Lake Shore Limited Looked Unhealthy

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Amfleet

Engineer
Joined
Aug 24, 2002
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3,390
Location
Southeastern, Massachusetts
I was at South Station today and caught a glimpse of the Lake Shore Limted. For a Lounge it had a Horizon Dinette/Coach followed by an Amfleet I Coach (in the "new" Phase IVb), an Amfleet II Coach, a Viewliner, and probably one or two baggages, but I couldn't see that far ahead. I can't imagine a ride to Chicago with a measly half Dinette for a Lounge and an Amfleet I Coach. Hopefully, local passengers were assigned to the Amfleet I and overnight passengers to the Amfleet II. I also think this is the first Amtrak train I have seen where every car is of a different equipment type.

I will have a full report of my trips this weekend. :)
 
:D Amfleet, can you get a half a sandwich in a half Dinette?

- - - - - The Chief
 
YES, you can. I will explain the car more in depth. Everything is half. There are only half seats, half windows, half tables, and even the drink cups are halved. It's just like Mr. Wonka's office in the chocolate factory!!! :lol:
 
Amfleet said:
YES, you can. I will explain the car more in depth. Everything is half. There are only half seats, half windows, half tables, and even the drink cups are halved. It's just like Mr. Wonka's office in the chocolate factory!!! :lol:
Don't forget its only got half the width. :lol:
 
Hopefully everything is half the price, and the lines are half as long :) But I will not tolerate a hald a can of soda as thst is a favorite of the airlines.
 
The Dining car still does not make up for not having a real lounge car though. I guarantee you if they ever put a Horizon Lounge on Silver Service and its not a Deadhead I'll burst a blood vessel.
 
After reading various trip reports, it seems the Lake Shore Limited gets what ever is left over from the pool. It left me without sleeper, others withou a corridor coach, no diner on a few trains. I seriously hope the Cardinal will return to Superliner soo because the strain on the single-level LD fleet is really bad.
 
Steve4031 said:
What a half-ass looking consist.  Keep in mind there is a full diner on the New York section which combines with the Boston section in Albany.
It's also quite possible that once the Boston section reached Albany that they replaced the lounge/cafe car with a normal full length car. Keep in mind Amfleet, that Albany also has a supply of these cars.
 
Amfleet said:
After reading various trip reports, it seems the Lake Shore Limited gets what ever is left over from the pool. It left me without sleeper, others withou a corridor coach, no diner on a few trains. I seriously hope the Cardinal will return to Superliner soo because the strain on the single-level LD fleet is really bad.
I agree, its important that we do our best to return the Cardinal to Superliner, it has indeed screwed up the Single Level trains. Whats most important is returning the Silver Palm and having the other cars for resources.

Also, once Gunn gets us on a stable footing (equipment-wise, enough left to "loosen the belt" and with funding), I hope he will make an attempt at getting more Single Level LD Cars (Viewliners, but build by a builder whos quality is equal to the mechanically succsesful Talgo train, as the car is a good concept, just the current 50 aren't of the best quality. Beginning with Sleepers, so a train doesn't have to lose all of its sleepers in the event of another Superliner shortage, which we won't have with Gunn and now that we have Beech Grove making repairs. Next we can go on to Diners, BD's, Coaches (No second row window due to luggage racks, some coach-smokers so the lounges don't have to waste capacity), Lounges (maybe even order enough to allow an Extra one for FC Passengers on select routes), and Deluxe's for the Silver Service, one of the if not the most important routes for Amtrak as it does offer 3 daily trains.) I know I'm dreaming, but at least its somewhat sensible, after all the Heritage fleet can't last forever (actually, they probably could, after all Budd (and some are P-S) Built them).

I plan to write a letter of Praise/Thanks, and questions to David Gunn this summer, once I have the time. One thing I will ask is what his plans are as far as new equipment, once he can get repairs made, and the funding for the new cars.
 
I think it is best to leave the Palmetto the way it is as long as it continues serving Tampa. I rather see the sleepers and diners from the Cardinal go into standby positions in New York and Chicago incase of mechanical failures on other equipment.

