Condition of Superliners

[unitedstatesfan]

Is it harder and harder for Amtrak to source spare parts for the interiors of the Superliner cars?

Or does the company have a fairly large stock of almost anything that could conceivably need replacing short of a writeoff caused by an at grade collision?

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Considering how long it is taking to get the Viewliner IIs into service, it will probably be 20-30 years before we see Superliner 3s!

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there will never be a commercial scale production run based on a theoretical Superliner 3 design. Imagine ordering brand new rolling stock for an antiquated 79MPH passenger rail service in 2046. Nobody in their right mind would fund such a thing with taxpayer money. Presumably there was a right way and a wrong way to "save" passenger rail in America, and unfortunately we seem to have picked the most embarrassing cluster forked manner possible.

When you pay over $1100 for a one way bedroom trip to/from Denver, you deserve better.

Considering Amtrak is still loosing money at that fare, would you be willing to pay, say, $5500 for the same trip, but in new Superliners?

$5,500? Are you saying Amtrak still can't manage to replace their equipment every thirty or forty years at double, triple, or even quadruple the current fare? If that's the case then perhaps Amtrak represents an organization that is so hopeless it may not be worth saving anymore. I personally wonder who thinks the current $1000+ cost is worthwhile, either from the perspective of the customer or the taxpayer.

 

[cirdan]

Has anyone ever replaced a module in any Viewliner yet? Just curious. Seems like there is faith/belief that they are easier to rehab. But are they really?

I don't think they're any faster to replace in a repair scenario.

But when the time comes in their lives that they need a major (mid-life) refit, then you will be looking into refitting the entire car and having prefabbed modules reduces the days the car is out of use.

Airlines do this all the time (I believe).

 

[jphjaxfl]

Perhaps the new Amtrak President will address the age and condition of the Superliners. I believe there is a deliberate attempt to not replace/repair Superliners with the idea, it is a method of making the long distance trains go away. Without any new equipment very little long distance equipment on order, it will get to the point where Amtrak won't be able to maintain current schedules.

 

[Ryan]

That's a belief not grounded in fact, given the current Amtrak president's comments on the matter and their published plans for renewing the fleet.

When you're on a limited budget, the highest priorities get taken care of first, and 60 year old dining cars and baggage cars that were literally falling apart take priority over cars that don't look as pretty as some people think they should.

 

[enoreeman]

I am going to be in a Superliner Roomette for 2 out of 3 legs of my trip next month and I will spend more time looking at the scenery than I will looking to see what looks worn on the car. We have no money for Amtrak because we dump our money into entitlement programs that have NEVER actually fixed anything. Imagine if we once again had a good work ethic and could take that money and use it for infrastructure, Uncle Sugar is not an endless supply of money.

 

[tricia]

I am going to be in a Superliner Roomette for 2 out of 3 legs of my trip next month and I will spend more time looking at the scenery than I will looking to see what looks worn on the car. We have no money for Amtrak because we dump our money into entitlement programs that have NEVER actually fixed anything. Imagine if we once again had a good work ethic and could take that money and use it for infrastructure, Uncle Sugar is not an endless supply of money.

Honey, you're wrong in so many ways it'd take me an hour or more to explain it--and I don't have a spare hour for this right now.

However, in accordance with the rules of this forum that make it possible for members with diverse political views to discuss trains without getting into political cat-fights, we ought not to go there, and you ought not to make politically provocative posts here.

I too am looking forward to a cross-country trip next month, and intend to enjoy the scenery and not fret too much about the condition of my roomettes. I'll save the fretting for this forum! :hi:

 

[MARC Rider]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there will never be a commercial scale production run based on a theoretical Superliner 3 design. Imagine ordering brand new rolling stock for an antiquated 79MPH passenger rail service in 2046. Nobody in their right mind would fund such a thing with taxpayer money. Presumably there was a right way and a wrong way to "save" passenger rail in America, and unfortunately we seem to have picked the most embarrassing cluster forked manner possible.

$5,500? Are you saying Amtrak still can't manage to replace their equipment every thirty or forty years at double, triple, or even quadruple the current fare? If that's the case then perhaps Amtrak represents an organization that is so hopeless it may not be worth saving anymore. I personally wonder who thinks the current $1000+ cost is worthwhile, either from the perspective of the customer or the taxpayer.

