Sleeper Horn Noise and Fumes

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Railspike

Service Attendant
AU Supporting Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2020
Messages
128
Location
Houston
We are contemplating a LD trip after the first of the year but are hesitating due to previous threads complaining about the sleeper cars being right behind the locomotive(s) creating louder than normal horn sound and fumes from the locomotives getting into the sleeper car themselves. I am aware Amtrak has added metal shields over the doorway, but has this really helped with the problems?
 
Everyone is different, sometimes people love the horn and have no issue with it, including me. While some hate it.

The fumes are only really a problem if you are in the very front of the very first car and there’s no baggage car, but those rooms are usually for crew, and if a transdorm is on that train it is definitely for the crew.

I’ve never really experienced the fumes, and the horn doesn’t bother me. You can always request the car that’s furthest away from the front.
 
I was in the sleeper on The Cap Ltd #30 10/23, roomette 3 - middle of the car. The sleeper was the car next to the engine, the horn was really loud. I didn't notice any fumes. Foam earplugs helped with the horn but didn't eliminate it.
 
The horn can be quite loud when you're right behind the locomotive but you can ask for another sleeper at booking. Superliner sleepers seem to have little or no air filtration and I can smell diesel fumes during acceleration and brake fumes when stopping. The Siemens Charger locomotives should help cut down on diesel soot. If this is an issue my advice is to start with a shorter trip and see how that goes first.
 
I was on Sunset Limited #1 NOL->TUS last week and was in the sleeper. We were the first car. Through San Antonio, I found the horn to be pretty constant. Annoying at first but then it sort of became ingrained. Once we got past San Antonio and into the desert, it wasn’t an issue.
i did notice the fumes in my room, but my dad did not. I didn’t find them to be overwhelming and there were certainly enough “fresh air” stops along the way to clean out the lungs if needed. At least imo. We had bedroom D.Lower level rooms may not have the same exposure though.
 
The horn never bothered me, but the fumes did. Going to one of the Gatherings the fumes caused me to have a problem which resulted in losing my voice for several weeks. There was a medical term for it, but I can't remember what it was. However, that was a very extreme case and I have never heard of anyone else having that happen.
 
In summer 1944 some of my family were in an open-wondow coach (Mom & I were in a parlor car on a separate train) and my brother remembers sticking a conical paper cup out the window and having it fill up with cinders though well behind the steam locomotive. But over the decades passenger cars were never next to an engine because so many mail & baggage cars were in between. Today on the Chicago-Saint Louis trains the BC/cafe car may be next to the engine or at the opposite end.
 
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