It looks to me like the 532 car is only operating through 8/30 now. After that date sleepers are sold out on #5. I was able to rebook my cancelled roomette from 9/17 to 8/27, which seems to still be ok.
Superliner trains' removal and restoration of cars (2022-2023)
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I'm so sorry this has happened to your trip plans - very disappointing and inconvenient.
I am curious how downgraded passengers are chosen. How much is "first come, first served" reservations part of it, versus the length of the travel segment, or are some other factors used?
billosborn
Train Attendant
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I am booked on the CZ in a roomette on August 28th, #5 from CHI-SAC. Fortnately, I am in 0531 the "base sleeper" for the CZ, so hopefully the reservation will not be downgraded. (Fingers crossed!)
The 32 sleeper is currently running on the CZ. But the SWC is only running one full sleeper and it sounds like they wanted to add one for the low season and chose not to.
Also, RPA is asking for direct information about this and complaints about onboard service/conditions. The more testimony they get the more ammo they’ll have to take to Amtrak to try and make changes.
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I got the dreaded email from Amtrak about an hour after I asked if I should be nervous! We know the answer now! I split the CZ in Denver. Our Denver to Emeryville had the 32 car removed. We have not received an email about the Chicago to Denver leg yet, also car 32. Something to look forward to. We booked our roomette in December. I asked why they could not cancel roomettes that had been booked for a shorter time and was told to call customer relations Monday. Seems to me that instead of just pulling the 32 car and cancelling those reservations that they could take an hour and cancel room by room based on when the rooms were booked. I was told there are electrical issues with car 32. Over a month out and they know that car will have electrical issues? I don't believe that they know which actual car will be car 532 on that train on that date?!
I don't think there's any intelligence involved. When an entire sleeping car is deleted, it's just whomever is unlucky enough to have been assigned to that car.
I don't know about when a lower capacity car is substituted; it might be passengers booked into the higher-numbered rooms who get hit. I believe Transdorms have no revenue bedrooms, just Roomettes.
How do we let the RPA know what's happening to us? Also our 532 car on the CZ for 9/14 was cancelled yesterday.
Saw that (or similiar) on Facebook.I know a guy who was able to break up his CZ trip between a room and coach (got the room for night time, too).
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I wonder where this deception is coming from. A it’s a rouge agent. B it’s coming from some level of management.
“I was told there are electrical issues with car 32. Over a month out and they know that car will have electrical issues? I don't believe that they know which actual car will be car 532 on that train on that date?!”
“I was told there are electrical issues with car 32. Over a month out and they know that car will have electrical issues? I don't believe that they know which actual car will be car 532 on that train on that date?!”
mikewrite
Train Attendant
We're on 532 in late August on the 5 train. Fingers crossed! And 632 on the 6 train a few days into September, back to CHI - that one has me very nervous now. Flying is not an option.
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I think this is more about short staffing. They are squeezing things right now to try to meet summer demand which is likely straining the employees with minimal extra boards. This is likely to relieve the strain on the limited staff while hiring countinues. I think a good strategy for now on Superliner. Trains is to always shoot for the base sleeper. The problem out west seems to be a mix of mechanical shops (particularly Chicago with the many trains it has to service) and On board service staff more so than T&E.
trimetbusfan
OBS Chief
Last week they were rebooking people to additional open spaces on the train. Now that all other spaces are sold out, they have no choice but to put people in Coach.
Even though they should based on who booked the earliest, this is usually not the case. It is just done in whatever way is convenient for them.
trimetbusfan
OBS Chief
The way Amtrak is doing it, age of reservation makes no difference. Everyone having reservations in the cut car is either moved, downgraded or cancelled, depending on what remains available on that train. They do not shuffle people around between cars based on age of reservation (or price paid, or AGR status).
As I have posted before, until this has settled down, the best bet is to make sure and book into what I call the "base" sleeper. On Superliner trains that is the 30 car on all trains except the California Zephyr where it is the 31 car, and the Capitol where it is the 00 car. I am less familiar with Viewliner trains and do not feel confident about guidelines for those, although I will say that the "base" sleeper for the New York section of the LSL is the 11 car based on my experiences.
Interesting. Now I'm wondering how accommodations are assigned at time of reservation. Maybe this has been explained elsewhere .... Do they start with the 030 car until it's filled, or does a car have a mix of entire route rooms, plus some A-B, B-C reservations? (So, how much do they allocate, for instance, Roomette 11 will have one party for CHI-KCY, then be refreshed and have new passengers for KCY-LAX?)