The current fares must be worthwhile to some customers, as there seems to be a lot of people who ride in the sleeping cars. The coach fares are, of course, a lot cheaper, and the justification to the taxpayer for running the train is to provide transportation service to many of the intermediate towns along the way, especially in flyover country, that have no other form of public transportation. Many of those riders are taking shorter trips for which coach is perfectly adequate. What would be interesting to know is whether the sleepers are a money sink or a cash cow for the operation.

By the way, in 2046, we may have had the fecal matter hit the fan with regards to the sustainability (or lack thereof) of the current auto/plane based transportation system, and we feel very happy that we have 79 mph (or even 50 mph) trains available to us. I don't know why people insist on envisioning the future as some sort of techno-utopia. It's just as likely that our descendants may be illiterate hunter-gatherers. In other words, 79 mph trains are more likely than hyperloops.

 

[MARC Rider]

I have an observation about the condition of hotels, which is basically what sleeping car service is.

On my trip home from Maine, we stopped at two hotels along the road. One was a historic property in the Adirondacks that was last enlarged in 1914, and, from the looks of it, hasn't had much done to it since. I think they might have updated the pluming and electric and put smoke detectors in the rooms. (Which is good, because the structure is 100% wood.) The room for 2 was $120/night, plus tax. You could get a room with a shared bath for $95 The other place was a Sheraton 4 Points off I-81 in Scranton, PA, which was built in the 1970s (we think -- my Dad remembers staying there when on business travel back then.) It has been extensively remodeled, so the room was perfectly modern in all respects. I got the room for $92 using a discount for which I qualify. I think the rack rate was $120 that night.

Now some people might turn up their noses at the Adirondack Hotel. The room was like a closet, no air conditioning, not TV in your room,a bit run down, etc. On the other band, boy did it have atmosphere. Two floors of porches with rocking chairs that had a nice view of the lake. You could take your drink from the bar and sit on the porch meeting people and enjoying the view. The Sheraton was very comfortable, but much less atmosphere. It was, of course, a perfectly good place to spend the night if you were on the road and wanted a mid-range hotel. WHich is "better?" Who knows, but both looked like they were pretty well patronized.

If they're putting Superliners into service that have mechanical problems, that, of course, is a serious issue that should be a top priority for Amtrak. But if it's just that the furnishings in the rooms are a bit worn, well, it would be a bit nice to fix that, but one can understand why it might not be a top priority for the company. And, of course, there aren't many alternatives to the experience of a long distance train ride with a sleeper, and those that exists might have nicer hotel facilities, but, if you think that $1,000 for a coast to coast rip is expensive, the alternatives cost more than that.

 

[2sk21]

Why we travelled by sleeper bedrooms: This trip was my present for my parents. Dad is 82 and Mom is 78. Both are mobile but have a hard time walking long distances. Initially I booked us on roomettes for your journey but looking at videos on YouTube, I realized it would just not work for elderly travelers like my parents so I splurged a bit and got bedrooms for us. The way I see it, if we had gone by road and stayed at decent hotels along the way, it would not have been a whole lot cheaper than transcontinental sleeper - not that they are up for such a long trip though

 

[JayPea]

I too am looking forward to a cross-country trip next month, and intend to enjoy the scenery and not fret too much about the condition of my roomettes. I'll save the fretting for this forum! :hi:

I am currently on a cross-country trip (and back!) and right now I am enjoying the odd and very fascinating rock formations of Utah instead of focusing on the minor rattle of the closet door in our Superliner room.

 

[Tennessee Traveler]

Based on my experience traveling in bedrooms and roomettes, I have experienced that the bedrooms are more prone to rattles mainly because of the sliding partition separating the bedrooms that can be slid open to create a two bedroom suite. Those partitions ALWAYS rattle and as in the case of one of my recent trips, the partition is not always closed and locked since my SCA came in and told me that while I was at dinner the partition slid open(reported by my neighbor bedroom occupants) so he needed to reclose and lock the partition. He did do that while I watched him. Every bedroom I have traveled in, I have use the furnished towels to stuff in the loose crevices to stop the rattling. Thankfully, the roomettes do not have this problems and the main rattle object is the door and sometimes the table which are easy to stabilize. For this reason, I have chosen to ride in roomettes in my October LD trip and all of the 2017 trips I have planned. The neat thing about the roomettes is that I can sit facing forward no matter which side, etc. the roomette is on. In my 2016 trips in bedroom D or E, I have managed to be on the side in which the sofa faced backward. And that single seat in the bedrooms to me is hard as a rock and good only for holding my carryon bag so that I have easy access to its contents.

