Passenger Trains > "Amtrak begins $28 million upgrade on sleeper cars and coaches"

https://thepointsguy.com/news/amtrak-comfort-upgrades/

28 mil. 450 cars. Just over 62 k per car. Refresh is long overdue so it's all good.

Hopefully they will begin with 62 cars in 'storage'.  They must get ALL cars out of Beech Grove and running daily.  Even the cars that have been in wrecks.  Most can be repaired, even at high cost.  Given the cost of new cars ($4M or more) repairing wrecked cars is a bargain.  

This "upgrade project" was announced nearly 1.5 years ago, begun, but didn't get very far before it was stopped. Not sure if it really got beyond prototypes. Very similar wording to the first announcement. Nonetheless, I do hope the upgrades go through and it returns sleeper cars (and coaches to service). Originally Amtrak was going to do this "refresh" for the Superliners right at Chicago. There's already plenty of cars parked awaiting to be restored back to service that can be worked on. So this is NOT the reason why Amtrak has reduced capacity on trains - to fulfill the upgrade project....The links in this article also leads to an article about new "cafe menu options." BUT, that's already been in effect for a while too......with the additional cafe options (including vegan and vegetarian) weighted more towards the NEC cafe menu, NOT the National Cafe Menu. This doesn't seem to be completely new news........Lets just hope the upgrades lead to capacity increases on various Amtrak train sets that have been lacking adequate capacity.....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/22 08:49 by jp1822.

MEKoch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hopefully they will begin with 62 cars in
> 'storage'.  They must get ALL cars out of Beech
> Grove and running daily.  Even the cars that have
> been in wrecks.  Most can be repaired, even at
> high cost.  Given the cost of new cars ($4M or
> more) repairing wrecked cars is a bargain.  

Yes, just start first with the cars in storage........

Can't wait till someone throws the TO wet blanket on this.

ChrisCampi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 28 mil. 450 cars. Just over 62 k per car. Refresh
> is long overdue so it's all good.

It costs $35K to reactive a stored car without even vacuuming the floor. 

About time, let's hope they can keep doing this and yeah get the stored cars knocked out 1ST! Now, PUT COACH PASSENGERS BACK INTO THE DINING CAR!! How hard is that!

ProAmtrak Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> About time, let's hope they can keep doing this
> and yeah get the stored cars knocked out 1ST! Now,
> PUT COACH PASSENGERS BACK INTO THE DINING CAR!!
> How hard is that!

I can see benefits to keeping the dining cashless, the menu without prices, etc.

One simple option would be to allow coach passengers to buy dining car meals in advance at the time of ticketing. Effectively a "meals only" service upgrade.

Posted from Android

Their goal is not to go cashless. Business class on the Coast Starlight in the diner must use cash, and a lot of it. It was cashless for sleeper passengers so as to blend the food service accounting with accommodation charges so that not even the nosiest auditor could figure it out.

They have to start from scratch. All the dining car staffs Anderson kicked out to the street have vanished because it was so long ago, and that was a year before Covid. Remember also the management buyouts. There is no institutional knowledge at Amtrak on how to do anything.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/22 17:36 by joemvcnj.

Nice idea! But who knows if Ammanagment's gonna finally get Amtrak 100% back to normal, the upgrades is great, but come on, how hard is it!

$28 million seem like such chicken feed - when you consider the multi BILLIONS Amtrak has at it's disposal 
under the yet-untappd In-fracture law.

But, if $28 million is all they need for this project, I think it's great.

(whats not so great, is all those new Siemens coaches in storage -  and whatever is stored in Florida.}

Wolverine350 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Can't wait till someone throws the TO wet blanket
> on this.

Amtrak beat us to it by budgeting $62,000 per car. 

stuporchief Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Wolverine350 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Can't wait till someone throws the TO wet
> blanket
> > on this.
>
> Amtrak beat us to it by budgeting $62,000 per
> car. 


Yes, that wouldn't go very far, it would seem.

Posted from Android

Here is Amtrak's original announcement from 15 months ago
https://media.amtrak.com/2021/06/amtrak-makes-major-customer-experience-investments-in-comfort-and-modernization-on-national-network-routes/
Has anyone seen any evidence of the promised comfort upgrades?
Andy

twropr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here is Amtrak's original announcement from 15
> months ago
> https://media.amtrak.com/2021/06/amtrak-makes-majo
> r-customer-experience-investments-in-comfort-and-m
> odernization-on-national-network-routes/
> Has anyone seen any evidence of the promised
> comfort upgrades?
> Andy

Been riding Amtrak since this was announced the 15 months ago - Viewliners and Superliners, along with various trains in East and West. No mention of anything onboard by crew, and no evidence in anything I've ridden or seen in the yards. As mentioned, the only thing I heard was that Amtrak had done prototypes of the different cars, was planning to do this work in the Chicago yards, did the nice marketing photos, but then plan got put on hold. Presuming the "hold" was due to staffing/labor issues. The $28M is an absolute bargain of a price. Can't imagine how that gets stretched to do the amount of cars they claim to do. But, hopefully something will unfold. Amtrak said it made some progress in hiring.......hopefully it's mechanical forces as its getting to be slim pickings out there!!!

twropr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here is Amtrak's original announcement from 15
> months ago
> https://media.amtrak.com/2021/06/amtrak-makes-majo
> r-customer-experience-investments-in-comfort-and-m
> odernization-on-national-network-routes/
> Has anyone seen any evidence of the promised
> comfort upgrades?

Yes.

But you'd actually have to ride the trains to notice.

"Sleeper cars"--blecchh!