Viewliner II - Part 1 - Initial Production and Delivery

[AmtrakBlue]

Anyone know what day they are running them north?

If they ever made it to Miami, I suppose they'll head back up tomorrow if not today.

 

[A Voice]

Any ideas on why the old baggage cars are still being used? All the new ones have been delivered and, it seems, accepted for service. There's been plenty of time for training – more than a year. Is there something wrong with the new cars, or is it just pure bureaucratic inertia?

Are all the heritage baggage cars out of regular revenue service (excluding extra cars placed on Illinois trains) ??

A few have been used on the California Zephyr the past several weeks. Here's one on Amtrak #5 from March 18.

There are still ten baggage-dormitory cars yet to be delivered.

 

[TiBike]

I don't think that would explain why heritage baggage cars - not bag dorms - are still being used. From what I can tell, Amtrak received 70 new baggage cars and only needs 50-something for regular operations. So there's a good inventory of spares too. Why would the old bags still be on the Zephyr?

There are still ten baggage-dormitory cars yet to be delivered.

 

[OBS]

Maybe some of the new Bags are still having modification work done to them before entering active service?

 

[neroden]

I believe the new baggage cars are still being taken out of service for retrofits/bugfixes quite frequently. Hopefully that will be over within a few months.

I strongly suspect that only the 'best' of the Heritage baggage cars are still operating.

 

[Fan Railer]

Any pictures of the special move?

Only if you have facebook lol

 

[Acela150]

Any pictures of the special move?

Only if you have facebook lol

Facebook? What's that?

 

[looshi]

I had heard that Amtrak planned on keeping the best of the heritage baggage cars in the fleet so that there would be capacity to grow the express package service. The plan was to keep most of the ex-ATSF cars and get rid of the converted coaches. That was a while ago though and my source is no longer with Amtrak, so plans may have changed.

 

[erierail]

I don't think Amtrak gas any plans on keeping any of the baggage cars, for the very reason the new ones were purchased, all of them are well pass their economic life.

I can't see how or

Why Amtrak would enter the highly mechanized, super time sensitive package express service, beyond what currently do. Amtrak doesn't have the capital to support its current operations. It would cost billions to go head to head with ups or fed ex.

 

[Brian Battuello]

Agree. The following story shows how many restrictions and challenges there are to ship with Amtrak. I thought the author was kind given that they delivered his goods to a station many hours away from where he was expecting.

http://transitized.com/2014/08/20/moved-across-country-amtrak/

Even if the revenue is pure add-on, I can't believe this is worth the extra effort and management time to deal with it. But we digress...

 

[Devil's Advocate]

God isn't concerned much about the Viewliner II order, because he already knows when the cars will be delivered, and he knows the day the last of them will be retired four or five decades from now.

Well that escalated quickly.

I can easily see a museum snapping up the former Zephyr Diners and restoring them to their original exterior and interior.

I can easily see a museum struggling to ship a single diner to their location and then being forced to leave it outside to rot while they spend the next few decades trying to drum up enough funding to fix it up and build some enclosed space for it.

Agree. The following story shows how many restrictions and challenges there are to ship with Amtrak. I thought the author was kind given that they delivered his goods to a station many hours away from where he was expecting.

That story was tough to read. They basically treated him like an unwanted hassle who should have known better.

 

[erierail]

Also remember that the old or original railway express agency ( rea ) did nothing to halt the decline of the american passenger train. If any thing it was viewed as labor and capital intensive, that provided marginal returns for the carriers.

 

[Walt]

I can easily see a museum snapping up the former Zephyr Diners and restoring them to their original exterior and interior.

I can easily see a museum struggling to ship a single diner to their location and then being forced to leave it outside to rot while they spend the next few decades trying to drum up enough funding to fix it up and build some enclosed space for it.

That just might be the unfortunate reality. Old, worn out, Amtrak cars just don't have the draw/pizzazz of a Space Shuttle.

 

[erierail]

I think they might have pizzazz, but not in a static form. For Trains to be interesting, they need to be rolling. Not stuffed and mounted in a static type display.

 

[PerRock]

I can easily see a museum snapping up the former Zephyr Diners and restoring them to their original exterior and interior.

I can easily see a museum struggling to ship a single diner to their location and then being forced to leave it outside to rot while they spend the next few decades trying to drum up enough funding to fix it up and build some enclosed space for it.

This is all so true. The Henry Ford Museum bought a GG1 years ago; and haven't been able to move it from it's location to the museum. Now a diner is probably going to be easier to move; but it's till difficult.

peter

 

[erierail]

I hope Amtrak auctions off its heritage fleet diners. Be a shame if they go to scrap. I am sure their are places that would love to have them.

 

[OBS]

And it is not like they couldn't use the extra ca$h....

 

[MikefromCrete]

It's not like they will bring a lot down to the bottom line. I doubt if most railroad museums would pay a lot for them. Still, at least some of the diners should end up at museums or dinner trains. The baggage cars won't be good for much more than storage cars at museums. I don't see anybody using them to start up train services to rival Amtrak.

 

[jis]

Maybe we need a separate thread to discuss what to do or not with the retired Heritage cars, since it is a very pregnant subject which can breed lot of sub threads quite easily.

Coming back to the topic of this thread.... whatever happened to the VL II special that went to Hialeah? Has it headed back up north yet?

 

[erierail]

Baggage cars could have many uses, storage, in service as gift shops. I hung out many a baggage car door or buying snacks in on main line train excursions. Same for the diners, main excursion and tourist roads have pur retired Amtrak cars to good use.

 

[erierail]

Our group

But with that said, I d imagine the most valuable portion of the baggage cars are their trucks, which are probably still in demand.

 

[Thirdrail7]

Coming back to the topic of this thread.... whatever happened to the VL II special that went to Hialeah? Has it headed back up north yet?

Things have changed. It'll be a little while longer before they emerge from Hialeah.

 

[Thirdrail7]

Any ideas on why the old baggage cars are still being used? All the new ones have been delivered and, it seems, accepted for service. There's been plenty of time for training – more than a year. Is there something wrong with the new cars, or is it just pure bureaucratic inertia?

It has to do with:

Maybe some of the new Bags are still having modification work done to them before entering active service?

I believe the new baggage cars are still being taken out of service for retrofits/bugfixes quite frequently. Hopefully that will be over within a few months.

I strongly suspect that only the 'best' of the Heritage baggage cars are still operating.

Additionally, some trains that previously ran with coach/bags for all or part of their trips are now running with full baggage cars. Next, there are few that are have already been in accidents and aren't available...and may not be for quite some time.

 

[Acela150]

Coming back to the topic of this thread.... whatever happened to the VL II special that went to Hialeah? Has it headed back up north yet?

Things have changed. It'll be a little while longer before they emerge from Hialeah.

Let's be honest.. Things change on the RR to quickly..

 

[andersone]

The museum of Science and Industry in Chicago has done a very nice job with an original Zephyr. It is also where I learned the Burlington Budd was related to the Car Builder Budd