What's really loud is when your sleeping car meets a locomotive travelling in the opposite direction blowing its horn at a crossing. Don't sweat the horn, a train was never a quiet conveyance to begin with.
Amtrak Capitol Limited Consist
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Green Maned Lion
Engineer
Sleeping car passengers are not officially first-class passengers on Amtrak. They are Sleeping Service passengers. There is a small distinction. First Class passengers get unlimited alcoholic beverages. Sleeping Service passengers do not.
It is considered a higher-level of service, includes all meals enroute, sometimes gets you a nicer hotel if there is a mass layover due to trouble, and provides you access to the premium lounges throughout the system. Generally, too, things are more likely to get called your way if you are a sleeping car passenger. You pay more, and you get more. Amtrak treats all their passengers very well. They treat their sleeping passengers slightly better, as befits someone who pays more. If Amtrak has to put up an entire train in a hotel, and they have two hotels they need to book, for example, the sleeper passengers will go in the nicer one, likely. But all will get rooms.
As for "Not amtrak class passengers", what the heck? Amtrak is usually cheaper than the dog over longer distances. Trust me, you get your share of freak-o-zoids on both systems. I admit that Amtrak is perceived as higher class- and thus attracts people that avoid the dog in droves - but the low end of both systems consists of the same types of people. Not that poor passengers are bad. I have met some god-almighty jerk-holes in sleeping cars that are a hundred times more offensive, more noisy, more unpleasant, and lower-class in their manners than even some the psychotics you find panhandling in the areas where the respectable hobos have chased them.
And Pittsburgh? Its aptly named. The pits.
And another thing. After a week of being on the train, I found it hard to sleep in a quiet bed that didn't move and didn't have a horn. Odd, I know.
It is considered a higher-level of service, includes all meals enroute, sometimes gets you a nicer hotel if there is a mass layover due to trouble, and provides you access to the premium lounges throughout the system. Generally, too, things are more likely to get called your way if you are a sleeping car passenger. You pay more, and you get more. Amtrak treats all their passengers very well. They treat their sleeping passengers slightly better, as befits someone who pays more. If Amtrak has to put up an entire train in a hotel, and they have two hotels they need to book, for example, the sleeper passengers will go in the nicer one, likely. But all will get rooms.
As for "Not amtrak class passengers", what the heck? Amtrak is usually cheaper than the dog over longer distances. Trust me, you get your share of freak-o-zoids on both systems. I admit that Amtrak is perceived as higher class- and thus attracts people that avoid the dog in droves - but the low end of both systems consists of the same types of people. Not that poor passengers are bad. I have met some god-almighty jerk-holes in sleeping cars that are a hundred times more offensive, more noisy, more unpleasant, and lower-class in their manners than even some the psychotics you find panhandling in the areas where the respectable hobos have chased them.
And Pittsburgh? Its aptly named. The pits.
And another thing. After a week of being on the train, I found it hard to sleep in a quiet bed that didn't move and didn't have a horn. Odd, I know.
PetalumaLoco
Conductor
Oh, I like it now. Reminds me of when I was a kid living next to the tracks. As I've said before...
TVRM610
Conductor
I've missed you GML!
You said exactly my point... Sleeping Passengers are considered "Sleeper Class" not "First Class." Yes Sleeper Class is a higher class than coach... and as such it comes with extra amenities, that does not make it first class though. When I originally made that point I mentioned it was a side not, mostly because the OP made mention that Amtrak should be more considerate of "1st Class Passengers" and not place them so close the horn.
My point about service was when ACL said that Sleeper Passengers receive a "Higher Service Standard" as if the employees in Sleepers are somehow different than the coach attendants, and treat their customers with a "higher standard" or at least that's how I read it. In my experience... Coach Attendants and Sleeper Attendants seem to have the same Service Standard system wide with most being good, a few excellent, and ocasionally some bad apples.
Now if ACL meant a "Higher Standard" of amenities... yes that is true Sleeper Passengers do get a few perks.
You said exactly my point... Sleeping Passengers are considered "Sleeper Class" not "First Class." Yes Sleeper Class is a higher class than coach... and as such it comes with extra amenities, that does not make it first class though. When I originally made that point I mentioned it was a side not, mostly because the OP made mention that Amtrak should be more considerate of "1st Class Passengers" and not place them so close the horn.
My point about service was when ACL said that Sleeper Passengers receive a "Higher Service Standard" as if the employees in Sleepers are somehow different than the coach attendants, and treat their customers with a "higher standard" or at least that's how I read it. In my experience... Coach Attendants and Sleeper Attendants seem to have the same Service Standard system wide with most being good, a few excellent, and ocasionally some bad apples.
Now if ACL meant a "Higher Standard" of amenities... yes that is true Sleeper Passengers do get a few perks.
Regardless of what Amtrak calls sleeper class it lets go to the dictionary.
The definition of "First Class" means
1. Constituting or belonging to the first, highest, or best group in a system of classification: a first-class hotel; first-class mail, first class travel
2. Of the foremost excellence or highest quality; first-rate: a first-class mind.
If you book a sleeper on Amtrak you are in the highest level of classification. It is the highest and best group in the system.. As such it meets the definition of first class. So call it what you will but the definition above explains it best.
GML,
You of all people should know that nothing at Amtrak is ever absolute.
Get on the Auto Train and while perhaps not unlimited in the same sense as Acela, one can have as much wine as one can drink during the wine tasting and during dinner.
AAARGH!
Conductor
Well, you got my point anyway. Those who hang out around the Pittsburgh parking garage in the wee hours of the morning are made up of more 'freak-o-zoids' (your words) than the opposite. I have traveled on the dog, but many years ago. The proportion of 'freak-o-zoids' to not is higher on the dog than Amtrak. Of course the same is true if you compare Amtrak coach to Amtrak sleeper OR Amtrak to air travel.
But my point remains the same, I felt safe around the Port Authority parking garage.
Green Maned Lion
Engineer
Yeah, but that applies to coach passengers too. Actually, since they offered nothing but crummy, watery white wine to coach passengers at dinner, I got myself a living example of Amtrak's logo- three sheets to the wind.GML,
You of all people should know that nothing at Amtrak is ever absolute.
Get on the Auto Train and while perhaps not unlimited in the same sense as Acela, one can have as much wine as one can drink during the wine tasting and during dinner.
Well, ok, the sleeper passengers get the wine tasting and the coach don't, but that's par for the course on Amtrak trains anyway.
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