Passenger Trains > Three Down Two To Go

The next shipment of Viewliner II Sleepers departed CAF Elmira Heights, NY this morning. After these three there will be one more trip to be made to pick up the last two.
1. AMTK 62521 Tombigbee River
2. AMTK 62520 Tiffin River
3. AMTK 62522 Trout River

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Then, end of an era. There will never again be another Viewliner produced and a sad commentary on manufacturing in America. 

What makes you say never again? The future is only written in pencil, not ink.

TomG Wrote:
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> What makes you say never again? The future is only written in pencil, not ink.

A Viewliner is a 1980's car built in 2020. Its design is 30 years obsolete. Who do you think will ever make them ? CAF ? Nobody willl ask them to, and they wouldn't want to after this fiasco. SIemens has their own car. Nippon-Sharyo left the continent. Bombardier belongs to Alstom. They are not going to takeover this design. 

joemvcnj Wrote:
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> TomG Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > What makes you say never again? The future is
> only written in pencil, not ink.
>
> A Viewliner is a 1980's car built in 2020. Its
> design is 30 years obsolete. Who do you think
> will ever make them ? CAF ? Nobody willl ask them
> to, and they wouldn't want to after this fiasco.
> SIemens has their own car. Nippon-Sharyo left the
> continent. Bombardier belongs to Alstom. They are
> not going to takeover this design. 

A bit early to say that CAF won't continue onward if a large single-level fleet order was started. I wouldn't at all be surprised if the entire long-distance fleet will become a mixture of CAF and Siemens. 

Where will Amtrak be parking them? Presumably Hialeah?

When would they be bound for Hialeah? 

Maybe Amtrak can get the Viewliner II Sleepers in operation and by that time VIA Rail Canada will look to purchase the Viewliner I's perhaps to replace some of their stainless steel Sleepers - be it for Maritime or Western Canada service. 

My disdain for Amtrak's utilization of the Viewliner Sleeper Cars is longstanding and has been duly noted - on this forum and elsewhere! At this point in time, I think one of the best things Amtrak could do is convert the Capitol Limited back to a single level train set to try and utilize more of the single level sleepers cause I just don't see them doing what was initially intended for these Viewliner II Sleepers:

1) To expand existing eastern LD overnight train sets.
2) Give the Pennsylvanian through cars to Chicago via the Capitol Limited. 

Amtrak did have in mind to re-instate sleeper service on the Northeast Corridor - and that is presently in place, but who knows for how long...... 

Amtrak has enough single level sleeper cars to put on the Capitol Limited, a baggage car, and a Viewliner II Diner. What's potentially an issue is trying to find enough Amfleet II's. However, if the Venture cars get placed into service, Amtrak could look at modifying some Amfleets that may be operating in the Midwest to become low density coaches for say the Pennsylvanian and other long distance day trains, and transferring the Amfleet II's to the Capitol Limited. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the Capitol Limited with Superliner equipment. I think the Superliner equipment is far superior (when operating with original setup of dorm/sleeper, sleeper, diner, sightseer, coach etc.). But if the Capitol Limited's equipment can be transferred to create a second Portland sleeper or third sleeper for the CA Zephyr year-round, then so be it.  

Amtrak has absolutely NO plan on how to FULLY utilize the Viewliner I AND Viewliner II sleeper fleet (even to use 60 of the Viewliner Sleepers and keeping 15 in reserve). Amtrak has only been REPLACING a Viewliner II for a Viewliner I, not "adding" to the overall sleeper inventory that could be sold. And there's no reason to have 20% of the combined fleet in reserve as Amtrak once dictated for the Viewliner Sleeper (39 in regular assignments with 11 floating for maintenance, spares, etc.). Even if they rotate 3 Viewliner I Sleepers into maintenance and other upgrading, that leaves at least 12 around for spare and regular maintenance rotation. Typically things are done in three's. 

At present, Amtrak is only using 41 Viewliner for daily assignments/operations. 

And who knows what or where the Bag/Dorm cars will make most sense.....If traditional dining comes to the Eastern LD overnight trains, the crew gets there own car back and it frees up the revenue sleepers once again!

joemvcnj Wrote:
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>
> A Viewliner is a 1980's car built in 2020. Its
> design is 30 years obsolete. Who do you think
> will ever make them ? CAF ? Nobody willl ask them
> to, and they wouldn't want to after this fiasco.
> SIemens has their own car. Nippon-Sharyo left the
> continent. Bombardier belongs to Alstom. They are
> not going to takeover this design. 

You're probably correct, but the company that could build another order is the one that came in at #2 for the very Il-fated CAF order, and the one that should have gotten the contract - Kawasaki in Lincoln, NE.  They would have finished the order 10 years ago.  What a shame that Amtrak went with CAF, who had a very poor track record of such massive delays.  But they were the low-bidder, so......

The original deployment plan for VL-II sleepers was to add 1 such car to each LD consist, possibly daily Cardinal, and extended Pennsylvanian to Chicago.That was also the financing plan, which came from the operating budget - incremental revenue from their deployment. That all fell apart under Boardman's lack of leadership skills who simply wanted to make no waves and maintain status quo, Anderson shredding the whole thing as he was intent on dismantling the national network, and letting go of anyone else in management who knew anything. 

