Train 3 (4) and the missing coach car

[Just-Thinking-51]

It may be that a second Cardinal sleeper instead has gone to a 4th Meteor sleeper ? That would require 2 additional spare sleepers ?

I just think that the Cardinal has been truncated to WAS and there's less demand. There have been four sleepers on the Meteor for many many months, and I don't think a grand total of two Viewliners snatched from the Card make that possible.

Four Sleepers on the Meteor? Had only three on June 30th and July 8th. Well if you dont count the deadhead sleeper. Both trips had a coach, a cafe, and a sleeper deadheading.

 

[bratkinson]

Oh..and they've changed out the Cardinal-only dinette with a work station for the dining section to what is perhaps the former Lakeshore Ltd full Amfleet dinette.

I'm not sure what you're referring to. The Cardinal and LSL (up until "fresh choices" with the latter) both have Amfleet II Lounges serving as diner-lites. They are the exact same configuration. And if you're referring to the cafe/business car, that's the same as on the LSL as well.

The Amfleet II 'diner' cars from the Lake Shore Ltd have all booth seating on both sides, AND an enclosed refrigerator (i think) on one side in place of booth. The Cardinal-only dinettes were Amfleet I cars originally outfitted with a two-trash-bag 'dump' between 2 of the booths AND a servers workstation on the side opposite the counter top the lounge attendant uses. I think the work station was added maybe 2-3 years ago and the wide open smelly 'dump' between tables was been eliminated. I confirmed my observation with the server this AM and she agreed. We left WAS with a what appears to be a lounge car behind the the baggage car at the rear, behind the sleeper. Perhaps the regular Cardinal dinette headed to Beech Grove? Based on detector reports this AM, we dropped it at Indianapolis.

 

[cpotisch]

Oh..and they've changed out the Cardinal-only dinette with a work station for the dining section to what is perhaps the former Lakeshore Ltd full Amfleet dinette.

I'm not sure what you're referring to. The Cardinal and LSL (up until "fresh choices" with the latter) both have Amfleet II Lounges serving as diner-lites. They are the exact same configuration. And if you're referring to the cafe/business car, that's the same as on the LSL as well.

The Amfleet II 'diner' cars from the Lake Shore Ltd have all booth seating on both sides, AND an enclosed refrigerator (i think) on one side in place of booth. The Cardinal-only dinettes were Amfleet I cars originally outfitted with a two-trash-bag 'dump' between 2 of the booths AND a servers workstation on the side opposite the counter top the lounge attendant uses. I think the work station was added maybe 2-3 years ago and the wide open smelly 'dump' between tables was been eliminated. I confirmed my observation with the server this AM and she agreed. We left WAS with a what appears to be a lounge car behind the the baggage car at the rear, behind the sleeper. Perhaps the regular Cardinal dinette headed to Beech Grove? Based on detector reports this AM, we dropped it at Indianapolis.

I'm still not sure what you're talking about. The Cardinal uses an Amfleet II lounge aka diner-lite as the diner. The LSL had the exact same thing until it became contemporary. The Business/Cafe is the only AM-I in the consist.

 

[cpotisch]

It may be that a second Cardinal sleeper instead has gone to a 4th Meteor sleeper ? That would require 2 additional spare sleepers ?

I just think that the Cardinal has been truncated to WAS and there's less demand. There have been four sleepers on the Meteor for many many months, and I don't think a grand total of two Viewliners snatched from the Card make that possible.

Four Sleepers on the Meteor? Had only three on June 30th and July 8th. Well if you dont count the deadhead sleeper. Both trips had a coach, a cafe, and a sleeper deadheading.

When I rode on 1/3 it had four sleepers, none of them deadheading. I think the last one was for crew, but they were all in use. And I've been seeing four sleepers on Virtual Railfan for the most part as well.

 

[CCC1007]

It may be that a second Cardinal sleeper instead has gone to a 4th Meteor sleeper ? That would require 2 additional spare sleepers ?

I just think that the Cardinal has been truncated to WAS and there's less demand. There have been four sleepers on the Meteor for many many months, and I don't think a grand total of two Viewliners snatched from the Card make that possible.

Four Sleepers on the Meteor? Had only three on June 30th and July 8th. Well if you dont count the deadhead sleeper. Both trips had a coach, a cafe, and a sleeper deadheading.

