Passenger Trains > V-II updates wanted

Does anyone have accurate information on the number of V-II sleepers and diners in operation?

I know that Amtrak has accepted 25 sleepers and 25 diners.

The Lake Shore is using 1 sleeper and 1 diner in each of its 3 trainsets...a total of 3 cars each.

The Silver trains are using 1 - 2 sleepers per train and 1 diner...a total of 12 sleepers and 6 diners in its 6 trainsets.

Don't believe the Crescent or Cardinal have any V-II sleepers or diners.

If my assumptions are anywhere near accurate, not counting protection cars in New York and Chicago, Amtrak has 10 sleepers and 16 diners sitting in the weeds or being used as axle count cars.

Accurate?

 

fulham Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Does anyone have accurate information on the
> number of V-II sleepers and diners in operation?
>
> I know that Amtrak has accepted 25 sleepers and 25
> diners.
>
> The Lake Shore is using 1 sleeper and 1 diner in
> each of its 3 trainsets...a total of 3 cars each.
>
> The Silver trains are using 1 - 2 sleepers per
> train and 1 diner...a total of 12 sleepers and 6
> diners in its 6 trainsets.
>
> Don't believe the Crescent or Cardinal have any
> V-II sleepers or diners.
>
> If my assumptions are anywhere near accurate, not
> counting protection cars in New York and Chicago,
> Amtrak has 10 sleepers and 16 diners sitting in
> the weeds or being used as axle count cars.
>
> Accurate?
>
>  

The cardinal is using a viewliner II sleeper and a viewliner II baggage dorm.

Posted from iPhone

Diners are largely yard ornaments, but there are multiple reports that the Cardinal is using V-II sleepers.

Posted from Android

fulham Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Does anyone have accurate information on the
> number of V-II sleepers and diners in operation?
>
> I know that Amtrak has accepted 25 sleepers and 25
> diners.
>
> The Lake Shore is using 1 sleeper and 1 diner in
> each of its 3 trainsets...a total of 3 cars each.
>
> The Silver trains are using 1 - 2 sleepers per
> train and 1 diner...a total of 12 sleepers and 6
> diners in its 6 trainsets.
>
> Don't believe the Crescent or Cardinal have any
> V-II sleepers or diners.
>
> If my assumptions are anywhere near accurate, not
> counting protection cars in New York and Chicago,
> Amtrak has 10 sleepers and 16 diners sitting in
> the weeds or being used as axle count cars.
>
> Accurate?

Last I heard the the 25 or so cars not in service you speak of are rusting to the rails in the Miami yard. 

fulham Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Does anyone have accurate information on the
> number of V-II sleepers and diners in operation?
>
> I know that Amtrak has accepted 25 sleepers and 25
> diners.
>
> The Lake Shore is using 1 sleeper and 1 diner in
> each of its 3 trainsets...a total of 3 cars each.
>
> The Silver trains are using 1 - 2 sleepers per
> train and 1 diner...a total of 12 sleepers and 6
> diners in its 6 trainsets.
>
> Don't believe the Crescent or Cardinal have any
> V-II sleepers or diners.
>
> If my assumptions are anywhere near accurate, not
> counting protection cars in New York and Chicago,
> Amtrak has 10 sleepers and 16 diners sitting in
> the weeds or being used as axle count cars.
>
> Accurate?

Yoiur math is not right. 
There are 8 Silver train sets, 4 Creccent, 2 Cardinal, 3 Lake Shore

That means 11 of 25 diners in use
Each Silver Meteor has 3 sleepers, Silver Star has 2, Cardinal has 1, Crescent has 2. Lake SHore has 3.  
So of 75 Sleepers that exist, 36 are used each day. 
 

Wow.  I don't know of many companies that use only half of their revenue assets and stay in business...

Oh, wait.  Billions and billions of dollars will fix it all.

That doesn't even mention the 90 baggage cars, most of which are not in use. 
Perhaps Amtrak should be forced to suspend their Airo train set order until they make use of the last set of cars we bought them

Crescent has zero new equipment and they never brought back the diner. The best car on that train is the crew dorm/baggage as thats V-II. Passengers get the old product. 

joemvcnj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yoiur math is not right. 
> There are 8 Silver train sets, 4 Creccent, 2
> Cardinal, 3 Lake Shore
>
> That means 11 of 25 diners in use
> Each Silver Meteor has 3 sleepers, Silver Star has
> 2, Cardinal has 1, Crescent has 2. Lake SHore has
> 3.  
> So of 75 Sleepers that exist, 36 are used each
> day. 
>

Minor glitch in the math ... 3x4+2x4+1x2+2x4+3x3 = 39, not 36.

