Winter Consists?

[jis]

Or ride Coach. That way you can get really intimate with the locomotive from the first coach on any single levelLD train other than the LSL. No baggage car standing between you and your true love.

 

[chakk]

Yes, the Crescent always backs in to New Orleans station.

 

[seat38a]

Yes, the Crescent always backs in to New Orleans station.

I think this is the same for all trains into New Orleans. In January, our Sunset Limited backed into NOLA. They made an announcement that this is the normal procedure for NOLA.

 

[PaulM]

Those who love to be right behind the locomotive can always take the Boston sleeper on the LSL

The true masochist can book a roomette in the CoNO transdorm - nothing between you and the noise.

Yes, the Crescent always backs in to New Orleans station.

On a recent round trip (NOL<--> Slidell, 5/12 and 5/17) it did not back in to NOL, perhaps because it was almost 3 hours late. Also, the sleepers were on the front, which I believe is not the Winter configuration.

The CoNO did back in.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

One time I was on #19 when our #2 engine caught fire a bit south of BHM.

After the local fire department put out the fire, we kept on and upon our 3+ hour late arrival into NOL, we did not back into the station... ...but I figured that was a special circumstance...

However,

This does bring up an advantage to the sleepers being on the rear:

Even though I was in the 'back' sleeper (#1911) - we were 'evicted' out of the car due (to what seemed like an overabundance of caution) to the sleeper possibly being contaminated with toxins. If the sleepers had been on the back, we would not have been thrown out of our rooms.

I must add that I just loved the Amtrak "logic" when we had the fire on #19:

We got kicked out of sleeper #1911 for the remainder of the run due to possible toxic contamination. Fine. Overly cautious, maybe,

...but what got me was that sleeper #1911 was adjacent to the diner - where a bunch of us were eating lunch when the fire occured.

While it was decided our sleeper might be too toxic to even touch inert surfaces, and therefore uninhabitable - as if by magic - the diner was completely safe:

The meal being served DURING the fire - fine to consume;

The cooking surfaces - fine to use for food preperation;

And the food stored or out during the fire in the diner - fine to ingest. :huh:

But don't go near the next car ahead!

 

[jonmorrie]

I just saw the NB Silver Star near WPB, sleepers and baggage trailing still.

 

[edjbox]

Sometimes though, I have seen the Crescent in December NOT in a winter consist. I have seen this on 12/30/11, 12/28/12, and 12/30/13 in the Philadelphia area.

You can lookup "edjbox crescent" on youtube to see for yourself (2012 shown)

Any explanation for that?

 

[Ryan]

What point do you think you're tying to make?

The past few years, the consists switched seasonally, with the "winter" configuration from January(ish)-April(ish)

Now it appears that "sleepers on the rear" is the new norm.

 

[PaulM]

I think the point is that there is no norm, at least there wasn't 20(5/11) and 19(5/16)

 

[Crescent ATN & TCL]

Leave them in the winter configuration, it just makes things easier for station agents and operating crews. A station agent looks incompetent when they spot sleeper and coach passengers on the wrong end of the platform. Also if a train crew forgets out of habit and spots the sleepers on the platform and only coach passengers are boarding...

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

Sleepers on the rear seems to be the tradition many mixed Coach/Pullman (Sleeper) trains followed before Amtrak.

 

[edjbox]

Sleepers were always on the rear of the Twilight Shoreliner but the baggage car was always toward the front next to the engine

 

[user 1215]

I don't understand why the baggage is in the back, then. If they prefer the current vestibule/ADA/Diner arrangement, moving the baggage car to be inbetween the coaches and locomotive would be esthetically more pleasing and create at least a one-car horn buffer.

The baggage alone behind the Viewliners just looks odd.

Maybe it has something to do with John's statement that baggage has to be on the back for the LSL. Why is that?

 

[jis]

The baggage car was moved to the back with the sleepers in order to reduce the "tail-wagging" effect on the last sleeper. It was a considered decision with good operational reasons, not just a random aesthetic one.

Besides once the new baggage and bag dorms are deployed it will stop looking odd too.

 

[Ryan]

that baggage has to be on the back for the LSL. Why is that?

The bag has to be on the back of the NY section of the LSL so that when the two halves are joined in ALB there isn't a baggage car between them.
But Jis is correct, they were put back there because the ride quality in the last Viewliner was horrible. Although I was more entertained by the theory that they were put back there because they were so old and decrepit that putting them on the back meant if they broke, they could just be pulled off the back and left behind.

 

[neroden]

But Jis is correct, they were put back there because the ride quality in the last Viewliner was horrible. Although I was more entertained by the theory that they were put back there because they were so old and decrepit that putting them on the back meant if they broke, they could just be pulled off the back and left behind.

...which has been done on occasion! When the diner breaks it's way more trouble!
Anyway, they'll look pretty smooth once the new Viewliner baggage-dorms are delivered.

 

[jonmorrie]

With the coaches up front now, do they still double-stop for sleeping car passengers at platforms that cannot contain the entire train (most)? Or do sleeping car passengers board through coach and walk back?

 

[Ryan]

Yes.

No.

 

[battalion51]

Don't forget with the way most crews split up the train one of the Conductors will work the baggage car and sleepers while the other will work the coaches. With the baggage car up front and the sleepers on the rear you potentially have both of those people within a 100 feet or so of each other, and no one on the rear. This way you've got your sets of eyes and ears more spread out.

 

[jis]

But with sleepers in the rear, the baggage car is also in the rear on the single level LD trains.

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum

 

[Amtrak172]

I read someone's post in reply to the question "why do they switch the consists for the winter?" and it was incorrect. The reason why they do this is because the Viewliner's have a pipe freezing problem. Sense it gets extremely cold up north, the pipes could freeze. If the Viewliner's are in the back of the train, it's easier for Amtrak to cut the bad car off of the train and put a new one on.

 

[edjbox]

I hope the new Viewliner IIs don't have pipes that freeze

 

[Amtrak172]

I doubt the Viewliner II's will have this problem because Amtrak knows about this issue and would probably know to fix it. Less trouble for Amtrak.

 

[edjbox]

Can they reconfigure the Viewliner Is as well to fix the freezing issue?

 

[Trogdor]

I read someone's post in reply to the question "why do they switch the consists for the winter?" and it was incorrect. The reason why they do this is because the Viewliner's have a pipe freezing problem. Sense it gets extremely cold up north, the pipes could freeze. If the Viewliner's are in the back of the train, it's easier for Amtrak to cut the bad car off of the train and put a new one on.

The previous explanations were correct. The "winter" configuration was used to make it easier to rotate the Lake Shore consist with other trains without the need to do switching in New York. That's why the Lake Shore would also get an extra cafe car on the NY section, when it otherwise wouldn't be needed.

It's true about the freezing problem on the Viewliners, but the consist switch was, in fact, for equipment rotation purposes, not for ease of cutting off a bad Viewliner.