Superliner trains' removal and restoration of cars (2022-2023)

I think there’s certainly a legitimate debate about whether they should ambitiously sell the inventory and then cancel people when they can’t meet it. Or alternatively if they should just sell a base consist with one sleeper and then only add capacity when they determine the consist on the operational side. But that would likely mean a lot more sellouts months in advance which could also affect revenue negatively and make it more difficult to sell a last minute additional sleeper. Again These things are certainly not unique to Amtrak it’s happening with the airlines too. But of course there are a lot more airlines and flights and only one Zephyr and Chief a day.

n3rdg1rl said:

This has been happening for both the California Zephyr and the South West Chief. There are a few other posts saying the same thing. I would call them directly and find out when the next trip is that has availability in the first sleeper.

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And the Builder. It was the first one hit. They pulled this stunt in May for the second sleeper during the summer on the Builder.

While away on vacation this week, I received an unsolicited email from Amtrak with a new receipt for my trip in late October. I didn't have time to review the details until today. There was no letter explaining any changes. Just a new receipt with ticket details.

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. I was moved from car 632 Roomette #2 to car 631 Roomette # 13 on the CZ on October 30th from Emeryville to Chicago. I booked my trip in late June of this year.

mikefinleyco said:

Amtrak just cancelled our sleeper car reservation for the ca zephyr trip in Sept, and put us in coach, the email says they are removing the sleeper car.

This a multi leg trip for us with flights and Airbnb stays paid for already and rental cars some of which we can change if we reschedule the trip quickly to different dates and some we can't and will end up losing the money.

But it seems like even if we reschedule to oct, what stops them from doing this all again to us?


We haven't called Amtrak yet but wanted to be more informed before I did

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If you rebook on the Zephyr, make sure you are in the 31 car. That is the "base" sleeper for the train and they cannot pull that without losing sleeper capacity entirely.

If you elect to switch to one of the other western trains, the 30 car is the "base" sleeper on those.

Eric in East County said:

Ever since we were notified that our September 20th bedroom reservation on SWC No. 4 had been downgraded to coach, we’d been waiting for “the other shoe to drop” regarding our October 3rd bedroom reservation on SWC No. 3. It finally dropped this morning:

“We wanted to let you know that the Sleeper Car has been removed from train #0003, the Southwest Chief, from Chicago, Illinois on Monday, October 3rd. We've changed your reservation to standard Coach seating and will refund you for the price difference.

We're sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks for being a valued Amtrak customer - we'll see you onboard.”

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minnrider said:

I just received an email that my reservation on train #5 from Chicago to Emeryville, CA on Oct. 4 has been changed from a roomette to standard coach seating. The explanation is that the sleeper car has been removed. It stated they will refund the price difference; I used Guest Reward points for this trip. I'm definitely not traveling coach for two nights. Out of curiosity, I checked the website and noticed sleepers are "sold out" on train 5 for most dates in Sept./Oct. What's going on? My only option is to just cancel the trip and get a full refund of my points. After 40 years of traveling with Amtrak, I'm ready to give up on the long distance trains. This is just the latest in a long string of issues I've had with Amtrak; e.g. lengthy delays, bus bridges, cancellations, etc. On top of this, I think sleeper fares are outrageously expensive for what you get. My travel dollars are better spent elsewhere.

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Just received the same Amtrak message that our trip of 9/26/22 on #6 from Emeryville to Chicago has been downgraded to coach. We were booked in the dread #032 sleeper. Will now be cancelling that leg of the trip and flying home instead. Luckily I have airline miles to do it for free. Also get one full day in the bay area before flying out at night with a early morning arrival home a day earlier. Had been excited about the scenery on the way home but I no longer wish to spend 2 nights in coach.

