but what about the kids under 16 ? They may not get too many sick but what happens if they become carriers of the many variants going around. I do not know and the experts certainly do not know what will happen next with this virus. Hope we are wrong but lets not count for our eggs to hatch yet.

 

[IndyLions]

I guess I don’t understand all the angst at this point - whereas I completely understood it even just a few weeks ago.

If you are vaccinated and stay vaccinated (as booster shots become recommended, etc) you are not (statistically speaking) going to die from the virus. Could you get sick? Maybe. Will you die? Probably with the about same odds as getting randomly hit by a truck.

I am not a proponent of overconfidence or carelessness - but at some point we have to live our lives and trust that we’ve protected ourselves well enough.

 

[Qapla]

If we want to achieve "herd immunity" we need to protect others as well as ourselves. Even fully vaccinated it may be possible to pass the virus to others who are not vaccinated - a mask helps reduce that possibility ...

 

[Seaboard92]

Actually European trains are moving away from compartments altogether. But what is interesting Russia really hasn't moved in that direction. Most of their trains are still compartments with the exception of third class. That is somewhat like compartments just without doors. And of course everything turns into beds as well. I do think RZD has some fleet of day coaches for sure for the Nevsky Express but I don't think they have a large fleet of those cars. I could be wrong however. I'll ask my friend who does PTC in St. Petersburg for more info on that. Now the new high speed trains are getting away from compartments but still have some degree. The Sapsan has a special room you can reserve for your business meetings right behind the engineer. With a lounge, and a few seats. You buy all four tickets with yours.

 

[jis]

India is gravitating towards two distinct types of train with rolling stock appropriate for them:

1. Overnight trains with sleeping accommodation. The most popular sleeping accommodation in India is the 3 tier sleepers with bays of 6 berths and two berths along the corridor on the opposite side from the bays. Only First Class AC has compartments. Nothing else has compartments, other than semi private bays for women in the regular sleepers.

2. Day trains with Chair Cars, which are basically like what are called Coach these days in the US. They come in four varieties non AC regular and executive, and AC regular and executive. Regular is 2x3 Executive is 2x2 seating.

They appear to be progressively getting rid of everything else including the so called 2 Tier AC Sleepers, though eventually they may be retained for the Rajdhani type trains.

So in general rooms are out except for the highest class of travel, a class that is not available on most trains.

 

[coventry801]

If you want to avoid seating with strangers, I think current Superliner Roommate layout would fit the bill perfectly. They don't even need any modifications.

Amtrak just have to discount the sleeper price for daytime usage without providing any bedding sets.