First LD Amtrak Trip Booked!

[Crescent ATN & TCL]

i can answer question F. its not dangerous if you use a electric shaver(battery powered one)

If I was going to shave on board, I would wait for an extended stop, just to be safe.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

If I was going to shave aboard, I would commit myself to an institution for the clinically insane.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Every outlet I've ever seen on Amtrak has been three-prong, and I believe that I've read here that the sleepers feature one three-prong outlet. (I've never taken a sleeper, so I can't confirm by personal experience, but I'm 95% sure I've read here that they do.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEMA_connector claims that the NEMA 1-15 outlet (the two prong outlet) is common in buildings built before the 1960s.

My understanding is that the HEP standards were developed in the 1970s by Amtrak, and passenger cars built before that used DC for lighting at lower voltages (36V nominal battery systems may have been typical IIRC).

So it seems very likely that 120V outlets in passenger cars didn't start appearing at all until long after grounded outlets became the standard.

Also, regardless of when HEP showed up, if 1-15 outlets were indeed obsolete by the 1960s, almost all of Amtrak's rolling stock was built in the 1970s and later; none of the sleepers or coaches still in use were inherited from Amtrak's predescessors.

There are some heritage dining cars, baggage cars, the Pacific Parlour Cars, and the dome car that come to mind as heritage cars still in use, but I think Amtrak rebuilt all of those to add HEP at some point in Amtrak's history.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

The HEP conversion was very extensive, so much so that it relegated some good but not exceptional coaches to the scrap heap or non-Amtrak PV trade. I'd imagine three prong outlets were part of it. I remember seeing them in 10-6s and Slumbercoach cars.