Rebuild the old Heritage Coaches and Sleepers that were retired in the 1990s back on to the mainline? I think Amtrak should rebuild the old Heritage Budd Coaches and Sleepers so they can relieve crowding on most of the Amtrak trains. If they have any on their property at Beech Grove and Bear.
I believe most if not all of the Heritage equipment has been sold. The exceptions include the Heritage diners and a full-length dome car that usually lives out West.
Eric
Another reason for not rebuilding Amtrak’s Heritage Equipment is most of the cars are over 50 years old, and they have been heavily overhauled at least once. So the questions are, do cars that old have enough structural integrity that would even allow them to be rebuilt, and once they are rebuilt how long will they last?
Maybe a better question would be, should Amtrak choose a particular (and this time standardized) “Heritage” design for its next generation of single-level sleeper cars, instead of going with a variation of the Viewliner.
A better use for those old cars may be for Baggage. They are needed on Superliner LD trains. Perhaps Amtrak should build some HEP/Cabbage cars?
When you consider the Superliner 1 & Amfleet are 30yrs old, it’s time for Amtrak to buy new. I understand Sen Durbin has a new bill to rebuild the US passenger car industry.
There’s no question Amtrak needs to buy something new soon. Perhaps someone could build new cars in a older design but with updated mechanicals? There ought to be much more efficient lighting packages available.
Amtrak needs more Viewliner cars in Diner, Lounge, Coaches, and Sleeping Cars say around 250 cars and new orders of Superliner Cars too say 500 plus cars Superliner 1 are 28 plus years old and the 2 are 16 plus years old.[2c]
I think getting new Viewliners and Superliners could be a great idea! If Amtrak gets new Superliners I think Amtrak should have 6 (if there is a Superliner order) for the past 3 paint schemes cars. Like having 2 in Phase II, 2 in Phase III, and 2 in Phase IV. I think Amtrak should bring an F40PH back to service and have it in the Phase V paint scheme. Amtrak should try to purchase the MP36 locomotives. And finally, Amtrak should get the Amtrak California cars for Florida, North Carolina, Illionis, and Washington.
I’ve wrestled with the question of new Amtrak equipment. The answer may be that one size does not fit all. Six issues need to be addressed.
- Tilt technology to maximise performance on less than ideal existing lines.
- Ease of low-platform boarding for Midwest, California, and Cascade services.
- Low weight per seat for energy efficiency.
- High seat capacity per foot of train length.
- Compatibility with suburban equipment for combined service and better capacity utilization, at least for the Hiawatha corridor.
- Facilitate quick alighting and boarding.
The issue of quick boarding doesn’t mean multiple doors on each car, rather that passengers can be distributed to easily and safely enter and exit their assigned cars without assistance. This has to be reconcilled with the requirements for reasonable security screening
Let’s hold off on replacing things until they can keep up. As passenger rates increase, the LAST thing to be doing is removing cars. The problem with Heritage is the Superliners (accesiblity). But the Heritages are a fast way to get a temporary fix out. In my model railroad design, I have a third party company that takes old coaxches collecting dust in museums and redoes them for use. Maybe Amtrak should look into this idea, or even renting already useable cars off of Museums, at least until there can be more regular coaches, Superliner or whatever. I’d suggest taking a look at the Supers first, as a lot of trains use them. I personally would consider some more Tranistion Sleepers as well. Because until the new rise levels out, you might need the ability to tack on single level cars as needed. But the bottom line is, they need more equipment last month. What they really want is money.
BTW: Amtrak Californi as at least partially funded by CA. So Regional considerations are out. And they;ll need a whole heck of a lot more than 6.
I don’t think anyone else mentioned it, but Amtrak dropped the Heritage sleepers because they couldn’t be easily retrofitted to retenetion toilet systems.
Structurally and mechanically there was not reason they couldn’t continue in service indefinitely.
Economically, they are not as attractive as the Superliners and Viewliners - less capacity for nearly the same wt. and complexity.
How about getting those out of service Amfleet back in service as a first step?
Don – I incurred the scorn of Samantha for suggesting that the size of the bad-ordered or dead-lined Amcoach fleet should be made public knowledge to guide opinion makers in the advocacy community rather than being reserved for “need-to-know” members of state DOT agencies and the like.
Samantha was of the opinion that the bad-ordered or dead line fleet was only about 20 cars or so. Someone else on another thread counted 86 cars parked at Beech Grove using Google Earth.
You had indicated that there was a somewhat larger pool of Amfleets “off the active-duty roster” as they say in the NFL, put there not to incur the cost of FRA inspections and so on. Kind of like telling DMV that Dad’s old van is only driven on the farm or kept in the barn and not taken on public roads.
How many cars are we talking about, and what kind of money to put them in service? Samantha indicated that CalTrans negotiated for a couple Superliners (to match their high-level gangway Surfliners) and is paying a million a piece for rebuilding. Were those wrecked Superliners you suppose, or is a major overhaul going to cost a cool million in a day when a new one might be 3 million or more, if you could get anyone to build one in low quantities?
As to Heritage Sleepers, my understanding is that VIA Canada has a lot of them. Do the bathrooms contribute to the environment in the manner of the moose or the elk, or have they been outfited with retention tanks?
“Scorn” means: 1) open dislike and disrespect or derision often mixed with indignation; 2) an expression of contempt or derision, or 3) an object of extreme disdain, contempt, or derision.
I don’t think anything that I said about making bad order car information available to the general public fits the definition of scorn. I said, in a nutshell, that Amtrak did not have an obligation make this information available to people who did not have a need to know it. Moreover, I said that people with a legitimate need to know the information could get it through proper channels. And I pointed out in a follow-up posting some of the incremental cost that Amtrak could incur if it posted the information in an open net.