It's unfortunate ill advised and bad management is prevalent with Amtrak (many other companies too) these days concerning the long distance trains and that they have ignored warnings about this from the beginning of covid. As far as Amtrak the only avenues of recourse is supporting RPA and your congress persons.

lordsigma said:

I think this is more about short staffing. They are squeezing things right now to try to meet summer demand which is likely straining the employees with minimal extra boards. This is likely to relieve the strain on the limited staff while hiring countinues. I think a good strategy for now on Superliner. Trains is to always shoot for the base sleeper. The problem out west seems to be a mix of mechanical shops (particularly Chicago with the many trains it has to service) and On board service staff more so than T&E.

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Adding to the normal, everyday strain being placed on the on-board staff are the very late arrivals. It is our understanding that a Sleeping Car Attendant is only guaranteed four (4) hours of sleep every night. If a long-distance train arrives 7 to 10 hours late, who can blame the OBS staff if they look and behave like walking zombies. Who would want to stay in or apply for a job like that?

j_ratza said:

Just received the same Amtrak message that our trip of 9/26/22 on #6 from Emeryville to Chicago has been downgraded to coach. We were booked in the dread #032 sleeper. Will now be cancelling that leg of the trip and flying home instead. Luckily I have airline miles to do it for free. Also get one full day in the bay area before flying out at night with a early morning arrival home a day earlier. Had been excited about the scenery on the way home but I no longer wish to spend 2 nights in coach.

It's unfortunate ill advised and bad management is prevalent with Amtrak (many other companies too) these days concerning the long distance trains and that they have ignored warnings about this from the beginning of covid. As far as Amtrak the only avenues of recourse is supporting RPA and your congress persons.

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That has been the biggest horror story this summer on Amtrak..being downgraded to Coach,either ahead of time via email,or worse at the last minute due to staff shortages or equipment failure. People who purchase a sleeper will not ride Coach for 2 or 3 days straight.

I am understandably nervous about a trip coming up next Sunday on the 421 from Chicago to LA. All part of another big circle trip. I really don't want any last minute surprises.

Sidney said:

That has been the biggest horror story this summer on Amtrak..being downgraded to Coach,either ahead of time via email,or worse at the last minute due to staff shortages or equipment failure. People who purchase a sleeper will not ride Coach for 2 or 3 days straight.

I am understandably nervous about a trip coming up next Sunday on the 421 from Chicago to LA. All part of another big circle trip. I really don't want any last minute surprises.

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There is only one 421/422 sleeper so I doubt it is at risk. The 2/22 connection that the 422 depends on seems quite dicey with them not holding 22 for 2, but the other direction seems more solid.

Guess I'm fortunate for my fall trip. I'm in the 00 car on the CL to Chicago...they surely can't cut that one. On my return from the PNW I was deciding between Seattle and Portland on the Builder to MSP and decided on Portland. Hopefully, they don't cut that one either, being the one and only!

PaTrainFan said:

Guess I'm fortunate for my fall trip. I'm in the 00 car on the CL to Chicago...they surely can't cut that one. On my return from the PNW I was deciding between Seattle and Portland on the Builder to MSP and decided on Portland. Hopefully, they don't cut that one either, being the one and only!

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I’m happy that I was able to take the Empire Builder without any issues (in 830). Not sure if I feel like playing sleeper roulette again though - even if you get the base sleeper, there is the chance they decide to go to 3 or 5 days/week service and you book one of the unlucky days, or of random cancellations. You basically need a refundable plane ticket as backup (unless you’d rather cancel than fly) - at least airlines have far more flights than Amtrak has LD sleepers in the event of issues.

Also, the trip on the Southwest Chief I was looking at (to or from the Gathering in October) went up considerably in price in the past couple weeks (and is now higher than the Builder booked closer in during summer) - presumably because a good chunk of sleeper inventory was withdrawn. Perhaps I should have booked sooner, though I figured it wasn’t peak season and was kind of waiting to see how this trip went (which was good, though I am kind of tired and may have met my quota of overnight trips for the time being anyway…)

Backup flights aren’t really an option for those of us that can’t or won’t fly.

lordsigma said:

Backup flights aren’t really an option for those of us that can’t or won’t fly.