As for new equipment for Amtrak, don't count on it to soon. In a recent interview with Gunn on C-Span, he said his top priority is to get existing equipment and track (on the NEC) safely operational. I think we will find Amtrak in a much better state with all 100 Superliners repaired, than buying new equipment.
 
Why leave the Palmetto as-is? It won't benefit those who want to travel to Tampa from New York (and vice versa). The route is just too long to do that. The train needs its sleeper, needs its diner, and needs a better schedule, leaving New York later and getting to TPA at a more reasonable hour. I realize the equipment repair is a priority as well as getting the track safely operational, but we can't keep using the current Heritage and Amfleet equipment. Additional sleepers at least should be purchased once those improments are made to equipment/tracks. Otherwise, we'll only run into this problem again. All it'll take is a serious derailment or two where Viewliners are forced to be scrapped to devistate the SL trains, and as bad as it is for the Palmetto, could you imagine another train suffering the same fate. If we had enough sleepers (and diners, but mainly sleepers), there wouldn't have to be a Palmetto, trains would just be shorter by a sleeper or two, which would still leave each train with 1-3 sleepers if we had more. More sleepers would benefit other routes and not just the Palmetto/Silver Palm. The Three Rivers for example you've said numerous times you'd like to see it get another sleeper, if we had the extra ones, it wouldn't be an issue (and if we got it a diner it would be even better). Even if the Palmetto doesn't regain sleepers once the Cardinal gets Superliners, the surplus you'd have would be insignificant enough to really benefit the system. Doesn't it seem wrong the Shoreliner has a Viewliner, yet the Palmetto doesn't.

I think a big problem is Amtrak neglected to look at the needs of the Single Levels for the longest time, and paid way too much attention to Superliners. Its shameful that there were two generations Superliner fleets before even a Viewliner (Single-Level) Sleeper Fleet (doesn't reflect the 2 prototypes), let alone an entire new Single Level Fleet, sure there were the Amfleet II's but nobody thought about the sleepers, diners and crew cars for too long.

Bottom line its necessary to buy more Sleepers (at minimum with an entire fleet the maximum) and buy 10-25 Sleepers to start.

Whats everyones opinion on the matter?
 
Well first I am really doubting you or me will see a purchase of even 10-25 sleepers in the near future. When the Silver Palm did have a sleeper it was not generating much business and it was found much better to have 3 sleepers on both the Silver Star and Silver Meteor. Remember, the Palmetto change was made before the Cardinal had to go single-level.

Yes, I would like to see the Three Rivers with a diner and a second sleeper, but I would rather see a healthy Lake Shore. It's better to give people what they expect instead of taking away (ie. my Sleeper in July 2002).
 
Amfleet said:
When the Silver Palm did have a sleeper it was not generating much business and it was found much better to have 3 sleepers on both the Silver Star and Silver Meteor. Remember, the Palmetto change was made before the Cardinal had to go single-level.
Whoa, not so fast there. I rode the Palm several times, before it's demise. While it may have been light in the coach section, I can assure you that the sleeper was near max capacity (if not sold out), every time.

Additionally they often had three sleepers on the Meteor long before the demise of the Palm.
 
Viewliner, I'm not disagreeing with you and I upmostly would love to see a sleeper and diner on the Silver Palm/Palmetto, but in the state Amtrak is in it does not seem possible right now. There is only one train from Boston to Chicago with a sleeper, but already 2 with sleepers and a diner to Florida. If anything I think Amtrak should split the Star in Jacksonville with one section going to Tampa and the other Orlando then Miami. This way there will be sleeper service to Tampa from the Northeast. Maybe the Palmetto could run as a cross Florida train only from Tampa to Orlando to Jacksonville.
 
That would work better, but you'd want to retain one TPA-MIA Train, otherwise it'd be a hassle traveling between the two points.
 
Jon, I haven't got the slightest clue where you are getting your information from. When the Silver Palm had its sleeper, that thing was jam packed coming out of Tampa Union, they really needed a second sleeper on that train. The reason why it got cut was, some idiot manager (which there were a lot of in the Warrington era) looked at a manifest sometime in Febuary 2001. As we all know, Febuary isn't the highest occupancy level for any train designed to haul vacationers. The manager decided that the sleeper would be better suited on Amtrak's pet project, the K-Card. Well three derailments later, the Palmetto still hasn't gotten its sleeper back because of shortages. I guarantee you though, we have at least a dozen sleeping car PAX's in the high season transferring to a bus at Orlando because there's no sleeping car service to TPA anymore.
 