When I rode on 1/3 it had four sleepers, none of them deadheading. I think the last one was for crew, but they were all in use. And I've been seeing four sleepers on Virtual Railfan for the most part as well.

Don’t forget that the diner on the meteor is a viewliner now as well. That could be where the sense of having four sleepers is from. If my memory serves me correctly, there should be five viewliners on the train, counting the diner and baggage cars.

 

[cpotisch]

It may be that a second Cardinal sleeper instead has gone to a 4th Meteor sleeper ? That would require 2 additional spare sleepers ?

I just think that the Cardinal has been truncated to WAS and there's less demand. There have been four sleepers on the Meteor for many many months, and I don't think a grand total of two Viewliners snatched from the Card make that possible.

Four Sleepers on the Meteor? Had only three on June 30th and July 8th. Well if you dont count the deadhead sleeper. Both trips had a coach, a cafe, and a sleeper deadheading.

When I rode on 1/3 it had four sleepers, none of them deadheading. I think the last one was for crew, but they were all in use. And I've been seeing four sleepers on Virtual Railfan for the most part as well.

Don’t forget that the diner on the meteor is a viewliner now as well. That could be where the sense of having four sleepers is from. If my memory serves me correctly, there should be five viewliners on the train, counting the diner and baggage cars.

I was on the train and I can tell a diner from a sleeper. There were four sleepers.

 

[jis]

The Silver Meteor normally has three Sleepers, not four. There may be a special day with four, but that is not normal.

 

[pennyk]

The Silver Meteor normally has three Sleepers, not four. There may be a special day with four, but that is not normal.

There are 3 today and this is peak summer travel season. I was told that the sleepers are sold out (even though right now there are some empty rooms). I think there are 5 coaches.

 

[cpotisch]

The Silver Meteor normally has three Sleepers, not four. There may be a special day with four, but that is not normal.

Fair enough. I may have "lucked out" when I was traveling and when I occasionally check VR.

 

[chrsjrcj]

Some trains ran with 4 sleepers in December last year. I was booked in it too.

 

[Palmetto]

The Silver Meteor normally has three Sleepers, not four. There may be a special day with four, but that is not normal.

Fair enough. I may have "lucked out" when I was traveling and when I occasionally check VR.

In my logic class in college, one corollary that we learned was that making a general conclusion out of a particular instance is false logic.

 

[cpotisch]

The Silver Meteor normally has three Sleepers, not four. There may be a special day with four, but that is not normal.

Fair enough. I may have "lucked out" when I was traveling and when I occasionally check VR.

In my logic class in college, one corollary that we learned was that making a general conclusion out of a particular instance is false logic.

Not a particular instance. Many instances. Clearly I was wrong, but it's natural to conclude that a train normally runs with four sleepers, when you consistently see that that's the case. Your argument would only hold up if I concluded that just from my one ride, which is not the case.

 

[Thirdrail7]

Not a particular instance. Many instances. Clearly I was wrong, but it's natural to conclude that a train normally runs with four sleepers, when you consistently see that that's the case. Your argument would only hold up if I concluded that just from my one ride, which is not the case.

It goes back to the discussion we've had before, Cpotisch. A lot of your presence seems to center around holidays when the consists are beefed up. It is not uncommon for the Meteor to have 4 sleepers around major holidays.

Additionally, I think you may not have adjusted to the presence of a viewliner dining car adjacent to the sleepers. It has gotten many of us since it looks like another sleeper.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

For the record both of my recent trip on the Meteor was sold out, with one passenger sleeping in the SCA room. Could use a extra sleeper, but was thinking that not going to happen into the V2 show up.

The pax in the SCA room had miss a ticket swap on one segment and had his rest of his journey canceled. The room was resold. He was going around the country on several trains, but missed one segment and lost the rest of tickets with out any notice. Well, notice did occur at track side....

 

[bratkinson]

Oh..and they've changed out the Cardinal-only dinette with a work station for the dining section to what is perhaps the former Lakeshore Ltd full Amfleet dinette.

I'm not sure what you're referring to. The Cardinal and LSL (up until "fresh choices" with the latter) both have Amfleet II Lounges serving as diner-lites. They are the exact same configuration. And if you're referring to the cafe/business car, that's the same as on the LSL as well.

