Anyone have any idea of what these new layouts are?
A truly better layout will include space for the carry-on baggage that cannot be stowed in a room.
From what I understand, the electrical panel needs and is getting a complete redesign. The advancement of a couple decades of electrical thinking are hopefully being applied. The broken televisions are coming out. The lighted switches that immediately burnt out were an odd failure.
Oh, and they mentioned working on the Viewliner Diner prototype, but I’m not sure if that means the one car or if they’re also building more.
Now days everything possible is done to home run electrical runs as well as telephone and TV.
I just read that toilets in individual roomettes will be eliminated. That’s good, but additional bathrooms will take up revenue space. Attendants use of new baggage/dorms will free up one space, but shower and two new bathrooms will result in the net loss of at least one room I would guess.
Will someone explain why the possible elimination (pardon the pun) of toilets in roomettes is “a good thing”? It’s a great mistake! The privacy of one’s own room & bathroom is a major factor for many people in deciding to take the train and get a room.
One friend of mine was all set to take the Capitol Limited to DC until learning there was no toilet in the downstairs family bedroom (only bedroom left). So now she’s flying instead. I think men fail to realize this is a very important issue to female passengers
As the population ages there will be more demand, not less, for in-room toilets. Cripes, even in 1950 we had them! Now we won’t? Didn’t we learn from the Superliner roomettes?
Which do you think will matter more to passengers who are considering riding long distance trains? In-room toilets or re-designed wall switches?
The in-room toilets that I saw provide no privacy unless you make everyone leave the roomette and pull every corner of the curtains to get some privacy (also true on Superliners).
Perhaps it’s also a maintenance problem.
Common restrooms are horrid at the halfway point on any trip. Yuck. Blame the railroad unions.
Even though the toilets in the room are very convenient for single travelers, my last Viewliner roomette experience was traveling with my daughter, and it was not something we wanted to use. So it meant a long walk to the coaches to find an unoccuppied and clean toilet.
Also, sleeping with your head next to a toilet is not exactly the most desirable situation in my opinion.
As to in-room toilets, they are convenient. On our trip this spring, we had two day-time legs: New Orleans-Memphis and Denver-Salt Lake City. Because of personal needs, we reserved a bedroom (Superliner) for each leg. Previously, we had used roomettes (a roomette cost less than a lower-level coach seat), but felt we needed something closer this year. Since a roomette normally holds only two people comfortably, it can be convenient for one to leave the room at times.
As to odors at night, I did not notice any either night that I spent in a Viewliner roomette. It is not necessary that you sleep with your head by the head; the berth can be made up with your feet by the head.
Currently, each Viewliner sleeper has a shower for the use of roomette passengers.
The in-room lavatories need to go. Sitting and sleeping in the same confined space where one urinates and defecates is disgusting, particularly when two people are sharing a room. The additional plumbing must also be expensive. Far better to have common toilets down the hall, provided they are cleaned to a higher standard than Amtrak usually attains.
Do your thing in Bathrooms and get out.
What is really needed is a return to the old hopper toilets. Which is more unhealthful and disgusting, a little mess on the ROW for section men and trespassers to watch out for or dozens of cramped, filthy, odorous chemical toilets on the train for the enjoyment of the paying customers?
Then, if one hopper has a problem, the rest of them in the car will not be affected. Twice, on our trip this past spring, the disposal system in the car we were in (on two separate trains) had a problem–and passengers had to go into another car and use the toilets there.
Flying also means use of common toilets, although the time of course is a lot shorter. But on many flights I found two few toilets provided for the number of passengers in the coach section, and this can result in actual pain because of the need to wait.
Someone please refresh my memory: Why did Amtrak do away with the older Hopper toilets to begin with ?
I understand that it had something to do with a fisherman getting soiled soiled upon in FL, and the resulting lawsuit, but Amtrak won that lawsuit.
It’s been a long time, but I doubt it was Amtrak’s call, running as they did mostly on host roads. It has, rather, the whiff of something federal regulators would do.
Someone please refresh my memory: Why did Amtrak do away with the older Hopper toilets to begin with ?
Actually had to do something whith the EPA. However certain cities and National parks did not allow there use as well?
The present vacuum type toilets that are used in aircraft made after the 1980s seem to have migrated to AMTRAK as well. Flush hopper types were used before that time and some airplanes had all sink water go into the hopper but not any more… It all comes down to how much useage and how often serviced. From my airline experience it is about 12 Hrs for a passenger useage of about 100 persons. However that may be different for long range Aircraft. Usually airlines service at main hubs after about 6 - 8 Hrs flying time. We have all heard of the problems of airplanes held too long on the tarmac.
I believe they wanted to match their plumbing to the much more widely available aircraft and watercraft vacuum systems which the hoppers weren’t well suited to since they weren’t really designed to accept the back-pressure of a vacuum system. I’m assuming that by “hopper toilet” you’re referring to the old toilets that dump by gravity into holding tanks, whether by retrofit from a “dump on the tracks” system or a newer design that uses holding tanks which I think this industry refers to as “retention tanks.”
I’m too out-of-sorts to look it up, but a tour bus was recently fined several thousand dollars for dumping their tank on a metal grate bridge that just happened to have a boat under it. It involved someone famous.
I intended the toilets that flushed directly onto the ROW. Perhaps “hopper toilet” is the wrong designation for these.
Or, perhaps, hoppers that needed to be cleaned out manually? Such facilities were in existence on some commuter equipment, as I recall. Though, when one says, “hopper toilets,” I do think of dumping directly on the real estate.