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And for the rest of us, it's a big outlay ... for a trip we've already paid Amtrak for.

Amtrak should be moving heaven and earth before cancelling long-booked sleeper reservations. The ill will generated by those cancellations will be hugely costly to Amtrak. It's not even just the folks directly affected by those cancellations. There's also the likelihood that other people will rule out Amtrak due to doubt that Amtrak can be relied on.

A downgrade from sleeper to coach is a deal killer for many, perhaps most customers who make sleeping car reservations on overnight trains. If I can't count on the sleeper being available---even if I've booked and paid for it---I'm likely to not make the reservation.

tricia said:

And for the rest of us, it's a big outlay ... for a trip we've already paid Amtrak for.

Amtrak should be moving heaven and earth before cancelling long-booked sleeper reservations. The ill will generated by those cancellations will be hugely costly to Amtrak. It's not even just the folks directly affected by those cancellations. There's also the likelihood that other people will rule out Amtrak due to doubt that Amtrak can be relied on.

A downgrade from sleeper to coach is a deal killer for many, perhaps most customers who make sleeping car reservations on overnight trains. If I can't count on the sleeper being available---even if I've booked and paid for it---I'm likely to not make the reservation.

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Maybe Amtrak should ask for volunteers to ride coach in exchange for a full value voucher, like the airlines do (did?) when overbooked. (I haven't flown for a few years, so I don't know whether they still do that.)

From what I'm reading here, I can't see we can plan a trip with Amtrak with their current customer service levels. Our reservations with accommodations, rental cars, and flights are all at the whim of Amtrak honoring our reservations or not, it just appears to be a pure roll of the dice with them at this time.

We didn't need to do any of this trip, it was purely for the joy of riding the California Zephyr for the experience, however, it appears we were naive in how they function.

mikefinleyco said:

From what I'm reading here, I can't see we can plan a trip with Amtrak with their current customer service levels. Our reservations with accommodations, rental cars, and flights are all at the whim of Amtrak honoring our reservations or not, it just appears to be a pure roll of the dice with them at this time.

We didn't need to do any of this trip, it was purely for the joy of riding the California Zephyr for the experience, however, it appears we were naive in how they function.

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My suggestion would be give it a year or two. I think they’ll get things straightened out eventually it will just take some time.

mikefinleyco said:

We didn't need to do any of this trip, it was purely for the joy of riding the California Zephyr for the experience, however, it appears we were naive in how they function

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Unfortunately, the current Charlie Foxtrot situation is a new, brought to you by Amtrak's crack executive management team of apparent morons who are unable to do capacity planning taking into account a now long known situation of staff and equipment shortages.

Without a firm recovery plan, which they clearly do not have, they have no business releasing more space in the reservation system than that provided in minimum consists. Yes, that will raise prices and also possibly cause them to not maximize return if they add equipment when it actually becomes available and they have to sell it late at lower buckets. But they will not have alienated customers that have built plans around sleeper trips. Which are wholly discretionary for most. Better that one never books at all due to high prices or lack of availability than commit to a trip likely consisting of many moving parts, at least some likely not refundable, and then has the rug ripped out from under them.

People I know are aware that I am Amtrak knowledgeable. And now I am telling them to stay the heck away.

As late as 2020, a sleeper reservation on Amtrak was as close to a sure a thing as possible in the travel world. Yes, extraordinary circumstance like a big derailment, weather emergency or bridge fire could scuttle plans, but cutting a car on a train that will otherwise be operating? Never. Until now.

Hail Stephen Gardner, for plumbing new, unprecedented depths in Amtrak customer service.

lordsigma said:

My suggestion would be give it a year or two. I think they’ll get things straightened out eventually it will just take some time.

