Meteor gets 5th coach

Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
Advertise with us
Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.
battalion51

battalion51

Engineer
Joined
Aug 23, 2002
Messages
7,193
Location
USA
In a recent move (hopefully for better customer satisfaction) a fifth coach is to be added to the Silver Meteor (the Star may or may not get it) in order to handle capacity on sold out trains. Customers have complained that bulkhead seats and lounge seating are not a very comfortable way to travel, and therefore some will not return to Amtrak for travel needs. The fifth coach should help to alleviate problems with group seating in the Carolinas when the train reaches its full capacity. The fifth coach probably will not be used until at least JAX as its hard enough to balance four coaches on one attendant, much less five coaches. Maybe Amtrak finally wised up and realized lounge seating and over selling isn't a good PR move for them.
 
This is great to hear, all we need is a 4th Viewliner and a Sun Lounge. :lol:

Seriously its very good to hear, too bad they won't add a second attendant, as I remember hearing they only have one typically. I remember I think his name was Greg talking about this in the lounge in March.
 
The attendant situation is pretty bad. I think the best thing a Conductor can do though when he's delayed in a station due to loading time, the best thing to put it on is one attendant so maybe someone in corprate will figure out the train needs a MIA-DLD attendant.
 
battalion51 said:
The attendant situation is pretty bad. I think the best thing a Conductor can do though when he's delayed in a station due to loading time, the best thing to put it on is one attendant so maybe someone in corprate will figure out the train needs a MIA-DLD attendant.
Click to expand...
Battalion,

I sorry, but I don't understand what the heck you are trying to say here. :(

Translation, please. :)
 
I think he's saying that there aren't nearly enough attendants and that sometimes conductors have to/should help out to ease slow loading times in Stations like Orlando, and that they could use an attendant on the Miami-DeLand Leg. Although, it may be easier to have them till Jacksonville.
 
Viewliner is precisely right. But the MIA-DLD attendant makes more sense because you already have an attendant out of JAX, and PAK has no major loading, so a MIA-DLD attendant is what is needed the most. Besides which if you use a MIA-DLD they can be home that night switching over to 97 in DLD.
 
The Star has an attendant that runs out of NYP to KIS and then returns on 92 from there. So the Star isn't that bad off, because Orlando is the biggest strain on attendants and crews as a whole.
 
On a bit of a sad note, Amtrak's crescent has been traveling on average with one less coach. They had been adding 1-2 coaches on the back of the train during the stop in Atlanta for as long as I can remember. This has stopped over the past year or so. :(
 
Are you sure about that. I saw the Crescent just a couple of weeks ago, it seemed fairly healthy. Maybe Bill can confirm this for us.
 
Unfortuantely B51 that is true. Amtrak P-42 is correct. It has been quite a while since I have seen sleepers and/ or coaches added n.b. in ATL., unless perhaps at holidays. Used to be a regular thing...used to be part of the fun in watching it.

I think Amtrak P-42 rides more often than I do. However, I often see the yards near the station from MARTA on Saturday or Sunday and one can see the mail car or whatever else is to be added sittng there idle. So I keep up with it that way, as well as actually seeing or riding the train.
 
How is Amtrak doing on the refurbishment of Amfleet II coaches? Last I heard that they almost had all of the cars refurbished
 
P40Power said:
How is Amtrak doing on the refurbishment of Amfleet II coaches? Last I heard that they almost had all of the cars refurbished
Click to expand...
I think the only cars that have been refurbished are the Concept 2000's done in 1998-2001. I'm guessing that is a little more than half the Amfleet II fleet. I know some coaches have recieved new seat covers and carpeting, but have not gone through an actual "refurbishment".
 
Oh so alot of the cars still have the original orange wals and tan colored side paneling in the interior? I hope they at least changed the curtians to match the new seats. Now the concept 2000 cars, they have had the bathrooms done up all nice almost to Regonal standards right?
 
