Extra Sleepers?

[Musicians4Trains]

Since this is such a great board with such savvy train folks I know someone here can answer a question that I've been wondering about.

I know that during peak travel times (Thanksgiving and Christmas for example) it's often hard to get a sleeper if you wait until the last minute to book.

Does Amtrak usually only have two sleeper cars for passengers? If so, why wouldn't they add another sleeper car if the demand is there? Is it a matter of supply?

I've always thought that if they had enough people it would be a piece of cake to add another car, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Can anyone explain why not?

Thanks.

 

[Amtrak Watcher]

Sleepers are always in short supply; worse on some routes than others. It is slightly easier to get a sleeper in the off-season than in the summer. With some creativity (try an alternate route or change your plans by a day), you can usually get a sleepr as close as two or three weeks before departure. I've had good luck using the "multri-city" option on the Amtrak web site, and just being flexable in my plans.

 

[AMTRAK-P42]

It does have some to do with the lack of supply. Amtrak is finally starting to get the superliner fleet fixed though. Amtrak had to cut one of its routes, the Cardinal, from superliner service and change it back over to single level because of this such lack of equipment

 

[AlanB]

As the others have mentioned, it's simply a lack of usable cars that prevents Amtrak from adding more sleepers. The Superliner fleet is stretched too thin from years of no repairs to damaged equipment, thanks to lack of money.

Even if and when all damaged Superliners are repaired, I'm still not sure if Amtrak would be able to boost all trains to three sleepers at peak times. They however would be able to give an extra sleeper to most trains.

On the Viewliner side, right now they are stretched to the breaking point. As was mentioned, when so many Superliners were wrecked the Cardinal went from using Superliner cars to Viewliner cars. Thanks to that, there are no spare Viewliners around at all. That's also why the Silver Palm lost it's sleepers.

However even once the Cardinal is restored to Superliner equipment, if the Palm gets the sleepers back, then there still won't be enough Viewliners to run three sleepers per train during peak times. I think that there are also a few wrecked Viewliners awaiting repairs, so getting those back into service would also help some too.

No matter what Amtrak does though, the Viewliner fleet needs to be increased. By the time you factor in how many cars you need in service each day, how many spares that need to be sitting in a yard in case of a failure, plus having a couple out for major repairs (like getting new wheels), there just aren't enough to go around.

 

[Viewliner]

Don't forget we're short on Diners (and Lounges and Coaches for that matter), so a there is desperate need to invest in a single level (Viewliner) fleet.

I'm going on Vacation, so this may be one of my last posts till next week.

 

[AlanB]

That's true, however M4T only asked about sleepers.

 

[Amfleet]

I will tell you that the three most common Viewliner Sleeping Car trains that could run with a replacement coach instead are the Cardinal, Lake Shore Limited Boston Section, and the Federal. This is due to the fact that Washington DC and Boston don't have any spare Viewliners what so ever. What comes in goes right back out the same day. This is almost a weekly occurance.

You will have more luck with the Silver Star, Silver Meteor, and Crescent as Miami and New York have the ability to swap cars when needed as there is more than one departure per day for Viewliner trains. There are still rare occurances where a coach will have to subsitute though.

 

[AlanB]

I will tell you that the three most common Viewliner Sleeping Car trains that could run with a replacement coach instead are the Cardinal, Lake Shore Limited Boston Section, and the Federal. This is due to the fact that Washington DC and Boston don't have any spare Viewliners what so ever. What comes in goes right back out the same day. This is almost a weekly occurance.
You will have more luck with the Silver Star, Silver Meteor, and Crescent as Miami and New York have the ability to swap cars when needed as there is more than one departure per day for Viewliner trains. There are still rare occurances where a coach will have to subsitute though.

Well that's due in part to the fact that the Cardinal has Viewliners and the fact that there are a few wrecked Viewliners still waiting to be repaired. If the wrecks are repaired and cars are handled properly, then it might actually be possible to have a spare sitting in Boston.

 

[Amfleet Fan]

On the last leg of my trip last month from CHI to NYP on the LSL, the Employee Development Manager for Amtrak sat in the sleeping compartment across from me.

He basically said that the Viewliner Design will be applied to new coaches, diners, lounges, and of course sleepers. It's just a matter of when.

 

[Amfleet]

On the last leg of my trip last month from CHI to NYP on the LSL, the Employee Development Manager for Amtrak sat in the sleeping compartment across from me.
He basically said that the Viewliner Design will be applied to new coaches, diners, lounges, and of course sleepers. It's just a matter of when.

Well that may have been the most interesting thing I have heard all day. Can't wait to see what these cars will look like if and when they are built.

Does anyone have a count of how many Viewliners are currently out of serivce? I had thought they were all running.

 

[AlanB]

On the last leg of my trip last month from CHI to NYP on the LSL, the Employee Development Manager for Amtrak sat in the sleeping compartment across from me.
He basically said that the Viewliner Design will be applied to new coaches, diners, lounges, and of course sleepers.  It's just a matter of when.

Well that may have been the most interesting thing I have heard all day. Can't wait to see what these cars will look like if and when they are built.

Does anyone have a count of how many Viewliners are currently out of serivce? I had thought they were all running.

I'm not real sure, but I think that there are at least three wreck damaged Viewliner's that are awaiting repairs. All are still considered active, which at least for the moment means that Amtrak hasn't scrapped any. That's why OTOL still lists 50.

 

[battalion51]

Well Alan, yesterday while going through Hialeah I saw four Viewliners inactive, not in a consist ready to go out, not to mention the fact that we had four sleepers (one DH) on our train. Two of our Viewliners were to go to 92, with the other two going to 92. So, the sleepers are there, Amtrak just needs to figure out that they are.

 

[AlanB]

Well Alan, yesterday while going through Hialeah I saw four Viewliners inactive, not in a consist ready to go out, not to mention the fact that we had four sleepers (one DH) on our train. Two of our Viewliners were to go to 92, with the other two going to 92. So, the sleepers are there, Amtrak just needs to figure out that they are.

Well it's not like there's many of them there. Consider the following inventory of cars needed for normal service.

Lake Shore    - 9Three Rivers  - 3

Cardinal        - 2

Silver Star     - 8

Silver Meteor - 9

Crescent       - 8

Federal          - 2

That totals to 41 Viewliners needed for normal service. Plus I can't remember if the Cardinal is running with 1 sleeper or 2 sleepers. If it runs with 2, then the Cardinal number above will increase to 4.

I'm positive that there is at least 1 Viewliner in the damaged catagory and like I said I think that there maybe at least 3 in that group. But for now I'll assume one Viewliner down. That bring us to 42 Viewliners accounted for. Figure that at any given time Amtrak must have at least two out of service for repairs and FRA mandated inspections. So now we've used up 44 Viewliners.

Not withstanding my uncertainty about how many sleepers the Cardinal uses or the wreck damaged equipment, that leaves a maximum of 6 Viewliners as spares. That's not enough to go around.

Plus if there are more in the damaged category or if the Cardinal is running with 2 sleepers, then that number of 6 spares goes down fast.

 

[Amfleet]

Not withstanding my uncertainty about how many sleepers the Cardinal uses or the wreck damaged equipment, that leaves a maximum of 6 Viewliners as spares. That's not enough to go around.

You are correct, the Cardinal runs with one Viewliner. So if there are only 6 spare Viewliners, then 4 of them are down at Hialeah and the other 2 probably at Sunnyside.