 

[jis]

Has anyone ever replaced a module in any Viewliner yet? Just curious. Seems like there is faith/belief that they are easier to rehab. But are they really?

I don't think they're any faster to replace in a repair scenario.

But when the time comes in their lives that they need a major (mid-life) refit, then you will be looking into refitting the entire car and having prefabbed modules reduces the days the car is out of use.

Airlines do this all the time (I believe).

The modules used in airliners are in the unit of seats, and typically a few of them can be changed out without having to remove the entire lot of modules to replace one at the end of the fuselage. Indeed, more often than not that is the kind of shuffling that is done. There are no means to open up a huge hole on one side of an airliner fuse to do changes in bigger units anyway, without incurring huge extra cost. So the similarity between Viewliners and aircraft is tenuous at best. Airliners are actually more like regular railcars.

In Viewliners, if a car layout has to be changed at one end, there no way to do that without hauling out all the modules from that end, even those that do not need to be changed, at least in case of the Sleepers.

In case of Coaches, it is not clear how the Viewliners make anything easier than in regular non-Viewliner coaches. Seats are mounted on tracks and they can be moved about or replaced as single unit, or at least one would hope so.

 

[PVD]

The only thing that might improve to any significant sense in new build coaches would be access to A/C units which we have previously discussed and agreed about. There are some parts of planes that for speed of maintenance come out out in sections or units, but except for the rather uncommon convertible/combi versions of planes it would not usually be the interior. Engines and APU's would be much more likely. Modularity really doesn't make much difference unless you are pulling a whole side or whole car for a major job. If you removed a full cars worth and replaced them with already prepared units, as in a full overhaul or rework that would be where you could gain an advantage. If you were to eventually convert VL1 sleepers to a configuration like the VL2 that would make a difference, but a one off repair of a problem room, not likely to be useful.

 

[jis]

If one wre not stuck with the Viewliner design, if all one needed to do is replace two roomettes at the end of a car with different configuration, wouldn't it be cheaper to be able to take them apart in place and replace with new features rather than yank out half the modules in the car through the center opening to get to the two end modules to replace them and then shove the entire lot of the rest back in again?

As you can see, I really don;t get it. What is more likely to happen more frequently? Need to replace one bad unit? Or doing a wholesale replacement of everything in a car?

 

[PVD]

The single plug section in the middle really doesn't accomplish much, a total overhaul is only going to take place a couple of times in the life of the car anyway. That being said, when is the next time we will see an order for single level sleepers anyway? And I certainly think your point about the VL design in general is valid. There is no reason moving forward to be locked in to a design whose best years (and innovations) are clearly behind it.

 

[cirdan]

If they're putting Superliners into service that have mechanical problems, that, of course, is a serious issue that should be a top priority for Amtrak. But if it's just that the furnishings in the rooms are a bit worn, well, it would be a bit nice to fix that, but one can understand why it might not be a top priority for the company. And, of course, there aren't many alternatives to the experience of a long distance train ride with a sleeper, and those that exists might have nicer hotel facilities, but, if you think that $1,000 for a coast to coast rip is expensive, the alternatives cost more than that.

You don't need to buy new cars because the fittings are worn. If a seat is worn you can re-upholster it. If the carpet is worn you can replace it. If the plumbing is old, you can replace the problematic bits without rebuilding the entire car. Personally I enjoy the atmosphere of older designs of rolling stock just as I enjoy the atmosphere of old time hotels. I don't thoink everything should be new and flashy. But that isn't an excuse to run equipment into the ground. I've never encounered a seriously defective Superliner myself, but if such do occur, and I can well imagine that they do, isn't this a failing on the part of Amtrak's maintenance inspections and crews?

 

[KmH]

I am going to be in a Superliner Roomette for 2 out of 3 legs of my trip next month and I will spend more time looking at the scenery than I will looking to see what looks worn on the car.