Not really. The bathrooms are pretty much the same as the bathrooms in an unrefurished car (except the for the wallpaper). Of my poll of 99 of the Amfleet II's, 54 are up to Concept 2000 standards, better than half. So it's still pretty much a toss up whether a given coach is in Concept 2000 or not, but the odds are in your favor.
 
P40Power said:
Oh so alot of the cars still have the original orange wals and tan colored side paneling in the interior? I hope they at least changed the curtians to match the new seats. Now the concept 2000 cars, they have had the bathrooms done up all nice almost to Regonal standards right?
Click to expand...
Concept 2000 meant all wall pannels, flooring, curtains, and seats were replaced with updated, modern looking materials. Concept 2000 and Capstone 2001 have the same bathroom designs as you noted. Non Concept 2000 cars that have been refrubsihed have the seat coverings, carpeting, and curtains replaced and the red/orange walls are painted over. I was actually in a Amfleet I Cafe on an Acela Regional last year with all the seats with the blue covering, but everything else was orange and red. It looked really ugly.
 
Wait wait wait, I have been in a grand total of two Amfleet II's that have Capstone style bathrooms. The other 52 refurbished coaches have the standard handicap and small bathroom, they are still considered Concept 2000 coaches though.
 
Well this is what I consider a Concept 2000 restroom set up. On either side of the isle there are two restrooms, one for handicap accessibilty, the other for normal use. Each have a pinkish color sliding door and the colors are pretty modern. Now I have seen these types of bathrooms on Amfleet Is that are unrefurbished, so I assume they were put in when the ADA went into effect. I have not seen, however, a refurbished car without these style restrooms.
 
Well I just hope whatever the bathrooms are like on the updated Amfleet IIs they arent as scumy looking as the bathrooms were on the unrefurbished cars, that was one of my biggest issues on the Lake Shore to and from Chicago, the bathrooms were just uggh. Alot of them didnt even work! Amfleet I know what your saying with those half refurbished jobs, they had the cafe car done up like that last fall. The seats were all nice and refurbished yet everything else like the counter and walls and such were left in original decor, it definatly wasnt attractive.
 
Unfortunately, whether updated bathrooms or not, there are still problems. I know when I travel between Boston and Washington that even those Capstone cars can still smell by the end of the trip.
 
On the business class car, my dad went to use the bathroom. He said it was nice execpt he says the motion of the track was harder to "aim" haha and he said that alot of other people have seemed to have experienced the same problem. The bathroom was really stinky walking through one of the unrefurbished Amfleet cars, that same car had a horrible air conditioning problem with water leaking all over the place. On the trip to St Louis there was water leakage from the air conditioning, but no where near this bad.
 
Well a lot of the bad smell comes from not emptying the retention tank. If that retention tank isn't dumped after three days (usually one round trip or one one-way if you're on a train like the Sunnyset) you have a stinky situation. As far as aiming, you get the hang of it after a while. I know after 30000 miles I'm better at it now than I was when I first started. :lol: But the cleanliness of a bathroom depends on whether it's maintained or not. I know some attendants don't do jack to clean the restrooms, while others make them spotless. It all depends on the attendant.
 
I always neaten up the restroom when I'm using it, like wiping down the counter and throwing away paper towels. If it is really disgusting I will say something to the crew. I think the retention tanks need to be emptied more than every three days. I think they should be emptied at the final destination of every trip. Also, can't they put chemicals into the tanks to cut down the smell.
 
Amfleet said:
I always neaten up the restroom when I'm using it, like wiping down the counter and throwing away paper towels. If it is really disgusting I will say something to the crew. I think the retention tanks need to be emptied more than every three days. I think they should be emptied at the final destination of every trip. Also, can't they put chemicals into the tanks to cut down the smell.
Click to expand...
For the chemicals I think it smells like Chinese (and den). But the tanks are rather large, and designed to go cross country without needing to be emptied. It also takes a little bit of time to empty all of the tanks on the train.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Back
Top