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It is a known situation and has been for a long time now. There is no excuse for these last minute cuts at this point. None. They should never have released inventory for anything above minimum consists until they had a firm handle on the situation and a solid recovery plan. Which in 20/20 hindsight they were very clearly lacking.

Further, I think it is highly possible they won't have a couple of years. Congress allocated unprecedented amounts of money to Amtrak, much of which was conditioned on a return to 2019 service frequencies. They took the money and did not deliver. I think it very possible that the next Congress will look at this enormous cesspit that Amtrak has dug for itself with the additional funds that were provided for it and question what it got for its money. It is within the realm of possibility that this debacle could mean the death of the National Network.

Eric in East County said:

As many of you will remember, early last June we had to cancel our LD trip to Ohio after our bedroom reservation on SWC No. 4 was shot out from under us when the second sleeper was replaced with a Trans-Dorm sleeper, and we couldn’t be downgrade because the train was sold out.

Rather than forego this year’s trip we decided to reschedule it to late September-early October.

On June 16th, Amtrak sold us round trip SWC bedroom accommodations (again in the second sleeper.) One of these was the last bedroom still available.

This morning, we received the following e-mail:

“We wanted to let you know that the [second] Sleeper Car has been removed from train #0004, the Southwest Chief, from Los Angeles Union Station on Tuesday, September 20th. We've changed your reservation to standard Coach seating and will refund you for the price difference.

We're sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks for being a valued Amtrak customer - we'll see you onboard.”

Since, as seniors, we’re no longer up to making a long-distance train trip in coach, we’ll be contacting Customer Relations to see about rescheduling our trip to June-July 2023 with the stipulation that our SWC bedrooms be in the first sleeper. We’ll keep you posted on how we make out.

Eric & Pat

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Don't forget to ask for compensation for the disruption of your travel plans... which you indeed deserve!

zephyr17 said:

It is a known situation and has been for a long time now. There is no excuse for these last minute cuts at this point. None. They should never have released inventory for anything above minimum consists until they had a firm handle on the situation and a solid recovery plan. Which in 20/20 hindsight they were very clearly lacking.

Further, I think it is highly possible they won't have a couple of years. Congress allocated unprecedented amounts of money to Amtrak, much of which was conditioned on a return to 2019 service frequencies. They took the money and did not deliver. I think it very possible that the next Congress will look at this enormous cesspit that Amtrak has dug for itself with the additional funds that were provided for it and question what it got for its money. It is within the realm of possibility that this debacle could mean the death of the National Network.

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It will take a couple years for them to deal with the operational problems causing low capacity. I agree with you somewhat about selling inventory. At this point they should probably just sell a small amount going forward (1 sleeper) while things are problematic and then if they can add a sleeper great then release the inventory just to prevent the passenger disappointment. The operational/staffing problems are what they are - but how they are managing reservations and passenger notifications is indeed a solvable problem.

lordsigma said:

It will take a couple years for them to deal with the operational problems causing low capacity. I agree with you about inventory. At this point they should probably just sell a small amount going forward and then if they can add a sleeper great then release the inventory just to prevent the passenger disappointment. The operational problems are what they are - but how they are managing reservations and passenger notifications is indeed a solvable problem.

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That is my main point. They know they are in a pickle operationally, yet continued to sell space they should have been aware that they could not be sure they could provide. The first occurrence was in May on the Builder, then the SW Chief, now the Zephyr. There is simply no excuse for that. Months of relatively last minute, apparently ad hoc, wholesale car line removals. I agree it may take a year or two to get capacity back up close to where it was (probably not all the way because two trainsets got put on the ground). But in the meantime they should only be selling capacity they can be sure they can provide under current conditions. Hoping for the best is not a sound method of inventory management.

And running sleepers as axle count cars is not sound equipment management.

zephyr17 said:

It is a known situation and has been for a long time now. There is no excuse for these last minute cuts at this point. None. They should never have released inventory for anything above minimum consists until they had a firm handle on the situation and a solid recovery plan. Which in 20/20 hindsight they were very clearly lacking.

