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

[Green Maned Lion]

That's not how stuff works. Amtrak would be wise to play hardball and convince CAF to sell more cars at a low profit margin to help cover all the wasted setup costs.

 

[A Voice]

Contracts get renegotiated all the time in the private sector – someone with Moorman's experience would be very comfortable with it. ... if the original contract doesn't meet current needs and/or strategy, the logical thing would be to renegotiate it ...

It's not unusual in the public sector to let an existing contract drive strategic decisions, but that not the way private companies work. Or at least not the way they're supposed to work.

They're bought. The money is spent.

I'd still like to see the order renegotiated to buy more sleepers, bag dorms, and baggage cars, which could be converted to sleepers, bag dorms, or perhaps even diners in the future. (I don't know what to say about ordering more diners.) Such single-level equipment will never be cheaper, tho I'd be willing to pay enuff so that CAF wouldn't lose still more money. LOL.

While more sleepers would be desirable, and particularly barring that I'd argue that every single-level long-distance (LD) train should be getting a baggage-dorm to free up space in the sleepers, what really needs to be replaced next are the Amfleet II coaches and lounge (diner-lite) cars. That's a 150 car order. Making it a Viewliner Ii order in the reasonable future also would mean eastern LD trains would have a uniform set of equipment, which is preferable for several reasons.

There are sufficient Viewliner II diners on order for every eastern overnight LD train, including the Silver Star and a daily Cardinal. But that leaves little or no room for expansion, should needs change in the future.

 

[Ngotwalt]

I will throw in that the diners, at least like half of them are also built, or very nearly done. A photo (from google maps) posted here or on a another board indicates there are at least 7-10 diners sitting around the facility on trucks. There are probably another 6-8 under construction/near completion inside the facility. (Please take with a grain of salt) It was relayed on another forum that the one in service diner recently developed a major fault, what ever it was it led to the diner being out OOS for some time (two weeks to a month), however it is now back in service, and word is obviously that the fault is something that can be rectified. The poster indicated that this fault pushed diner deliveries back into April, but other than that, they are very close to being done.

Nick

 

[PVD]

Keep in mind that a major piece of building a railcar is assembling and integrating components that you (the car builder) have contracted to purchase from other companies. Most contracts of this type are written with embargo dates (we used to call them drop dead dates) for changes, after which changes (except certain ones required to meet regulatory requirements) came at a price. Depending on the item, that price could be rather severe. If modules for one type of car are already built and sitting in crates in the factory waiting to go in, RailPlan is going to get paid, so changing car types will come at a serious cost. Might be better just to take the extra cars and option additional if still possible to meet a revised fleet plan. Remember, the original order counts have already changed once.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

Single-level sleepers are profitable. Highly profitable. Moorman would have to be an ***** to cancel the sleeper order, and he isn't known for being an ***** (though you never know).

Diners are significantly costly but I believe that is more to do with method of operation than with equipment.

IMHO, that's simple bad book keeping. The single-level sleepers and the single level diners should be viewed as a single unit. To me, its like some accountant splitting off the shower room, and raising a big red flag because no paying passengers are booking it.

 

[DCAKen]

A photo (from google maps) posted here or on a another board indicates there are at least 7-10 diners sitting around the facility on trucks.

There are quite a few of the cars on the tracks here

 

[PVD]

Sure as hell hope that's a weekend, that is one empty parking lot......

 

[JohannFarley]

Most of these look like sleepers to me based on the roofs and windows. And it looks like 3 diners maybe?

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

A photo (from google maps) posted here or on a another board indicates there are at least 7-10 diners sitting around the facility on trucks.

There are quite a few of the cars on the tracks here

 

[DCAKen]

Sure as hell hope that's a weekend, that is one empty parking lot......

It looks like the weekend since other big companies in the area have empty parking lots

 

[stappend]

Not to rain on anyones parade, but the Google Earth picture must be old. There is no snow and the trees still have leaves.

 

[dcipjr]

I have a cross-country trip planned for July, and it's starting with the Cardinal #51. I don't suppose there's any shot of my roomette being located in a Viewliner II?

 

[MikefromCrete]

I have a cross-country trip planned for July, and it's starting with the Cardinal #51. I don't suppose there's any shot of my roomette being located in a Viewliner II?

I wouldn't count on it.

 

[Lonestar648]

The outlook is dim for this year since the new DC are still not really in service.