For the past 3-4 years, I've ridden the Cardinal 2-3 times each year. Until this Wednesdays' #51, the 'diner' was always an Amfleet I car with 5 1/2 booths...yes, half a booth closest to the servers 'work area' which must have had some kind of kettle-style 'warmer' for hamburgers and other warm/hot meats that were being served that day. Wednesday it was an Amfleet II car with no 'work area' but a cooler/refrigerator on the galley side of the car abutting the galley.

 

[cpotisch]

Oh..and they've changed out the Cardinal-only dinette with a work station for the dining section to what is perhaps the former Lakeshore Ltd full Amfleet dinette.

I'm not sure what you're referring to. The Cardinal and LSL (up until "fresh choices" with the latter) both have Amfleet II Lounges serving as diner-lites. They are the exact same configuration. And if you're referring to the cafe/business car, that's the same as on the LSL as well.

For the past 3-4 years, I've ridden the Cardinal 2-3 times each year. Until this Wednesdays' #51, the 'diner' was always an Amfleet I car with 5 1/2 booths...yes, half a booth closest to the servers 'work area' which must have had some kind of kettle-style 'warmer' for hamburgers and other warm/hot meats that were being served that day. Wednesday it was an Amfleet II car with no 'work area' but a cooler/refrigerator on the galley side of the car abutting the galley.

I don't think so. Here are a bunch of videos of the Cardinal taken before Wednesday. As you can see there's an Amfleet II Lounge (diner-lite) and an Amfleet I Business/Cafe.



EDIT: Looks like it can't render all those videos at once in my post so you'll need to click on those last three.

 

[Tennessee Traveler]

Watching the La Plata, MO, cam tonight, I discovered that there was only three coaches and not a fourth coach. Whether this is a "Saturday" occurrence or they have removed the fourth coach Chicago to Kansas City, I do not know. The morning Chicago bound Southwest Chief through La Plata had the fourth coach this morning.

 

[Amtrak706]

OP here, it just so happens that I am on the Cardinal now and there is in fact an Amfleet II dinette in front of my Amfleet I split club business class car. As an added bonus there is a deadheading Metroliner cabcar on the rear. Apparently it is not coming from the Grove as I was told it came west on 51, stayed with the consist in Chicago, and is now returning on 50. I guess it just wanted a vacation.

 

[cpotisch]

OP here, it just so happens that I am on the Cardinal now and there is in fact an Amfleet II dinette in front of my Amfleet I split club business class car. As an added bonus there is a deadheading Metroliner cabcar on the rear. Apparently it is not coming from the Grove as I was told it came west on 51, stayed with the consist in Chicago, and is now returning on 50. I guess it just wanted a vacation.

There's no such thing as an Amfleet II dinettes. Do you mean an Amfleet II Lounge?

 

[jis]

OP here, it just so happens that I am on the Cardinal now and there is in fact an Amfleet II dinette in front of my Amfleet I split club business class car. As an added bonus there is a deadheading Metroliner cabcar on the rear. Apparently it is not coming from the Grove as I was told it came west on 51, stayed with the consist in Chicago, and is now returning on 50. I guess it just wanted a vacation.

There's no such thing as an Amfleet II dinettes. Do you mean an Amfleet II Lounge?

They were built as Lounge, but all were converted to Diner/Lite.
See http://on-track-on-line.com/amtkrinf-amfleetdinerlite.shtml

 

[tonijustine]

But yes, we all know there is an equipment shortage, especially during the summer when ridership surges

I tend to think the shortage of equipment on LD trains this summer is self-inflicted by Anderson. I'm on the Cardinal as I write this and there's no 2nd sleeper, the 4th coach is gone, too. Oh..and they've changed out the Cardinal-only dinette with a work station for the dining section to what is perhaps the former Lakeshore Ltd full Amfleet dinette.
Throw in the Lakeshore is down 2 coaches and 1 sleeper from it's normal summer consist, and I recall reading that the Capitol Ltd is also short a car or two this summer.

And the desired result of all the fewer cars? I'd have to say it's higher fares for everyone on mostly sold out trains. Reduced 'loss' if you're in the accounting department at Amtrak.

Oh...and all the extra money in this years' budget??? One new TLM machine for the 'profitable' NEC. Funny, after riding a good portion of the NEC yesterday, I did not see the other TLMs active at all...not even a surfacing crew as we bounced along like the bad old days of Penn Central!

