Passenger Trains > Beech Grove Move

Sent from Chicago to Beech Grove on the head end of 50 yesterday evening.

517 - Shuttle motor
61013 - Buffer car
39043 - Transition Sleeper (Southwest Chief regular) 
34128 - Coach (off the Auto train)

160 led 50 from Indy to DC. Let's see what tomorrow brings us out of the shops...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/24 15:37 by sethamtrak.

Hopefully AMTK 106.

Posted from iPhone

A baggage car being used as a buffer car instead of being added back to the Southwest Chief... what a surprise.

There's only so many of the Viewliner II bags to go around , they don' t operate east of New York or Albany.......not enough to go around I guess.

coah baggs handle the chief, there are not that many passengers

mvrr10 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There's only so many of the Viewliner II bags to
> go around , they don' t operate east of New York
> or Albany.......not enough to go around I guess.

There were enough before they got pulled off the Chief and were available on all western LD trains. That includes some withdrawn for service.

mvrr10 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There's only so many of the Viewliner II bags to
> go around , they don' t operate east of New York
> or Albany.......not enough to go around I guess.

Hope that is a joke! LOL! There's PLENTY of Viewliner II baggage cars in the inventory for all long distance trains and LOTS of other Amtrak trains. Many "long distance day trains" operate in the east with Viewliner II Baggage cars. There were 70 delivered to Amtrak less than a decade ago. Amtrak has stored these cars all over the place since 2018. They were stuffed in the lower catacombs on the north end of Chicago Union Station for the latter part of 2020!

I still contend that Amtrak would have been a LOT better off had they NOT ordered all 70 VIewliner Baggage cars, but instead ordered more like 50 Viewliner Bagg-Dorms (the combo car to get more high end revenue capacity - 9 roomettes in these cars!!!) and 20 Viewliner II Baggage cars. They cut the Viewliner Bagg-Dorm order DOWN from 25 to 10 to get more full baggage cars, largely to help CAF, the manufacturer out. BIG mistake. This could have easily added capacity across the network, not just eastern long distance trains, if Amtrak had qued this up right. The Superliner Trans-Dorm Sleepers have the most roomettes in it and would have been ideal as complete revenue car, with the Viewliner Bagg/Dorm handling just that - baggage and crew. I've NEVER in all my years of riding Amtrak seen a full baggage car on a long distance train. Empire Builder and Coast Starlight trains - came close.... And certainly not with these current train sets. Other than the baggage car on the Capitol Limited providing a buffer between the Superliner Trans-Dorm Sleeper - NO clue why that train is operating with a baggage car at this time. It didn't even have one in the last years before downsized to current five car consist.

Reserve some baggage cars for potential M&E service, but full car - not needed. No way. If M&E traffic grew where they needed full baggage cars, there's other options, but not going there. New LD equipment designs - huge debate on how to design the baggage/utility car.......

To; jp1822   My comment was meant as a joke about not having enough Viewliner II bags ,70  !!   Amtrak changed the mix of bags and bag/dorm/sleepers ending up with too many bags and not enough bag/dorm/sleepers , but it would be easier for CAF to deliver the bags than other cars, so lets make things easier on CAF. As planned over a decade ago there was to be  25 bag/dorm/sleepers,25 diners , 25 sleepers  and 55 bags.      When 448/449 lost its Viewliner bag ,Jan 2019 ? , the crews were told to use a roomette for the luggage storage {lost revenue} and good luck for the sleeper attd. for linen storage and supplies ; the bag was adjacent to the sleepers vestibule and the SCA coud supplies in there and have ready access enroute. The only issues would be when Southampton St Yd,BOS  swapped out the bag , the SCA would contact " the powers that be " and hope that mechanical  could get a forklift to the original bags location unload the old and get it to the new car before the YM would tell the switching crew that  "449s ready for Boston !" , shove it .    Would still be nice to have a sleeper or bag on 66/67.  Some one at Amtrak does have a sense of humor , last year when they announced lower fares on departures  after 7pm they called them Night Owl fares. Oh the pain !

