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jmbgeg

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I travel more often on the Empire Builder than any other train (because it is the only train serving SPK). I always book sleepers and whenever available; bedrooms. The west and eastbound bedrooms on 27 and 28 appear to have high utilization rates; higher in my estimation than 7 and 8 (Seattle sleepers). I know there are more sleeper cars in the Seattle consist. My question is why does the Portland train have fewer? I don't think there is an oversupply on the Seattle train, but in my opinion, with 27 and 28 being the connection to the CS, I would think they could justify at least one more sleeper car on the Portland train. :unsure:
 
jmbgeg said:
I travel more often on the Empire Builder than any other train (because it is the only train serving SPK). I always book sleepers and whenever available; bedrooms. The west and eastbound bedrooms on 27 and 28 appear to have high utilization rates; higher in my estimation than 7 and 8 (Seattle sleepers). I know there are more sleeper cars in the Seattle consist. My question is why does the Portland train have fewer? I don't think there is an oversupply on the Seattle train, but in my opinion, with 27 and 28 being the connection to the CS, I would think they could justify at least one more sleeper car on the Portland train. :unsure:
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Agreed!! A friend and I will be doing a cross-country loop-de-loop in late February (2011) partially on #28 and wanted adoining bedrooms so we could open them up in the day and close them up at night... we had to book early because there are only 5 bedrooms per train!

I think, again, equipment availabilty is the problem. I am sure if Amtrak could put 4 sleepers on the EB they would.

If they only have 3 -- then 2 go to SEA and 1 to PDX, because SEA is a much larger city than PDX... I do believe.
 
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Equipment availability is the main reason there are not four sleepers on the EB. That and the fact that the dining car is already at max capacity on the Empire Builder. Adding another sleeper without also adding additional food service capacity would not go over well. It's already a common complaint from coach passengers that they either eat very late or don't eat in the dining car at all for dinner. They get a better opportunity to eat breakfast and lunch on the EB, imagine if there were another 20-40 sleeping car passengers.
 
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EB_OBS said:
Equipment availability is the main reason there are not four sleepers on the EB. That and the fact that the dining car is already at max capacity on the Empire Builder. Adding another sleeper without also adding additional food service capacity would not go over well. It's already a common complaint from coach passengers that they either eat very late or don't eat in the dining car at all for dinner. They get a better opportunity to eat breakfast and lunch on the EB, imagine if there were another 20-40 sleeping car passengers.
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Good points. Are there any trains large enough where they have two dining cars?
 
jmbgeg said:
EB_OBS said:
Equipment availability is the main reason there are not four sleepers on the EB. That and the fact that the dining car is already at max capacity on the Empire Builder. Adding another sleeper without also adding additional food service capacity would not go over well. It's already a common complaint from coach passengers that they either eat very late or don't eat in the dining car at all for dinner. They get a better opportunity to eat breakfast and lunch on the EB, imagine if there were another 20-40 sleeping car passengers.
Click to expand...
Good points. Are there any trains large enough where they have two dining cars?
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The Canadian, last time I rode it had four dining cars - three for sleepers and one for coach.

Don't know of any Amtrak trains other than the Autotrain that have more than one real dining car.
 
When I was on a crowded EB this summer, the LSA told us the dining car was serving over 200 passengers per meal on that trip. That's pushing both the equipment and the people to the limit. There had been plans to add a CCC to the EB to provide food service relief and also to provide hot food on the Portland leg, but like many Amtrak plans, that seems to have stalled.

Sometimes the issue with availability in the Portland sleeper is not bookings through to Portland, but bookings from the east to the Glacier Park area. In planning for this summer's trip CHI-PDX, our group was impacted by the lack of rooms available in the PDX sleeper from Chicago. However, for much of the time the sleeper was sold out from CHI-PDX, the sleeper was wide open from Spokane to PDX. The car was emptying out prior to SPK. When we took the trip in July, the car was full or nearly full right into PDX, but those were later bookings.
 
As already mentioned, food service is currently an issue for this train. When the plans for the use of the Stimulus monies were released last year, that plan included adding a CCC to the Empire Builder and a second Portland sleeper to the EB. Those plans hinged on restoring the 4 wrecked dining cars for which Stimulus monies were also allocated for. Those cars were to go to the Capitol Limited, which in turn would free up three CCC's for use on the Empire Builder. To date only 3 of the wrecked dining cars have been returned to service and therefore no changes have occurred on the Empire Builder.

The Capitol of course actually only needs 3 dining cars, not 4. However a monkey wrench got thrown into those plans when 2 dining cars had fires in them since the Stimulus plans were released. So I'm sure at this point that Amtrak needs all 4 wrecked diners back before they can make any moves.

Also batted around in the Stimulus plans was the idea of adding a third Seattle sleeper. That however may have died totally with the Sunset/Eagle plans.
 
I'm trying to book tickets on the Amtrak website for this summer for the Empire Builder and would really like a sleeper car. I've tried a lot of different options, but I'm only ever offered "reserved coach" and "lower-level coach." Sometimes it says "other options sold out."

If the roomette doesn't show up as an option, does it mean it's sold out?
 
Just got back home on Monday 26th April did the Empire from Portland.Next time we will take the Starlight up to Seattle for one reason and one reason only.There is no dining car from Portland until you reach Spokane which is fine in itself but when its connected up with the sleepers and dining car from Seattle the sleepers from Seattle and dining car are next to each other but the people in sleepers coming from Portland are in the last car of the train and have to go through six cars to get to the dining car and 5 cars to get to the lounge car and the tracks in a lot of places isn't very condusive to walking through that many cars in my opinion to get to the dining car especially for older people to be able to get thier meals.Our sleeper attendent God Bless Her announced she would go get meals for anyone who wanted her to and the people ran her ragged doing just that along with taking care of 22 roomettes and bedrooms.

emmy
 
I, too, took a #28 roomette in Feb. The diner car from PDX to Spokane wasnt an issue since we were bustituted :giggle: , but still it would be for just that one meal. Having the Rail Fan Window is a plus IMO, if it's clean!!!

Have Fun
 
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