I did not say anything about the number of bad order cars because I don’t have that information. I did, however, say that according to Amtrak’s monthly operating report, during May 2008 approximately 12.4 per cent of the passenger car fleet was out of service and, moreover, for the fiscal year to date, the average percentage of bad order cars was about 14 per cent.
Amtrak may get funding to repair some damaged, out of service Amfleet cars thanks to Sen. Durbin (D-IL).
Previous writers have pointed out why Heritage cars are an unlikely source of relief.
- Few, if any, coaches are in Amtrak’s hands.
- Conversion of sleepers to coaches also costly, including need to buy seats and to retro-fit with retention toilet and wheelchair lift, just in case anyone is wondering.
Returning cars to service is a stop-gap measure to enhance capacity for existing services and allows the fastest implementaion. This does not address in any significant way the needs for new equipment for service expansion or for more appropriate equipment for the service environment.
I’m going to have to check, but I suspect the bad order % probably excludes “stored bad order”. Stored cars are typically not counted in RR fleet availability metrics.
And 12.4% out of service is a very high number!
The opportunity to attract new riders to existing trains is right now! …if it isn’t too late already. The price of gasoline is dropping now - the tide is starting to go out.
This is the time to catch the wave by getting those out of service cars back in action, then figure out what new equipment you need to retain them and grow some more.
Spent some time along the coast on vacation, hence the ocean metaphors…
" Amtrak should rebuild the old Heritage Budd Coaches and Sleepers so they can relieve crowding on most of the Amtrak trains."
For the first eights months of FY 2008 Amtrak carried approximately 18.4 million passengers. Of these 376,539 or 2.04 per cent booked space in a sleeping car. This percentage is in line with the ratio of sleeping car to coach and business class passengers for the FY ended September 30, 2007.
The average system wide load factor through the end of May was 49.2 per cent, up from 46.2 per cent for the corresponding 2007 period. Ridership for the first eight months of FY 2008 was up 10.9 per cent over 2007. The figures for each route vary.
The average load factors, as examples, were 63.9 per cent for the Acela; 52.6 per cent for the Northeast Corridor; 35.9 per cent for the Hiawatha’s; 34.5 per cent for the Keystone service; 44.2 per cent for the St. Louis service; 35.1 per cent for the Empire trains; 33.8 per cent for the Pacific Surfliners, and 28 per cent for the Capitols.
Clearly, on some routes, for select trains, on certain days, i.e. Friday and Sunday nights, the load factors may approach or even exceed 100 per cent. In many instances the high load factor may only exist for a relatively short distance. For example, the load factor on trains between New York and Philadelphia is higher than the load factor south of Philly. Also the load factor between New York and Albany or Chicago and Springfield tends to be higher than the load factor west of Albany or south of Springfield.
To hear some reporters tell it Amtrak is busting at the seams. But the average load factors don’t support the story.
The problem requires further analysis. The question is when, where, how often, and to what extent does the bursting at the seams occur?
If all the trains departing Chicago, for example, between 3:00 and 6:00 p.m. on a Friday are sold out,
Amtrak should start running trains like THIS!
Samantha:
As you know I am a supporter of rail however you bring out the problems of load factors that I have only alluded to. By not knowing what european load factors are and only travelled them I can only speculate as follows. First the lack of periodic service on routes severly limits the people who can travel and that causes certain legs to be oversold. The old method of the BN skip stops has many advantages that may be applied to certain routes. Next is the inherrent lack of riders on certain legs that is not addressed at all. Southern RR used to run the Cresent south of Atlanta on three days of the week. The only time of overloads was at mardi gras time and they would sometimes run a second section then. At first AMTRAK would take off 1 or 2 coaches in Atlanta southbound with their daily service. However now that is no longer the case. (Problems with costs switching out and in I was told). The other end of the Cresent from Charlottesville - Washington being sold out has been addressed here many times. If Virginia gets the second train Charlottesville - Wash in place maybe that leg could be limited to not allow local passengers on the Cresent and increase the whole load factor of the train end to end. This is also a problem on the Florida route.
You cited the NEC and ACELA and those figures lean towards my conclusion. Not knowing enough about the other routes their choke points are hard to know. Since you were in the airline business you remember how multiple stop routes will have the same type choke points which I believe led to hub and spoke systems to balance available seats to demand. Believe it or not the airline load factors in the 1960 and 70s was in the low 60% range and off season would be below 50% (sound familiar?). But peak holidays would approach 90%.
Now if the out of service equipment that is not in running condition is upgraded and used on peak days only the equipment can be kept on running condition and the
Certainly, it doesn’t pay to own an extra coach if it’s only going to make one trip on Friday PM and one trip on Sunday each week.
But, what if you planned to have 100% of your fleet available on Friday afternoons and Sundays. That is, you don’t plan to do any scheduled maintenance on those days. Further, you plan your bad order repairs to insure they are complete by Friday afternoon each week.
Certainly, some cars will drop out of service unexpectedly, but instead of having 12% of your fleet in the shop on Friday PM, maybe you could manage it down to 3% or so.
Does Amtrak operate this way now or do they tend to staff their shops to run M-F, 8-4?
A bill recently introduced in Congress would appoint a committee to write specifications for the purchase of new passenger cars. The committee would consist of various interested parties, such as the FRA, as well as Amtrak representatives.
It isn’t clear to me if they are talking about the NE corridor, Superliner compatible or high speed equipment. Perhaps they deliberately didn’t specify that. It will be interesting to see what (if anything) comes of it.