The fact that Amtrak has ANY cars stored, should mean termination for the entire management team.  What an utter failure to grasp an opportunity that is right before their closed eyes.  

MEKoch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The fact that Amtrak has ANY cars stored, should
> mean termination for the entire management team. 
> What an utter failure to grasp an opportunity that
> is right before their closed eyes.  

Amtrak management does not seem to be incentivized to grow revenue, revenue per seat mile, asset utilization, or any of the other metrics companies use to focus management.

Posted from Android

Amtrak has a long history of ordering equipment for yesterday's operations.  The Superliner I diners and Heritage fleet rebuilds with their full kitchens and dishwashing stations all arrived just in time for the paper plate and re-heat era of the Reagan/Stockman budget cuts.  Sightseer lounges have upstairs bar stations that have never seen use.  Viewliner II diners - again with full kitchens - came on line just as the travesty that is "flexible dining" was implemented across the east.  The V2 order was amended to add more full baggage cars, but within a few years Amtrak Express was discontinued and the number of stations offering baggage service declined precipitously.  Look inside any Amtrak baggage car today and you'll see mostly empty space.  And when operational needs change, Amtrak is reticent to repurpose equipment to support that change.  For a decade and a half, Superliner II dorm sleepers housed only an ever diminishing number of crew members before someone finally decided to sell a few vacant rooms to paying customers.  Today, the few V2 bag-dorms are running on the Crescent, while the Lake Shore's Boston sleeper is often full and no checked baggage service is offered.  Indeed, Boston no longer has checked baggage at all, as that service has been discontinued on overnight corridor trains 66-67.

Dave

Mail and Express went away during Dave Gunns watch, the Viewliner II cars were ordered in 2010 and the first cars ,bags, started to arrive during the winter of 2014/2015.

In the FWIW department, the upstairs bars on the Superliner lounge cars were indeed used at one time. Back when Amtrak cared and used to haul a lot of passengers on the thirteen car or longer Coast Starlight, an LSA was assigned to the upstairs bar, making a turn from Los Angeles to a point somewhere on the second day where he could get off #14 and be able to catch #11 back south. The main lounge car LSA would always work his butt off on this train, so this was a welcome relief valve, even if it was mainly just for drinks and perhaps a few snacks.

Boardman wanted to "re-launch and expand Amtrak Express" with the ordering of these more traditional Viewliner baggage cars. That was the reasoning or basis for the order. It still made no sense. Again, 20 full baggage cars and 35 bagg-dorms would have made a LOT more sense. Cars can always be had for baggage, and if M&E really took off, there's cars that could have substituted till a permanent solution was found. Total mistake not to produce the original (and more) bagg-dorm Viewliner cars. If CAF was still producing these cars - in an alternative universe of course - I would send the baggage cars back and get them converted to bagg-dorm's. 

Anyway.......The upstairs bar/cafe area on the Sightseer Lounge car was utilized on the Capitol Limited when it got converted from single level to Superliner equipment. There was the "welcome aboard" done there for riders, especially sleeper car riders. A few others were used too, including on the CA Zephyr between Denver and Salt Lake City. When Amtrak did a "re-launch" of the "Enhanced Empire Builder" around 2005 or so, there was a second LSA that sold drinks and light snacks from the upper level Superliner Sightseer Lounge bar area from I believe Whitefish to Havre. They also did a same day return after a break in Havre. That lasted a couple of summers in peak period. 

But yes, overall, the area was under-utilized (upper level bar/cafe area) on the Superliner Sightseer Lounge and at this poin it should probably just be replaced by additional lounge seating. The National Parks folks that would come onboard used to camp out in this area, but that program has been hugely curtailed. Was it a nice concept? Yes. Poorly executed and planned out for sustained use - ABSOLUTELY! 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/24 04:19 by jp1822.

mvrr10 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mail and Express went away during Dave Gunns
> watch, the Viewliner II cars were ordered in 2010
> and the first cars ,bags, started to arrive during
> the winter of 2014/2015.

I was referring to Amtrak Express - the station to station package service that continued up the pandemic using space in each train's baggage car, rather then separate cars usually employed by the mail and express business of the '90s and early 2000s.

Dave