AFAICT about 25 or so V1 Sleepers are cooling their heals currently out of service.

Currently 17 V2 Sleepers are in service and the remaining 8 are in protect and PM etc.IMHO 8 is a high number for that, but it is not atypical at Amtrak.

I think 8 or 9 V2 Diners are in mothballs at present, and there is no indication that Amtrak plans to bring them out of there without considerable amount of kick in the butt from someone outside of the dysfunctional management chain of Amtrak.

Keep the emails and calls to Congress coming. 

joemvcnj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> fulham Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Does anyone have accurate information on the
> > number of V-II sleepers and diners in
> operation?
> >
> > I know that Amtrak has accepted 25 sleepers and
> 25
> > diners.
> >
> > The Lake Shore is using 1 sleeper and 1 diner
> in
> > each of its 3 trainsets...a total of 3 cars
> each.
> >
> > The Silver trains are using 1 - 2 sleepers per
> > train and 1 diner...a total of 12 sleepers and
> 6
> > diners in its 6 trainsets.
> >
> > Don't believe the Crescent or Cardinal have any
> > V-II sleepers or diners.
> >
> > If my assumptions are anywhere near accurate,
> not
> > counting protection cars in New York and
> Chicago,
> > Amtrak has 10 sleepers and 16 diners sitting in
> > the weeds or being used as axle count cars.
> >
> > Accurate?
>
> Yoiur math is not right. 
> There are 8 Silver train sets, 4 Creccent, 2
> Cardinal, 3 Lake Shore

4+2+3 equals 9, not 8

Better yet, let's suspend the Auto-Train, which is for rich snow birds, and redeploy the equipment to a daily Cardinal and daily Sunset.  I would be the equipment math would work...

The job is to serve the traveling public, not rich people who want to travel with their cars.


joemvcnj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That doesn't even mention the 90 baggage cars,
> most of which are not in use. 
> Perhaps Amtrak should be forced to suspend their
> Airo train set order until they make use of the
> last set of cars we bought them

When will the empty suit Gardner be held accountable?

Chessie1963 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Better yet, let's suspend the Auto-Train, which is
> for rich snow birds, and redeploy the equipment to
> a daily Cardinal and daily Sunset.  I would be
> the equipment math would work...
>
> The job is to serve the traveling public, not rich
> people who want to travel with their cars.
>
>
> joemvcnj Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > That doesn't even mention the 90 baggage cars,
> > most of which are not in use. 
> > Perhaps Amtrak should be forced to suspend
> their
> > Airo train set order until they make use of the
> > last set of cars we bought them

With all due respect this notion of attacking other services as a tit for tat hurts risks hurting ones' credibility. It also risks starting wars among rail advocates who support the services that are the target of tit for tat. I would argue that those who advocate for a tit for tat attack on other services are not passenger rail advocates. The Auto Train is Amtrak's most successful long distance route and there are many people that ride Auto Train that aren't "rich snow birds." One could take that argument and make it against any train that's running sleeper cars. If the Auto Train is rich people with their cars I guess people riding on the Builder in sleeper are rich people on land cruises.

Annulling the Auto Train would be no problems of supplying Superliners for the Sunset Limited (and Texas Eagle), but the Cardinal is single level?  Do you propose to go back to having the Cardinal operate between DC and Chicago only, if you decide to put Superliner cars on it.?.  There is one issue.  What to do with the Superliner cars that has bedrooms only (those are exclusive to the Auto Train)?

joemvcnj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That doesn't even mention the 90 baggage cars,
> most of which are not in use. 
> Perhaps Amtrak should be forced to suspend their
> Airo train set order until they make use of the
> last set of cars we bought them

us in he Pacific Northwest need those Airo trains, as they willl replace the Horizons (that replace the series 6 Talgos that WSDOT hastely got rid of),     The Airo trains will replace the Amfleet cars.  The non use of baggage cars is the fault of the bean counters and management, by not running them..  

raytc1944 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> When will the empty suit Gardner be held
> accountable?

Since Amtrak is a quasi US Goverment corporation, when the people of the US let their US congressional representive know that they actually care about public long distance train travel in the US.