There was a query earlier by a member concerning the planned lounge in Seattle, but it's not really in the plans at all apparently. This got me to wondering: if--a big if--there were money available to construct lounges for sleeping car / business class passengers, where would the money best be spent?
Transfer points. Most people at the origin show up as late as they can get away with, and at the destination head immediately for their hotel.
There are several types of transfer points. I think for these purposes we can leave out:
-- transfer points to high-frequency mass transit (San Diego Trolley, Washington Metro Rail, etc.); the high frequency means low wait times.
-- transfers which don't work in reverse, such as CL westbound to LSL eastbound in Cleveland.
-- long overnight "get a hotel" transfers, such as CL westbound to Pennsylvanian eastbound in Pittsburgh.
-- where two routes overlap (such as the California Zephyr and the Coast Starlight), only the first and last point where the train service overlaps need be considered -- Emeryville or Sacramento, not random points in between
The following locations already have attended lounges:
New York
Chicago
Philadelphia
Washington DC
Boston
Los Angeles
Portland OR
The following locations have unattended lounges:
New Orleans
St. Louis
Raleigh
St. Paul
Now I will list ALL addtional Amtrak-to-Amtrak transfer points to consider:
Seattle -- Empire Builder to Cascades, Cascades-to-Portland to Cascades-to-Vancouver
Everett -- Empire Builder to Cascades-to-Vancouver (probably redundant with Seattle)
Sacramento -- Capitol Corridor (east end) / California Zephyr to Coast Starlight / San Joaquin
Emeryville -- Capitol Corridor / California Zephyr to Coast Starlight south
Martinez -- Capitol Corridor / California Zephyr to San Joaquin (west branch) (redundant with either Emeryville or Sacramento)
Spokane -- Empire Builder eastbound to Empire Builder westbound on the other branch
Kansas City -- SW Chief to Missouri River Runner
Galesburg -- SW Chief to California Zephyr, Quincy to both SWC and CZ
Fort Worth -- Heartland Flyer to Texas Eagle
San Antonio -- Sunset Limited to Texas Eagle
Battle Creek -- Wolverine to Blue Water
Greensboro -- Crescent to Piedmont/Carolinian
Cary -- Silver Star to Piedmont/Carolinian (Raleigh does the job, however)
Wilson -- Silver Meteor to Piedmont/Carolinian
Savannah -- Silver Star to Silver Meteor in the other direction
Petersburg -- Newport News to Silver Service
Richmond -- Norfolk or Newport News to Silver Service
Charlottesville -- Cardinal to Crescent
Pittsburgh -- Capitol Limited to Pennsylvanian
Cleveland -- Capitol Limited to Lake Shore Limited in other direction
Buffalo-Depew -- Lake Shore Limited to Maple Leaf in other direction
Schenectady -- Adirondack to Empire Service westbound
Albany -- Boston section LSL to Empire Service towards NYC
Springfield MA -- Boston section LSL (both halves) to Vermonter & Shuttles
Boston Back Bay (redundant with Boston South)
Boston North (waiting for the Downeaster)
New Haven -- Springfield Shuttles to NEC
I think this is actually the *complete* list of possibilities. Many of these are unreasonable.
Then I started thinking about same-direction transfer points between Amtrak and commuter rail, such as New Rochelle or Homewood. These are actually very important transfer points for people going to intermediate stops on the commuter rail. And they need good waiting rooms, but they are likely to have relatively few people making the transfer, and fewer in sleepers (more in coach).
I'm actually a little doubtful about this -- I think these don't need lounges... but I may be wrong. It might be worth making a list of them...
Some Metro-North to Amtrak transfer points:
Poughkeepsie
Croton-Harmon
Yonkers
New Rochelle
Stamford
South Norwalk
Stratford
And some for NJT:
Secaucus Junction
Newark NJ
Princeton Junction
Trenton
Rahway (for NJ Coast Line)
And for SEPTA:
Trenton
North Philadelphia
Newark DE
And for MARC:
Baltimore
Martinsburg WV
And for VRE:
Manassas
Fredericksburg
And for NICTD:
South Bend
And for Metra:
Glenview ( Lake Forest would be better )
Aurora IL
Joliet IL
Homewood IL (University Park would be better)
And at that point I gave up on counting Amtrak to commuter rail connections; someone else will have to list the west-of-the-Mississippi and Florida possibilities if they want to.