Anyone see anything using part of the extra budget money for wreck repairs? Oh...never mind... That was spent on the Amfleet I refresh (I like it), and now the Acela refresh...All for NEC equipment only. LD rehab etc? That's probably going to be needed to convert the brand new V II diners to lounge car service only and do away with the existing Amfleet lounges.

Perhaps I'm just too pesimestic. Sorry, but that's the way I see it.

The Lakeshore isn’t going to NYP this summer, so there are no NYP through cars, right? That doesn’t sound like a conspiracy theory.

 

[cpotisch]

But yes, we all know there is an equipment shortage, especially during the summer when ridership surges

I tend to think the shortage of equipment on LD trains this summer is self-inflicted by Anderson. I'm on the Cardinal as I write this and there's no 2nd sleeper, the 4th coach is gone, too. Oh..and they've changed out the Cardinal-only dinette with a work station for the dining section to what is perhaps the former Lakeshore Ltd full Amfleet dinette.
Throw in the Lakeshore is down 2 coaches and 1 sleeper from it's normal summer consist, and I recall reading that the Capitol Ltd is also short a car or two this summer.

And the desired result of all the fewer cars? I'd have to say it's higher fares for everyone on mostly sold out trains. Reduced 'loss' if you're in the accounting department at Amtrak.

Oh...and all the extra money in this years' budget??? One new TLM machine for the 'profitable' NEC. Funny, after riding a good portion of the NEC yesterday, I did not see the other TLMs active at all...not even a surfacing crew as we bounced along like the bad old days of Penn Central!

Anyone see anything using part of the extra budget money for wreck repairs? Oh...never mind... That was spent on the Amfleet I refresh (I like it), and now the Acela refresh...All for NEC equipment only. LD rehab etc? That's probably going to be needed to convert the brand new V II diners to lounge car service only and do away with the existing Amfleet lounges.

Perhaps I'm just too pesimestic. Sorry, but that's the way I see it.

The Lakeshore isn’t going to NYP this summer, so there are no NYP through cars, right? That doesn’t sound like a conspiracy theory.

He didn't say it was a conspiracy theory. And though the LSL has lost a few cars since it stopped running to NYP, the consist is still significantly longer than the Boston section was before they got rid of the New York section. Because of lower demand and to fit into Boston South Station, the Lake Shore lost one coach, one baggage, and one sleeper,

 

[Amtrak706]

OP here, it just so happens that I am on the Cardinal now and there is in fact an Amfleet II dinette in front of my Amfleet I split club business class car. As an added bonus there is a deadheading Metroliner cabcar on the rear. Apparently it is not coming from the Grove as I was told it came west on 51, stayed with the consist in Chicago, and is now returning on 50. I guess it just wanted a vacation.

There's no such thing as an Amfleet II dinettes. Do you mean an Amfleet II Lounge?

You seem confused about this. Amfleet II food service cars all say Lounge on the exterior and Amfleet I food service cars all say Cafe on the exterior but in reality there are several different configurations of interior.

All 25 Amfleet IIs were originally delivered with tables on one side of the kitchen and old school lounge seating on the other side. Around the time they got the Phase IVb stripe all 25 were converted to diner-lites with tables on both sides of the kitchen (Amtrak calls this configuration of interior dinette) and a little conductors office at one end.

The Amfleet I food service cars have had a massive amount of different configurations over the years. Presently there are a bunch of them in full dinette configuration with tables on both sides of the kitchen, many of which have the Northeast Regional logo on the exterior. The rest are in split club configuration with tables on one side of the kitchen and 2x1 business class seating on the other side. There used to be several in Acela Regional cafe configuration which was a bizarre array of round seats and tables all over the place (the one in the exhibit train serving as its gift store is still this way).

Again, all the Am1s say Cafe and all the Am2s say Lounge but this means nothing when it comes to the interior.

 

[Tennessee Traveler]

It is amazing to me how topics can be completely hijacked and turned into an totally different topic. I thought this was a discussion about the fourth coach on the Southwest Chief between Chicago and Kansas City and not about Amtrak Amfleet Coaches and Dinettes.

Just to make an on topic comment, the fourth coach has been discontinued as of this weekend since there was only three coaches on the Chicago to KC trains Saturday and tonight and this mornings Chief only had three coaches. I guess we will see tomorrow morning if this was just a weekend reduction of the fourth coach or if the change has already been made.

 

[Amtrak706]

Aside from the fact that I was responding to someone elses tangent about Amfleets, this is my thread - can you hijack your own thread?