Further, I think it is highly possible they won't have a couple of years. Congress allocated unprecedented amounts of money to Amtrak, much of which was conditioned on a return to 2019 service frequencies. They took the money and did not deliver. I think it very possible that the next Congress will look at this enormous cesspit that Amtrak has dug for itself with the additional funds that were provided for it and question what it got for its money. It is within the realm of possibility that this debacle could mean the death of the National Network.

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“It is within the realm of possibility that this debacle could mean the death of the National Network.”



No one here can say for sure that’s not what Gardners end plan goal is. Gardner prior to Covid was as hostile as they come regarding the network. He saw first hand how Anderson going head to head with Congress failed miserably. Now his plan seems to be blame Covid and manpower with a huge amount of buffoonery added in to make sure things fall apart.

Two recent things stick out to me. The Anderson/Gardner plan was to concentrate on corridors and for long distance trains that remained a single food service car. The single food service car we are seeing first hand with the Eagle, CONO (most 1 night trains). If strong rumor is true that the network trains are going to 3x weekly except over corridor sections (ie, the SWC would be daily CHi to KCI and 3x weekly to LAX). This all shows me Gardner is still going through with his agenda from 5 years ago with Anderson. If we see a corridor daily and 3x full route schedule presented, that to me means Amtrak is one press release away from eliminating the network. I just don’t know how we can look at this endless list of blunders and trust Gardner isn’t behind some of it, his past actions make it seem likely. And of course the BOD too.

@Amtrakfflyer much as I dislike conspiracy theories, I cannot really disagree with you.

20th Century Rider said:

Don't forget to ask for compensation for the disruption of your travel plans... which you indeed deserve!

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One lesson we learned from having our reservations shot out from under us last June was not to request a refund of the cash and travel points that we’d use to pay for our tickets. When we remade our reservations for later this year, these same trains and accommodations cost us $679 more than they had 6 months earlier! This included having to pay cash for a reservation that had originally been made using travel points. (Our travel points didn’t go as far as they had 6 months earlier!) This time, we’re going to work with Amtrak Customer Relations to reschedule our existing reservations to 2023. By then, the cost for these same trains and accommodations should be even higher than they are now, so we’ll probably save another $679!

I hate conspiracy theories and negative thinking, but the situation brought by Amtrak on the national network by now is obviously a crisis. Yes, this summer has been challenging from operational, staff and rolling stock standoints. They have somehow muddled through much of the summer with relatively full consists on most trains, with some exceptions and some hiccups. But as we head into the fall, the wheels seem to be coming off. What about the on-board staff they supposedly have hired to get through the summer? Are they going away in the fall? Is Amtrak taking cars out of service to concentrate on getting them back into a state of good repair? Haven't they been hiring craft people in their shops? How about they become a litte more transparent? How about RPA get some answers? How about Congress start putting some pressure on for those answers? If Amtrak was forthright and transparent, most of us here would be more understading and accepting and cut them a break. Their communications are absolutely abysmal. You can't say they are attempting to reach professional level of communication. Right now, who really wants to roll the dice and plan a trip? I am glad my plans are made for the fall and seem solid, but do I know that for sure? No, I can't count on that. But I sure can't think about next year given the current situation. Rant over.

Eric in East County said:

One lesson we learned from having our reservations shot out from under us last June was not to request a refund of the cash and travel points that we’d use to pay for our tickets. When we remade our reservations for later this year, these same trains and accommodations cost us $679 more than they had 6 months earlier! This included having to pay cash for a reservation that had originally been made using travel points. (Our travel points didn’t go as far as they had 6 months earlier!) This time, we’re going to work with Amtrak Customer Relations to reschedule our existing reservations to 2023. By then, the cost for these same trains and accommodations should be even higher than they are now, so we’ll probably save another $679!

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You deserve it!