IMG_0867 by seat38a, on Flickr
Or at least move the lounge lizards there.
Naah - let them try to sleep where they do, the dirty carpet out of the way is prize space for us who trust leaking doors and dirty carpets better than other lounge lizards and the inevitable walking paying customers and the lumpy seats (OK for sitting, bad for sleeping) in the lounge.
Surprised to hear that....IIRC, the "plug type" doors originally did have a full rubber seal into which they were 'seated' when the door was closed, and the handle was turned to tighten them....Got to ride in one today. Here is an inside hot of the baggage area. I noticed that the cargo doors have no sealing of any kind and just let the light from the outside right through. In the winter, this could possibly be a problem on LD trains in cold parts of the country.
This seems to be a problem with their baggage cars as well. I have seen pictures of their baggage cars pretty much just full of snow.
These looked hardier than the ones I remember was in the sleeper in January.
Good luck finding a spot to sleep in them however; they fill up pretty quick with people's luggage. They're also right next to the door so you'll be 'bothered' at most stops.There are actually some heavy duty looking luggage racks before the entrance to the bulk area. It almost looked like it could be comfortable with a pillow and some blankets
Careful, she might put you in there.
If you're writing about the old 'Heritage' baggage cars, I agree. Those cars have a simple sliding door, that did not seal as well as the plug-type doors, I well remember opening those doors at the Denver station during the aftermath of the Mount St. Helens eruption, when the baggage, and everything else, was covered with a thick layer of volcanic ash.
Assuming, of course, the new LD car order is bilevels, which at this point doesn't look likely.
Sorry if I don't understand what you mean, but Amtrak has 70 VL2 baggage cars on roster. How is that going to be an issue?
I have no idea what you are talking about. Amtrak has enough baggage cars to serve all the current trains even at double their current length with leftovers for a couple more trains. Additionally, new short Superliner trains will do fine with Coach Baggage Cars and do not need full baggage cars.
The point is that some day in the future a big "IF" Amtrak expands it route structure enough that the 70 baggage cars might not be enough. That is a lot of "IFs" come together. Just a few. 1. Major route expansion. 2. Equipment purchased. 3. Proper marketing. 4. Changing management's prime directive
Of course regarding the purchases in item 2 we don't know at this time what the composition of the new hypothetical order would be. So we don't know what the number of Sleepers, Coaches, Diners, Lounges and of course Baggage Cars might be.
