Need info on this room

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KrazyKoala said:
These is basically the "Crew Car" where the engineers, conductors, service attendants, chefs, cafe car host, ect, ect sleep when not on duty. It's also considered to be the "Overflow" car when everything else is booked out but there is still a demand for rooms. They usually only have two of these rooms available at any given time for paying passengers. Also, there is no car attendant. If you need assistance, you will have to go to the next car over and deal with that car attendant.
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First, as already noted by the_traveler, you'll never find an engineer in this car unless he/she is on vacation and taking an Amtrak train to get there. And while the conductors hang out in this car to do their paperwork, they too should never be asleep in this car and are not assigned a room.

Next, typically at least 4 rooms are sold in this car and on some trains up to six can be sold if other/non-crew Amtrak people haven't booked the rooms.

Finally, while there is no dedicated attendant strictly for that car, either a coach attendant or a sleeping car attendant for one of the other sleepers is assigned to take care of the revenue passengers in the Trans/Dorm car.
 
Thanks I guess we are only going to be on it from 7 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. (next day).

Alan, would you stay in one of these?
 
Gingee,

I've been in the Trans/Dorm at least 3 times since Amtrak first started selling those rooms. I find that the rooms tend to be a bit less worn than the other unrefurbished Superliner roomettes, since the rooms see less use. As noted by others, you'll hear the horn more in this car and attendants can be hit or miss even more so than normal when you're in this car. I've been lucky and had 2 good ones, and only 1 poor attendant. But then I can put the beds up & down just as fast as any attendant.

I've taken showers in this car and I've walked to the next sleeper over to take my shower, depending on circumstances. I think I marginally prefer the regular showers in the standard sleepers. One tends to have less of an issue from people talking in the hall while you're trying to sleep, especially with no coffee pot to gather around.

But overall, I personally would have no issues staying in the Trans/Dorm again. This is not to suggest that I'd go out of my way to book it either. But I also wouldn't try to transfer out if I found myself booked into the dorm.
 
Well, now I'm confused about the transdorm.

1) A previous post says you can't go downstairs, because the crew stores their luggage downstairs. Is this generally true? Can passengers in the transdorm store their luggage downstairs, or do they have to keep it in their room, or the next car over, or what? Is the door generally open during rest stops?

2) I've been trying to find a diagram for the transdorm, and so far I've found these:

transdorm-upper.jpg


transdorm-lower.jpg


Are these generally accurate for the transdorm? And if so, where exactly are the showers located? I see two toilets upstairs, and 4 downstairs, but no showers.
 
D.P. Roberts said:
1) A previous post says you can't go downstairs, because the crew stores their luggage downstairs. Is this generally true? Can passengers in the transdorm store their luggage downstairs, or do they have to keep it in their room, or the next car over, or what? Is the door generally open during rest stops?
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Seems to vary based upon the crew and also which version of the Trans/Dorm one gets, there are two versions although the one in that picture is the most common type. I've been boarded once through the type pictured and once through the adjacent sleeper into the type pictured. And I've been in the other version once, where I also boarded in the dorm.

D.P. Roberts said:
Are these generally accurate for the transdorm? And if so, where exactly are the showers located? I see two toilets upstairs, and 4 downstairs, but no showers.
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As noted above this is the most common layout, but there are a few running around that do not have the H-room downstairs and don't have the bathroom you see opposite room #15. Instead there is a large powder room in that space, with shower for the ladies.

And the shower is accessed through the bathroom, with the bathroom doubling as the changing room. It's that blank white space immediately adjacent.
 
KrazyKoala said:
I vaguely remember these being toilet/shower combos. Or is this not on all the models?
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Most of the trans/dorms all have the toilet/shower combo, where you close the curtain between the shower and the toilet.

On the few units with no H-room, IIRC the upstairs toilet had no shower attached. Downstairs the men's room had a toilet/shower combo unit again with the curtain separating the two halves. Then there was a unisex toilet with no attached shower and the powder room that basically ran most of the width of the car for the ladies. I didn't peek inside to see if there was a toilet in that room or if there was just a large changing room & shower off of that.
 
There is another type of transdorm as well. Does anyone have that? It has rooms 1-10 on one side of the stairs, and 15-22 on the other side. This is the setup that they have on the CZ #6 that I'm on right now.
 
AlanB said:
On the few units with no H-room, IIRC the upstairs toilet had no shower attached. Downstairs the men's room had a toilet/shower combo unit again with the curtain separating the two halves. Then there was a unisex toilet with no attached shower and the powder room that basically ran most of the width of the car for the ladies. I didn't peek inside to see if there was a toilet in that room or if there was just a large changing room & shower off of that.
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Well, I'm sure that made sense back in the 50s, but do they really need to separate those two downstairs showers by gender? I'm assuming that only one person can use them at a time; if so, does it matter which one is "assigned" to whom?
 
D.P. Roberts said:
AlanB said:
On the few units with no H-room, IIRC the upstairs toilet had no shower attached. Downstairs the men's room had a toilet/shower combo unit again with the curtain separating the two halves. Then there was a unisex toilet with no attached shower and the powder room that basically ran most of the width of the car for the ladies. I didn't peek inside to see if there was a toilet in that room or if there was just a large changing room & shower off of that.
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Well, I'm sure that made sense back in the 50s, but do they really need to separate those two downstairs showers by gender? I'm assuming that only one person can use them at a time; if so, does it matter which one is "assigned" to whom?
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Well I don't know if they need to do it, but regardless the signs are still there so I'd imagine that one would get some interesting stares at a minimum if you were seen going in/out of the wrong bathroom for your gender.
 
On my trip a few months ago we were in the sleeper from the Sunset, which was separated from the coach at San Antonio. The layout of the train was as follows: Transition Dorm, sleeper, CCC diner ( a nice car ) Sightseer lounge, and three coaches. THe locomotive sounded the horn all night long, but it was a nice trip.
 
Well unless the prices changes a lot less in two days, I think we will try the transdorm anyhow. It's only one night of less sleep:)
 
The g/f and I had room 20 in the transdorm on this train. Had exactly ZERO problems.

A bit noisier since it was at the front of the train, but not overly so. Walked from transdorm through a sleeper with bedrooms to get to diner, then next car was SSL......never walked into a coach car.

Had excellent SCA who took great care of us, and also of our friends in the "revenue" sleeper next to it.

You should be just fine.
 
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