Passenger Trains > Stinky Superliner..

Me and the wife have been in sleeping car 0330 since CHI en route to LAX, about to hit Gallup-- its been 1500 miles of sewage smell..

Seems like this isn't what people pay thousands of dollars for... I have rode the Flyer, the Eagle, and now the Chief in the last week, I love Amtrak but this seems a bit unacceptable. Certainly doesn't get your stomach in the mood for Dinner.

Any tips? What causes this? Obviously its in the ventilation system.

I have stuffed the vent with towels... its a feeble attempt..

The attendant Milton is great.. but it seems his hands are tied in regards to being able to resolve the issue.. Air Fresheners were put in at ABQ but that lasted all but a couple miles...

Also-- I guess ABQ forgot to turn the water back on for our car before leaving... isn't it great!

Contact Amtrak's Customer Service Department and, more than likely, they'll give you a voucher worth a certain amount of money so you can redeem it for a future similar experience . . .

CA_Sou_MA_Agent Wrote:
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> Contact Amtrak's Customer Service Department and,
> more than likely, they'll give you a voucher worth
> a certain amount of money so you can redeem it for
> a future similar experience . . .

LOL!! You can almost hear the laughter from where you are at from the both of us in Room D.

I have commented to Amtrak about B/O air conditioning on sleeper trips in the past, and they compensated us very generously in future travel credits. It's always a crap shoot on what kind of trip you are going to get, but if you get in touch with them and are willing to try again, you may get a pretty good down payment on your next adventure with them.

Have you asked to change cars? I see there is one roomette out of Flagstaff, but then again it might be in your sewage car.

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com

The last time we rode the Zephyr to Chicago about 6 years ago or so the stench was pretty bad and all of us sleeper px were given aerosol sprays to try to relieve the problem. Attendant said it had been a problem in this car for months and for some reason no one could get it fixed. Obviously some things never change.
C.

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

Oh ,the incompetence of Chicago to get a L-D train ready. It is pathetic. I guess they can't fire the incompetants who do not do their jobs. Three times I've experienced out of order, smelly bathrooms in coaches on #5 and #3 before we left Illinois. Once on a sleeper from Albq. to Riverside on #3 in 2002,I paid over $300 extra to ride in a sleeper with an overpowering sewer smell. Albq wasn't able to fix my car either. All I got from Amtrak was a voucher for $139. That ended my desire to travel cross country on Amtrak as I had done many times since 1979.

Ever wonder why so many people join tha Amtrak "Never Again" club. If you never fear being fired for your lousy attitude and incompetence, why bother to care or give a damn. That seems to be the attitude of today's entitlement society. The damn world and those dumb bastards that work hard just have not learned to get it for free. Do not expect it to ever get better in our lifetime. You owe me.

CA_Sou_MA_Agent Wrote:
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> Contact Amtrak's Customer Service Department and,
> more than likely, they'll give you a voucher worth
> a certain amount of money so you can redeem it for
> a future similar experience . . .

Thanks. I had just taken a sip of coffee when I started reading your post. It's now all over my laptop. And my dog. He's pissed. I'm still laughing.

Does Amtrak management realize they have a problem there? It seems every week you hear of something going wrong. Given that 14th street is the second most important terminal in the system why isn't management all over this or are they given the management changes occurring right now. Are union/management relations just that bad but we the paying passengers are getting screwed. It would be nice if Amtrak as a whole would figure out that the passenger comes First and act accordingly. I know this has been the company's problem for 40 years but given the country's political issues it could finally catch up with them. I know these employees are only a small minority but they could bring everything down. BOTTOM LINE AMTRAK NEEDS TO REALIZE THIS AND ACT!!!!!!!

What causes this? It is called hydrogen sulfide, also known as sewer gas. It attacks a lot of things like concrete sewer pipe if the sewer line was designed with very little slope and the sewage is in the line too long, and that is when the gas forms. It also attacks copper, and that is what Amtrak used originally, but a lot of the older cars had the lines replaced with PVC pipe. My guess is that now the newer cars are having the same problem. If the cars sit around in the yards with half a tank of sewage, the gas can do a lot of damage to copper lines and that allows the gas to escape.

I took the Chief to Chicago about a year ago and I will say that none of the three sleepers had the slightest whiff of sewer gas.

I was in the concrete pipe industry and hydrogen sulfide was our biggest enemy.

Nav

Solution to problem. Worked for years. Just cut a little hole in the bottom of the car and there goes the poop, right onto the track. Instant fertilizer. Tolilets are locked at major stations. VIA used that system on the Budd cars up until a few years ago. Never a problem with frozen toilets in the harsh Canadian winters. But no, the environmentalist wackos would be against that. Funny though. It seems to work just fine on trains in other parts of the world. But I guess pretty impossible on a Superliner to get the waste two floors down to the tracks!

I just dont want to hang around when the feces impacts the mechanical cooling apparatus!

andersonb109 Wrote:
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> Solution to problem. Worked for years. Just cut a
> little hole in the bottom of the car and there
> goes the poop, right onto the track. Instant
> fertilizer. Tolilets are locked at major stations.
> VIA used that system on the Budd cars up until a
> few years ago. Never a problem with frozen toilets
> in the harsh Canadian winters. But no, the
> environmentalist wackos would be against that.
> Funny though. It seems to work just fine on trains
> in other parts of the world. But I guess pretty
> impossible on a Superliner to get the waste two
> floors down to the tracks!
Yup..that would solve it..don't forget corncobs to replace toilet paper. I highly recommend white popcorn cobs for first class.

The reason that it was changed from dropping(your load) onto the tracks was due to a incident back in the late 70"s if I remember right.
What happened was that a track/bridge workers were underneath a bridge in I think Florida when a Passenger Train went over the bridge and someone just happen to flush a toilet at which time all of the waste dumped on the workers below. After all of the lawsuits the RR made changes which included holding tanks for waste. Plus the Greenies were on the gripe also.

One thing that has come up in conversation on this topic, what are the health ramifications of breathing this foul air for an extended period of time?

mp51w Wrote:
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> One thing that has come up in conversation on this
> topic, what are the health ramifications of
> breathing this foul air for an extended period of
> time?

You end up with a crappy outlook on life.

andersonb109 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Solution to problem. Worked for years. Just cut a
> little hole in the bottom of the car and there
> goes the poop, right onto the track. Instant
> fertilizer. Tolilets are locked at major stations.
> VIA used that system on the Budd cars up until a
> few years ago. Never a problem with frozen toilets
> in the harsh Canadian winters. But no, the
> environmentalist wackos would be against that.
> Funny though. It seems to work just fine on trains
> in other parts of the world. But I guess pretty
> impossible on a Superliner to get the waste two
> floors down to the tracks!

Great, and for all the MOW workers out there walking and working on the tracks, they will be more than happy to dump a load on your front porch.

We had a similar problem on #6 Reno to Chicago this past July. Whenever a toilet was flushed, a pulse of nasty odor came out the vents, lasted a minute or so. Suspected holding tank valves not closing properly. We were in h/c room, lower level, don't have the sleeper no. handy. Phone calls and some long waits for a agent resulted in a $250 credit for future travel good for one year. Return on #5 in a different sleeper about 2 weeks later was OK.

Actually, I heard that it was a Senator or Congressman fishing under a bridge in Florida that one of the Silver trains to Florida were traveling over when someone on the train flushed the toilet at the wrong time. I heard that this was why the change happened must faster than any Environmentalist could have caused or made happen. Congress has the power to do what they feel needs to be done.