Passenger Trains > No Sightseer Lounge on the Texas Eagle?

I read on another site that the Texas Eagle no longer has it's Sightseer Lounge. It only has the Cross-Country Cafe. Is this true?

I think the Eagle had only a Cross-Country Cafe when I was on 421 last month.

No. 21 that left Chicago on Feb. 3, had a cross country diner (37015) and a sightseer lounge (33005). No. 22 that left San Antonio on Feb. 4, had diner 37001 and sightseer lounge 33029. That's my personal observation from my latest trip. (See my post of 01/04 from onboard.)

I have been seeing 21 and 22 both with Sightseer Lounges and Cross Country Diners on them ever since I moved here to De Soto, MO in October. There has been a few times where it was Diner only, but 95% of the time they have had both.
Drew Mitchem
De Soto, MO

A couple times recently it has been necessary to turn Train 58's (The City of New Orleans) equipment in Chicago to represent Train 21 (The Texas Eagle). When this happens, it generally results in no full lounge on the train as the "City" does not carry one. Normally, a Sightseer is assigned to the Eagle.

Silver Sky

I was aboard The Eagle a total of 4 times in January, and all 4 times had both Sightseer and one of those piece of junk Cross Country Cafes....and on 2 of those 4 trips only first class was served due to equipment malfunctions. AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

you can thank TEMPO for that lounge. They are the only reason the Eagle got to keep the sightseer lounge.


City of New Orleans = no advocacy group = no sightseer lounge

9900 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> you can thank TEMPO for that lounge. They are
> the only reason the Eagle got to keep the
> sightseer lounge.
>
>
> City of New Orleans = no advocacy group = no
> sightseer lounge

The Sunset Limited has an advocacy group based in New Orleans. Maybe they should also focus on the City Of New Orleans.

Tony

Since Jan 30 through Feb 12, find only one day of no sightseer, which was 5 Feb.

Must have gone b/o and no replacement ready.

There were plans for the Texas Eagle to loose its Superliner Sightseer Lounge as a result of the "Cross Country" cafe replacing the "full service" Superliner Diner, as I distinguish these two Superliner food cars as. But thankfully a grass roots effort - TEMPO- has allowed for the Superliner Sightseer Lounge to continue operation, even in the off season. Amtrak had contemplated just operating the Superliner Sightseer Lounge in peak season only on the Texas Eagle. So glad Amtrak has reconsidered. And all food service is supposed to be handled out of the Superliner "Cross Country Cafe" or diner-lite car, but some have noted that they've still used the lower level of the Sightseer Lounge car, which was only supposed to have the upper level open.

Overall, I think Amtrak has realized the Superliner "diner-lite" model is not up to par (aka the Cross Country Cafe). Thus the passenger experience is still greatly enhanced and needed with a Superliner Sightseer Lounge car. The City of New Orleans likely gets away without a Superliner Sightseer Lounge car due to its overall short trip and turnover along the route. It's end point to end point route is likely equal to that of the Capitol Limited, but I think you would find Capitol Limited passengers in an uproar if the Superliner Sightseer Lounge was removed, as most passengers travel end-point to end-point (or majority of the route). Course there is a descent amount of turnover at Pittsburgh.

If Amtrak is short on equipment at Chicago, it will often revert to old tricks whereby the Texas Eagle and City of New Orleans share equipment. This occurred when Amtrak was in a desperate situation with wrecked Superliner cars sitting at Beech Grove. Eventually Amtrak, through David Gunn, got some wrecked cars rebuilt/fixed and back out on the road. So much so that even the Southwest Chief and Capitol Limited no longer had to do same day run-throughs at Chicago.

I rode the Texas Eagle CHI to MRC (Phoenix) each way a month ago. Had the sightseer lounge on both trips (and the Diner Lite). And there was certainly someone selling stuff out of the lower level of the sightseer.