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First new Amtrak baggage car leaves CAF plant
Bike racks? a new car? Anything is an improvement after our last trip where on a completely dry trip our bags were wet and covered in mud.
Reminds me of the Metroliners from the PRR/PC days
So has Amtrak re-adopted the pointless arrow?
Seems like an expensive way to pick up a new baggage car.
And a perfect example of Amtrak’s continuing disfunction…not a single piece of equipment matches the other; either in shape nor paint scheme.
A baggage car !!! Be still my beating heart ! If AMTRAK really cared about passengers, they would order passenger cars and add them to their already “sold out” trains, so we could travel on the day we want to instead of waiting maybe days.
Do the new cars need to go to Pueblo, CO for testing?
I’d like to see two stories in the railpress:
Why has it taken so long for CAF to deliver the new Amtrak cars and why has it taken so long for MotivePower to deliver the new MBTA locos.
If only all of Amtrak’s order of new passenger cars were single-level. Through transcontinental sleeping car service between the East, Gulf of Mexico, and Pacific coast would be feasible again. Accommodations would be more spacious as passenger trains were once noted before bi-level cars with low ceilings.
Is it possible that the long delivery time for the first car stem from assembly start up issues? It is not like there are other customers that are ordering Amfleet 1 style baggage cars.
I agree that the delivery method seems a little strange…
Seems to me that CAF has taken a heck of a long time to get even one single car completed.
In addition to my earlier comment about slow deliveries, I just noted another item in Trains Newswire about Bombardier in Derby UK delivering one completed TRAIN per week to London Underground. Sure seems like a sharp contrast to CAF in Elmira Heights.
I have to go along with Lyle. Amtrake needs to add more coaches and sleepers and make the room larger. The Econo rooms are a joke for more than one occupant. The old equipment (pre Amtrak) were indeed more accommodating.
I like the look of them, all business looking. Maybe now checked baggage will return with a vengeance on the Texas Eagle, as that train has been without a baggage car for too long.
Planes are cutting down and charging much MORE for baggage. This is a chance to offer more. THis proves the 100 year old baggage car hasn’t changed much over the years. Looks very similar to a heavyweight
I’m with Lyle, too. Ridership is growing and you buy baggage cars? What? You buy COACHES and then convert Amfleet or Horizon into combines.
This car order was driven from the Mechanical Dept at Amtrak…it makes no sense from any other perspective.
How much checked baggage does the Texas Eagle carry? One of the Chicago-San Antonio coaches carries checked baggage on the lower level (no coach seats downstairs).
Regarding “if Amtrak really cared about passengers”…
I suspect Amtrak had some very difficult capital expenditure decisions to make regarding the limited amount of money they had to spend on new equipment. We would all like to see dozens of additional passenger cars in the CAF order but Amtrak probably placed the order to solve the most serious equipment problems…of many.
With the ignorant management thinking, don’t ask me to travel AMTRAK. Guess that leaves me the option to drive, since I absolutely will not put myself through the TSA crap to fly.