Midwest Consists

[rtabern]

I was wondering if anyone knew... are the Horizon cars a lot cheaper to make and run than Superliners? On a lot of the Midwest routes, they obviously run those single-level coaches on day trains (like Chicago to Quincy, St. Louis, and Carbondale). Why not run Superliner coaches on those instead? My only guess is the single-level coaches are just cheaper to make or maintain? Sometimes they do run Superliner eqipment(especially during winter on some of the St. Louis trains) because, according to a conductor I know, the Superliners operate better in extreme winter weather. Why not just stop making the single-level coaches when they wear out.. and replace them with Superliners? Personally, I like them A LOT better.

 

[AlanB]

The easy answer to your main question is, there simply aren't enough Superliners to go around. During the winter when the Horizon cars sometimes have troubles with freezing, the Superliner's aren't in demmand on the LD's quite as much as they are during the peak summer months.

But during the summer, there is no choice, Amtrak needs every Superliner coach they have running on the LD's.

As for which is cheaper to maintain, I'd guess that the Horizon's are probably a bit cheaper, just because they're smaller and weight less.

 

[Trogdor]

They're making neither single-level nor Superliner coaches right now. It's simply a matter of what Amtrak has available in the fleet, because no new equipment is on the horizon (so to speak) for quite some time.

Superliners are needed for long-distance trains during the peak periods. During the winter periods, demand isn't quite as high, and so Superliner cars are used on some corridor trains to free up single-level equipment for other purposes (such as special trains).