Viewliner II Part 2: Dining Car Production, Delivery, Speculation

[Ryan]

And there is no chance that the Star would get a dining car before the LSL. The Lake Shore lost the dining car due to Heritage diner shortages. The Star lost its dining car to cut costs. Because the Silver Star doesn't have a diner, the train now only needs one locomotive, and they ditched ALL the diner staff.

Sorry dont think the Star dinning staff was cut, I recall they are still working, but on a longer schedule. In example ever 9th day compares to ever 7th day. Random numbers used for explanations. Now it been a few years, one think simple turnovers, and retirement would downsize the crew base. Be interesting if the Unions would fight to stop the crew from going back to the normal work schedule?

What do you mean? The Silver Star doesn’t have a dining car, so it obviously doesn’t have dining car staff. Sorry if I’m misunderstanding your post.

They're probably working other trains, like the Meteor. Or they working in other capacities on the Star.

Oh, I see. I would have thought that Amtrak would ‘cut loose’ some of the staff, if they were no longer needed for the SS diner. There were probably around 20 total dining car staff on the Star (between the four consists). Does Amtrak really have use for all of them elsewhere?

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Amtrak staffing works. The crew for any single train is a drop in the bucket for their overall staffing numbers.

 

[mgl1978]

Two new viewliner diners headed south on 2/28/2018

 

[PRR 60]

Posts regarding the possible summer 2018 suspension of the Lake Shore Limited New York section have been moved to a new topic.

No New York Section of the Lake Shore This Summer?

 

[tommylicious]

Thanks for posting and good to see. What else is in that consist?

Two new viewliner diners headed south on 2/28/2018

 

[PVD]

Looks like a regular SM, so 2 P42, AM2 coaches and cafe/lounge,V2 diner,3 VL sleepers, VL , + the "guests" I am sure if I missed something, someone will catch it.

 

[cpotisch]

Looks like a regular SM, so 2 P42, AM2 coaches and cafe/lounge,V2 diner,3 VL sleepers, VL , + the "guests" I am sure if I missed something, someone will catch it.

And that one the second P42 is #184 - Phase IV Heritage Unit.

 

[PVD]

Thanks, didn't see that. I was out of the house when I looked at the clip, and with the size of the image on my phone, I was probably lucky I recognized it as a train.

 

[Thirdrail7]

68017 is released for service. Thanks for the pictures, Fleet One and Fleet Three. (I always forget about MGL!)

Though If the reason is they have changed their minds and want to keep the current "diner-lite" setup, technically there is nothing forcing them to restore a full menu even with the Viewliner diners. I could see them putting the new cars on the LSL and Cardinal but keeping the same current menu. One way Amtrak could alter its diner operations is to use a diner-lite style menu at off peak times of the year and then offer a fuller menu at peak times that takes full advantage of the car's facilities. One could argue it makes sense for them to still replace the old rolling stock with the new Viewliner cars on those trains even if they don't want to resume a full Diner menu. This is of course just speculation, but they aren't necessarily forced to expand the menu immediately just by using the physical car on the train.

While the cars may enter service, they may end up being diner lites, cafe/lounges, full service dining cars or cafeteria cars. We'll see what the summer brings.

Time will tell but as Jis mentioned, I just don't get the feeling you'll see a full service dining car return to the LSL..in the immediate future.

 

[jis]

I was merely guessing that they will do it with the time table change for the Summer or some such. I don;t think they will do it the day after they have sufficient number of Diners.

Now with the GCT shuffle seemingly lasting till Labor Day, perhaps Diner Service can safely be written off until Labor Day. Again, jus ta thought based on nothing concrete.

 

[PRR 60]

I was merely guessing that they will do it with the time table change for the Summer or some such. I don;t think they will do it the day after they have sufficient number of Diners.

Now with the GCT shuffle seemingly lasting till Labor Day, perhaps Diner Service can safely be written off until Labor Day. Again, jus ta thought based on nothing concrete.

I was thinking the same thing. Boston is not set up to service and stock a full service diner. Getting them set up from a catering and maintenance standpoint for just three months does not seem worth the aggravation. Meanwhile, they can get some more cars delivered, get Chicago up to speed with the new diners over the summer, and return the full service diner to the Lake Shore when it makes its triumphant return to NYP in September.

 

[stappend]

Personally I wish the diner was based out of Boston, with the longer trip and getting back well into the evening hours. But, I understand that operationally it makes more sense to have it in New York. Wishful thinking, the diner based out of Boston with a Bag/Dorm to support the staff.

 

[jis]

Personally I wish the diner was based out of Boston, with the longer trip and getting back well into the evening hours. But, I understand that operationally it makes more sense to have it in New York. Wishful thinking, the diner based out of Boston with a Bag/Dorm to support the staff.

Yeah, Southampton Street would throw an apoplectic fit if they were asked to handle a Diner I would imagine. They have enough problem with a single Sleeper as it is.

 

[Ryan]

68017 is released for service. Thanks for the pictures, Fleet One and Fleet Three. (I always forget about MGL!)

See if you can manage to schedule the next batch when I'm in the same time zone.

 

[CHvision]

I don't know if this fits the topic but from another group, heritage diner 8505 will be used as an axle count car

 

[cpotisch]

I don't know if this fits the topic but from another group, heritage diner 8505 will be used as an axle count car

What's an axle count car?

 

[PerRock]

I don't know if this fits the topic but from another group, heritage diner 8505 will be used as an axle count car

What's an axle count car?

It's a non-revenue car tacked onto the end of a train so that the train has enough axles to be allowed to run on the host railroad's tracks. CN is the only railroad I know of that has this requirement for some of the Midwest Corridor trains.

peter

 

[Trogdor]

The history is that about 10-15 years ago, Amtrak had a couple of grade crossing collisions on the CN where the gates reportedly failed to activate. It was determined that apparently CN's track circuits were ****** enough that four- or five-car train (or whatever the length was) wasn't enough to trigger the crossing gates. Ever since, both the Carbondale line and the Port Huron line have had minimum axle counts (and possibly different minimum counts for each line...not sure), so even if Amtrak only needs 2 or 3 cars for the passenger load, they have to run a bunch of deadhead cars just to get enough axles, because apparently fixing grade crossings is too hard for CN to do in only a decade.

 

[Dutchrailnut]

a lot of it has to do with car maintenance, the axles have ground bushes on them, but if you do not maintain those the light railcars of today simply won't shunt.

same played a roll in bearing failures on NJT EMU's a few years back .

 

[cpotisch]

So Montpelier and Nashville are currently in Hialeah? And Montgomery is in service on the Meteor?

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[DSS&A]

Hi,

Does anyone have the floor plan for the upcoming V-2 baggage/sleeper combine and full sleepers?

 

[cpotisch]

Hi,

Does anyone have the floor plan for the upcoming V-2 baggage/sleeper combine and full sleepers?

I don’t have an actual floor plan but the Bag-Dorms will be 8 Roomettes, with the rest the baggage area. Full sleepers have the exact same layout as the V-Is, with the exception of the two roomettes that were replaced with shared bathrooms.

 

[StriderGDM]

Two roomettes? My understanding is one roomette was replaced with 2 bathrooms.

 

[PVD]

I believe it is one roomette becomes the 2 bathrooms. The bathrooms don't need to be large, the H room handles accessibility.

 

[Steve4031]

And the shower.

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[PVD]

Well, the shower already exists, that remains roughly the same.....H and A&B already have their own....