I'm probably just getting rail gossip from different sources. I think I actually mixed up the Palmetto with the K-Card. I remember when they took the sleeper off the Shoreliner they insisted it be put back because of high-demand and the train the sleeper went to was getting low ridership. I had thought that train was the Silver Palm, but your right, it was the K-Card.

Meeting you guys half way here, what if the Palmetto got it's sleeper back, but instead of a diner it ran like the Shoreliner did a few years ago. That train had a First Class Dinette Lounge where nuked meals were served on linen covered tables aqs in a Diner and coach passengers got a Dinette/Coach for their lounge (the train would have to be non-smoking though). Maybe this configuration could be started up on the Shoreliner and Three Rivers as a more premium service overnight train without a diner. I believe with the age of these heritage diners one needs to be in stand by in NYC and CHI in case of mechanical failure.
 
That be a good solution for the Palmetto, but I think for a train that distance it needs a Diner, but I think its a good solution for the Three Rivers as well as bringing it back to the Twilght Shoreliner. But I think instead of not giving the Palmetto a Diner, I'd have that kind of thing ready for a train when its forced to run with 2 Lounges. Getting back to what you just said, thats a good reason to start buying new cars once Superliner and track repairs there should be an investment in more sleepers and a couple of diners at minimum. This time with a Viewliner Diner, it should definitely be built by a quality builder otherwise we could wind up with another case of 8400-itis. The reason for the diners is again the fact that there aren't enough to go around and even if you just buy a few of them, at least you'll have some back-ups on a moments notice (plus some for the Three Rivers and/or Twilight Shoreliner), as with the sleepers. Even though 8400 might not have been a technical sucess it was a good concept, and should be built in the same sort of layout and quality as a Heritage Diner (Maybe Temoinsa).

I think we can come up with the logical conclusion that within the next several years (5-10), an investment has to be made in the Single Level Fleet, otherwise we may really start running into problems. Had we had a few more cars (like 100 Viewliner sleepers as originally planed, being ordered instead of the intial 50), we wouldn't have to have this arguement/discusssion (whatever its viewed as) about how a route doesn't have enough sleepers (rather one having some but not enough, as is really the case on the rest of the East Coast SL trains, particularly with the Deluxe rooms as I've heard of people getting standards, instead of getting a Deluxe room which they'd get, but none were available. Thus the suggestion of an all Deluxe Sleeper as I'm sure It would sell well.)
 
You know Viewliner it's funny you mention all Deluxe sleepers, as I was speaking about the idea with my Sanford man just a couple of days ago. We decided that the idea was not a good one as, what happens if the only Deluxe sleeper in New York (or wherever) is unable to go out? You have a lot of unhappy Deluxe PAX's. SO what we decided would be a better move on the next round of Viewliners is to make them have 10 standard rooms per car, plus 3 deluxe and an H. This too creates a smaller problem, which car has 3 deluxe, which has two etc. The solution to this is you restrict the cars with 2 deluxes to one set of lines, and the new cars to another set. For example, the old cars could be only for use on the Silver Service and Twilight Shoreliner, while the new cars go to the LSL, Three Rivers, and Cardinal (if they are still on single level). One major thing that must happen with the new Viewliners though is that they must be built similarly to the Heritage cars, with strong metal walls on the inside, instead of the cheap plastic like todays Viewliners have.
 
I think we can come up with the logical conclusion that within the next several years (5-10), an investment has to be made in the Single Level Fleet, otherwise we may really start running into problems.
Absolutly, and by that time the Amfleets will have reached 30 years old, the Heritage Diners/Dorms/Bagagges will be in there 60's, and the Viewliners in there 20's. I hope the new cars take the concept of the Viewliners (Sleepers) or the old Heritage Fleet (Lounges, Diners). Now maybe the Amfleets will not need replacing, but could still be used after a rebuild or something (that would save some money).
 
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