When the Three Rivers was running, 8 or 10 Horizon cars had LD seating configuration. Current 60-seat Amfleet-1 once had leg rests and were in LD service before the Superliners came along. Some can be converted back to LD for the daily Cardinal, extended Pennsylvanian, if not the Capitol Ltd. 

As the present low level cars in the Mid-West Corridor trains are released, they again can receive leg rest seats.

Another train that could be converted to low level is the City of New Orleans.

Between the two trains  equipment to meet the demands of the remaining Superliner trains.

jp1822 Wrote:
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> Maybe Amtrak can get the Viewliner II Sleepers in
> operation and by that time VIA Rail Canada will
> look to purchase the Viewliner I's perhaps to
> replace some of their stainless steel Sleepers -
> be it for Maritime or Western Canada service. 

Why would Canada buy junk from the USA?

DevalDragon Wrote:
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> jp1822 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Maybe Amtrak can get the Viewliner II Sleepers
> in
> > operation and by that time VIA Rail Canada will
> > look to purchase the Viewliner I's perhaps to
> > replace some of their stainless steel Sleepers
> -
> > be it for Maritime or Western Canada service. 
>
> Why would Canada buy junk from the USA?

Two reasons:

1) They may need new sleepers and get desperate, especially if the price is right. 
2) They've bought Amtrak cars before and for the most part have had success in renovating them - from lemons to lemonade.......                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

The new CAF Viewliner cars have been defective since the first bag was delivered. The cars were sway backed (no camber) in the car body, but no corrective action? When the CAF sleepers were beginning to be delivered, the condition was only worse as very evident by images posted here on TO. Why were these cars accepted with that condition? Look at the Amfleet and Horizon cars. Great camber, as visible on many images posted on TO, and they have been in service for many many years with hundreds of thousands of miles or more on them. Even VIA's Heritage Budd cars still have good camber. It's entirely possible that the CAF cars will have premature side sill/center sill failure due to engineering/construction issues and not get to a 40 year life cycle. Not good.

jp1822 Wrote:
>
> Two reasons:
>
> 1) They may need new sleepers and get desperate,
> especially if the price is right. 
> 2) They've bought Amtrak cars before and for the
> most part have had success in renovating them -
> from lemons to lemonade.......             

Those were rock solid Budd cars. Viewliner-I's are anything but. (David Gun called them "junk")
VIA also bought five 10-6 Heritage HEP sleepers for the Hudson Bay, but seldom used them. 
Notice the HEP-II corridor coaches and HEP-I LD coaches are getting a major overhaul, but not the LRC coaches. Guess which cars will survive the onslaught of new Siemens corridor equipment ? 

They'll buy Siemens cars, which can be made as sleepers for fleet standardization, assuming they can fix the lead in the water. 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/21 05:07 by joemvcnj.

> a sad commentary on manufacturing in America.

Manufacturing in America is alive and well. Even adjusting for inflation, the market value of manufactured goods is four times what it was in 1960. The differences are in what's being manufactured, how many people are employed in manufacturing (from 32% in 1960 to 11% in 2015), and what type of transport is used for inputs and outputs.

Pharmaceutical manufacture, for example, is a huge business compared to 1960. But the factories are automated, all the finished products are transported by truck, and only some of the inputs are transported by rail. 

The trade deficits speak for themselves. 

I was also thinking of quality. Rail car plants of CAF, Bombardier, and CRRC have had to be told and retrained day after day on how to weld, and most of what they build is still years late. (Viewliner-II, CTA 5K's, NYCTA R179's, Boston subway cars). Nippon-Sharyo left the country. They didn't even want to do a buffer test until they were forced to, wanting it done "virtually", and the car was wrecked at 798,000 lbs. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/21 07:03 by joemvcnj.

joemvcnj Wrote:
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> Then, end of an era. There will never again be
> another Viewliner produced and a sad commentary on
> manufacturing in America. 


As others have pointed out the Viewliners are an old design. My bet is any new sleeping car built here will be based on European designs like the double deck  sleepers but by Skoda for the Finnish railway or similar design cars built by Alstom.

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jp1822 Wrote:
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> And who knows what or where the Bag/Dorm cars will
> make most sense.....If traditional dining comes to
> the Eastern LD overnight trains, the crew gets
> there own car back and it frees up the revenue
> sleepers once again!

Traditional dining IS returning to the Eastern overnight trains. Amtrak announced it a week or so ago and it was reported as such by Trains Magazine News Wire. It will be phased in (presumably as the Viewliner Diners are modified to accommodate it and crews hired and rehired.

Art House

Just curious if you have any info on when the final movement will take place. Thanks!

DivergingClear Wrote:
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> Just curious if you have any info on when the
> final movement will take place. Thanks!

It has been an average of six to eight weeks between deliveries.

I wonder what it would take, if even possible, to send unused viewliner baggage cars back to Hornell for conversion to coaches?