Gary Behling
Service Attendant
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Your scenario may just be true. I just wish that Amtrak as well as all others would just tell the actual truth about these matters rather than giving some non-informative spin for the sole purpose of avoidance of an admission of blame for the root cause of the problem. I think everybody would like to know what is really going on.
They're lying. They don't know what physical car will be assigned to the 532 car line months in advance.
They pulled the 32 car line due either to insufficient equipment or insufficient staffing.
Whether the agent was making it up himself to get you off the line or it was something they were told to tell people by management, it still is a bold faced lie.
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It’s insufficient staffing - with mechanical shops and OBS being the biggest problems. FRA also recently expanded mandatory drug testing to mechanical employees which have been a complicating factor in hiring despite generous sign on and relocation bonuses they have put in place for new mechanical hires.
A position that I applied for a few years back is reposted. Sign on bonus and relocation assistance. This position always had the drug test item with it, something about the CDL I would thing.
The sign bonus is for skilled employees, with smaller amount for trade school.
Sorry staffing in my opinion is a poor function hiring system. It seem a computer will pre screen the application. This just rejected any candidate that don’t fill out the application to catch the trigger words it looks for.
The whole were canceled your sleeper a few days before your travel is completely a different issues. Try to blame it on staffing issues is management making a excuse. Changes to consist of trains should be well planned thing. Sure a derailment screws up those plans, but even those are not completely unknown events. They happen, there a reason why Amtrak use only 80% of there equipment. The whole using sleepers as axle cars is totally made up excuse. That they are bad order cars not in revenue use, is just a convenient excuse. People on this forum are travel form overseas to ride. This is their once in a life time trip that Amtrak is screwup. Not acceptable.
The sign bonus is for skilled employees, with smaller amount for trade school.
Sorry staffing in my opinion is a poor function hiring system. It seem a computer will pre screen the application. This just rejected any candidate that don’t fill out the application to catch the trigger words it looks for.
The whole were canceled your sleeper a few days before your travel is completely a different issues. Try to blame it on staffing issues is management making a excuse. Changes to consist of trains should be well planned thing. Sure a derailment screws up those plans, but even those are not completely unknown events. They happen, there a reason why Amtrak use only 80% of there equipment. The whole using sleepers as axle cars is totally made up excuse. That they are bad order cars not in revenue use, is just a convenient excuse. People on this forum are travel form overseas to ride. This is their once in a life time trip that Amtrak is screwup. Not acceptable.
Amtrak just cancelled our sleeper car reservation for the ca zephyr trip in Sept, and put us in coach, the email says they are removing the sleeper car.
This a multi leg trip for us with flights and Airbnb stays paid for already and rental cars some of which we can change if we reschedule the trip quickly to different dates and some we can't and will end up losing the money.
But it seems like even if we reschedule to oct, what stops them from doing this all again to us?
We haven't called Amtrak yet but wanted to be more informed before I did
This a multi leg trip for us with flights and Airbnb stays paid for already and rental cars some of which we can change if we reschedule the trip quickly to different dates and some we can't and will end up losing the money.
But it seems like even if we reschedule to oct, what stops them from doing this all again to us?
We haven't called Amtrak yet but wanted to be more informed before I did
This has been happening for both the California Zephyr and the South West Chief. There are a few other posts saying the same thing. I would call them directly and find out when the next trip is that has availability in the first sleeper.
There are a couple other active threads here on the same subject. You might seek them out and review them.
There are no guarantees on anything with Amtrak right now. If you do rebook, try to get into the 1st sleeper, which would have a car number ending in "1" on the CZ, or "0" on most other trains. That would remain on the train, unless they removed all sleepers, which I don't think has happened yet.
You may want to review this thread:
https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/cz-and-swc-sleepers-removed-downgraded-to-coach.82869/
MODERATOR NOTE: New threads on this topic (sleeper cancellations) have been merged into this thread. Thank you for your cooperation in not starting new threads on this topic.
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Ever since we were notified that our September 20th bedroom reservation on SWC No. 4 had been downgraded to coach, we’d been waiting for “the other shoe to drop” regarding our October 3rd bedroom reservation on SWC No. 3. It finally dropped this morning:
“We wanted to let you know that the Sleeper Car has been removed from train #0003, the Southwest Chief, from Chicago, Illinois on Monday, October 3rd. We've changed your reservation to standard Coach seating and will refund you for the price difference.
We're sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks for being a valued Amtrak customer - we'll see you onboard.”
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