Passenger Trains > Ashland, VA just now (9:46 pm)

I had the Ashland camera on and caught a nice looking Meteor on its way south.  The train appeared clean to me.  Then, the northbound Floridian came along and that train is definitely NOT clean.  Holy hell, it looked terrible.  Just embarassing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/25 18:48 by Chessie1963.

Looked at all 3 camera's and can't really tell if it's clean or not. Some of the coaches
seemed grimy. This was the first day #97 was on time departing NYP. The past several
days #97 departed NYP up to 3 hours late. I was under the impression that a fresh train
set was available for an on time departure from NYP; especially during the east tunnel
project, but not true, the train is turned the same day. So if the northbound train arrives
NYP more than an hour late, the southbound will be up to 3 hours late.
 

jeff56 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Looked at all 3 camera's and can't really tell if
> it's clean or not. Some of the coaches
> seemed grimy. This was the first day #97 was on
> time departing NYP. The past several
> days #97 departed NYP up to 3 hours late. I was
> under the impression that a fresh train
> set was available for an on time departure from
> NYP; especially during the east tunnel
> project, but not true, the train is turned the
> same day. So if the northbound train arrives
> NYP more than an hour late, the southbound will be
> up to 3 hours late.
>  

I hadn't heard that the Silver Meteor's train set count had been adjusted......Same day turn was done for the Silver Meteor when it arrived in the 9 to 10 am hour and then departed at 7:01 pm. If the Meteor was late inbound for the same day turn, Amtrak would borrow from the inbound Crescent, as it was carded to arrive NYC in the 1 pm hour, and regularly (back then) was on time (into late 90s early 2000's).

That is a REALLY tight turn with the Silver Meteor's current schedule. Worse than the Empire Builder turn in Seattle/Portland. AND that means there is a single level LD train set NOT used!!!! So add that to more equipment Amtrak has but is not running in its LD service (Amfleet II and Viewliner Sleepers).......UGH!!!! Amtrak might be holding this train set in reserve in Florida though for the Floridian's turn......when severely late. But if Amtrak has what was the 4th Silver Meteor train set - they really need to ship it to Chicago so it can be used there with that mess with the Floridian......and need for spare cars.

What is wrong with Amtrak not running its premium revenue fleet when the demand is there - the Viewliner Sleepers. It is absolutely NUTS! And it is NOT because it hard press the F&B operations in Diner or Cafe/Lounge. This technically drops the utilization of the Viewliner fleet to 57%, meaning 32 Viewliner sleepers are being held in reserve / stored / unassigned. Absolutely crazy! Amtrak management has REDUCED both coach capacity and sleeper capacity for the single level LD trains to its lowest level since the late 1990s. When the first 50 production Viewliners were put in play there were converted 10-6 sleepers as crew dorms and the crew wasn't taking up revenue space. UGH!