 

[dcipjr]

The outlook is dim for this year since the new DC are still not really in service.

I sort of figure the only way would be if they decide to test it out (like they've done with the diner) on a couple trains here and there. But I agree, the outlook is pretty doubtful at this point.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

I have a cross-country trip planned for July, and it's starting with the Cardinal #51. I don't suppose there's any shot of my roomette being located in a Viewliner II?

No chance. Maybe an outside chance of eating in a new diner, but don't count on that. There's only one of the new Viewliner IIs operating currently, more or less in test mode. Plausible rumor hereabouts was that due to a little something still not right on the test car, it was returned to CAF for needed fixes. And meanwhile all the largely completed diners at the plant are getting the same fixes. So we expect delays.

After Amtrak accepts the 25th diner, next up are 10 bag-dorms. (Unless the schedule changes again.) The bag-dorms are half sleepers, of course, so they let CAF practice building them before moving on to the 25 full sleepers. I'm not expecting those until 2018.

But I'm reconciled. Could be worse. Srsly. Remember after the roll-out of the brand spanking new Acelas, when serious flaws turned up (with or near the wheels, not an area I have any familiarity with at all. LOL). Service was suspended while all the Acela cars were inspected and repaired.

It was a public relations debacle. Total FAIL. It was almost the exception to the general rule that there's no such thing as bad publicity. We don't want to see that level of FAIL again, so we'll wait until CAF and Amtrak can get the Viewliner IIs correct.

 

[Carolina Special]

I was poking around today in the Amtrak 2016 Five Year Budget Plan. It called for acquiring 695 Single Level cars and 500 Bi Level cars over the 2019-2025 time frame. Exhibit 2-3, believe or not.

Fantasy Island anyway, but if you can't get the Viewliner IIs done, you can hardly ask for funding for a 1000+ car plan from a Congress or President of any party.

 

[AmtrakLKL]

I have a cross-country trip planned for July, and it's starting with the Cardinal #51. I don't suppose there's any shot of my roomette being located in a Viewliner II?

No chance. Maybe an outside chance of eating in a new diner, but don't count on that. There's only one of the new Viewliner IIs operating currently, more or less in test mode. Plausible rumor hereabouts was that due to a little something still not right on the test car, it was returned to CAF for needed fixes. And meanwhile all the largely completed diners at the plant are getting the same fixes. So we expect delays.

68001 is in service and should be on 97 tomorrow out of NYP. It was out of rotation a few weeks back while it went through a periodic maintenance cycle in Hialeah.

 

[jis]

I thought I saw it on 98 today in NJ.

 

[Acela150]

It's possible that you saw 8400. Not saying that you didn't. But it's always possible.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

One of them was on 97(24)

 

[R30A]

I saw 68001 in consist in Sunnyside sometime over the past week, (Not sure when- I have been by Sunnyside a lot lately, although I think it was on Saturday.)

 

[neroden]

Single-level sleepers are profitable. Highly profitable. Moorman would have to be an ***** to cancel the sleeper order, and he isn't known for being an ***** (though you never know).

Diners are significantly costly but I believe that is more to do with method of operation than with equipment.

IMHO, that's simple bad book keeping. The single-level sleepers and the single level diners should be viewed as a single unit. To me, its like some accountant splitting off the shower room, and raising a big red flag because no paying passengers are booking it.

I totally disagree with you on this, and I would point out #66/67 as an example of a train which needs sleepers (highly profitable) and doesn't need a dining car.

I think of a dining car as a cost of running a train which runs across two mealtimes. Period! Doesn't matter whether it has sleepers or not, what matters is the runtime.

(So, most fundamentally, the way to remove the cost of dining cars is to make the trains *much faster*. But sadly that's probably going to take much longer than the lifetime of the new CAF cars...)

 

[NE933]

So March 2017 is nearly over; it's the month when the long delayed diners cars are supposed to start rolling. I call upon Mr. Moorman to enforce what CAF agreed to, or litigate now.

 

[CCC1007]

So March 2017 is nearly over; it's the month when the long delayed diners cars are supposed to start rolling. I call upon Mr. Moorman to enforce what CAF agreed to, or litigate now.

We have no idea what is happening behind the scenes, so we really can't know if litigation is necessary or prudent at this time, especially since it would likely stop all work until the courts order the work to be finished.