Me too - in the middle of October.

As long as its safe and the toilets work I don't mind if the Superliner car I ride in is a bit worn.

It's pretty easy to spot a Superliner from the 70's batch from a Superliner from the 90s batch by the more wear noticeable in a car from the older batch.

I'm trying to figure out how B-52 bombers and nuclear weapons factor in a discussion about the "Condition of Superliners" relative to the miserly allocation of funds Congress votes to give Amtrak. :huh:

 

[PVD]

I'm not sure about that. I've been in a slew of SL1s that were in pretty good shape. One has to guess those were units that had been overhauled.

 

[Bob Dylan]

KmH: one small correction on the condition of the 2 Superliners Models:

Most of the Superliner Is have been rehabbed by Beech Grove and are in good shape now,some evenlook new! ( there are a few ratty ones that haven't been rehabbed)

The newer IIs Sleepers have not,(but some of the Transdorms have) therefore they seem more worn and tired and have more rattles and mechanical problems etc.

I'd much rather ride in a rehabbed I, but as all things with Amtrak, it's luck of the draw!

And the Viewliner Is are generally becoming ratty too, especially the ones on the Cardinal!

 

[jis]

I remember hearing from Alan in a discussion that even the Superliner I rehabs were somewhat cosmetic in nature. For example, the electrical system and the core plumbing was not touched much. all paneling, upholstery and carpeting was replaced. More recently at least on the equipment that has passed through a stint on the Auto Train, lighting fixtures appear to have been updated to use LED lights, since that is the only way they can get the necessary number of cars in the Auto Train to stay within capacity of the 1Mw HEP system. This change in light fixtures apparently has happened to even some Superliner II stuff.

Looks like many of the Viewliner have had quite a bit of at least cosmetic work done on them. In addition I noticed many now have LED lighting fixtures.

 

[PVD]

Probably true. Even in cars where the bathrooms have been re-done, I wouldn't be shocked if the systems they connect to are original.

 

[AlanB]

I remember hearing from Alan in a discussion that even the Superliner I rehabs were somewhat cosmetic in nature. For example, the electrical system and the core plumbing was not touched much. all paneling, upholstery and carpeting was replaced. More recently at least on the equipment that has passed through a stint on the Auto Train, lighting fixtures appear to have been updated to use LED lights, since that is the only way they can get the necessary number of cars in the Auto Train to stay within capacity of the 1Mw HEP system. This change in light fixtures apparently has happened to even some Superliner II stuff.

That is correct Jishnu, On one trip I had an attendant open up the electrical cabinet on the lower level. As someone who's done electrical work, I could easily and immediately tell that the breakers and wires were original. And he mentioned that most other systems had the same issue, what the passenger sees is new, even those LED lights for example. But the wires that they're connected to are original. Most of the rebuilt Superliner I's have those new, more modern and sleek bathrooms that seem to have much more room than the older ones. But the water pipes and the vacuum system & pipes are still original.

It all looks great to the customer/passenger, but the underlying components still fail just like they've been doing for years and that leads to situations like 2sk21, the OP who started this topic, encountered on his run on the Empire Builder. I am however a bit surprised that he found an unrefurbished Superliner on the Empire Builder. Amtrak had been largely using only the best refurbished Superliner I's on the EB.

 

[Seaboard92]

Every Viewliner H room I've been in the door has rattled the entire trip. That was till I took one of my socks and closed it in. That solved it

 

[Eric S]

I am going to be in a Superliner Roomette for 2 out of 3 legs of my trip next month and I will spend more time looking at the scenery than I will looking to see what looks worn on the car. We have no money for Amtrak because we dump our money into entitlement programs that have NEVER actually fixed anything. Imagine if we once again had a good work ethic and could take that money and use it for infrastructure, Uncle Sugar is not an endless supply of money.

Honey, you're wrong in so many ways it'd take me an hour or more to explain it--and I don't have a spare hour for this right now.

However, in accordance with the rules of this forum that make it possible for members with diverse political views to discuss trains without getting into political cat-fights, we ought not to go there, and you ought not to make politically provocative posts here.

Rather than belaboring the point, I'll just leave it at - "Thank you, Tricia. Well put."