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Michael061282

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Be forewarned this is going to be disgusting. My apologies in advance.

Last week I rode the Texas Eagle and Sunset Limited from Chicago to Los Angeles. Overall it was a fantastic ride but on the last night a problem came up seemingly out of nowhere. Between San Antonio and LAX I had a downstairs room in the 0130 car which was a Superliner II car formally named "Wisconsin". From about 8:00 PM onwards every single time someone in the entire car, whether they were downstairs or upstairs, flushed the toilet the smell from the holding tank would somehow spill over into the AC vents. Not any fluid as far as I could tell thank god, but the smell was just insanely bad the last night. I wasn't the least bit shocked when I woke up in the morning to find the SCA had closed and locked the toilets in the entire car. My questions are what went wrong? How (and why!) are the 2 systems linked? Or maybe how are they close enough to each other where something like that could happen. To say people were gagging is a huge understatement. Overall, the trains got an A rating but last Sunday night was honestly miserable for everyone with a nose in that car.
 
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I have noticed this problem too is some of my rides. Not to the point of gagging me but enough of a smell to be noticable. It does add an unpleasantness to the ride!
 
The "sewage treatment unit" is located right next to the HVAC unit (above the trucks on the bathroom side) as you can see in the drawing on page 73 here:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwoszLS0nWxPdFM3ZW04Wm9Na1E/edit?usp=sharing

My guess is that occasionally the sewage treatment unit overflows and starts 'stinking up' the utility compartment there. The HVAC system has to get it's air it's pumping into the cars somewhere, so if the air is filled with sewage smell, that's what you'll smell.

peter
 
PerRock said:
The "sewage treatment unit" is located right next to the HVAC unit (above the trucks on the bathroom side) as you can see in the drawing on page 73 here:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwoszLS0nWxPdFM3ZW04Wm9Na1E/edit?usp=sharing

My guess is that occasionally the sewage treatment unit overflows and starts 'stinking up' the utility compartment there. The HVAC system has to get it's air it's pumping into the cars somewhere, so if the air is filled with sewage smell, that's what you'll smell.

peter
Click to expand...
Yeah that explains it I guess. It's funny, when the Eagle was in Fort Worth, they had a guy come out in a cart with a tank labelled SEWAGE go from car to car to empty the tanks. I'm kind of shocked they didn't do the same thing for the Sunset somewhere down the line like San Antonio or Tucson where they have oodles of dwell time.
 
I encountered 'that' smell on the Coast Starlight a couple of years ago. It wasn't clothespin-on-your-nose bad, but certainly not pleasant!

When I was on #6 this past Spring one of the coach cars was having pretty bad toilet 'issues' and an Amtrak mechanic took a look at it when we were in DEN. I went over to see what he was up to and in chatting to him he told me that Amtrak was no longer going to pay to have the holding tanks pumped en route, so if they fill up - that's that - out of commision until the end of the run.

I don't know if this is true or not - he seemed serious and unhappy about it - but if it is - YUCK!

Only two things I could think of why this would be true - cost containment and/or the crews that are supposed to service the tanks are not really doing their job. In either case, it seems like pretty bad policy to make paying passengers suffer this way!
 
That IS pretty bad policy, if what he said was true and not a simple miscommunication. What are they going to do if all of the holding tanks fill up before the end of the run? I'm thinking of those busy holiday seasons when the trains are sold out.
 
I have seen the "honey wagon" emptying the tanks on the TE northbound at STL. But they do have one stationed at STL, because the MORR and Lincoln Service end there. At FTW, the HF ends there. They probably emptied them at SAS, because the TE ends there. But no trains end at Denver or Tucson, so there is no "honey wagon" or employee "on call" (ie getting paid to sit around) - just in case.

Personally, I'd rather have Amtrak save the $100-200K per "honey wagon" and the employee at stations like Tucson or Denver or ABQ or CLE or ... and use that money to buy new cars!
 
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Some stations have sewage removal systems built in, so they don't need the cart. Just plug connect a hose and empty.

peter
 
the_traveler said:
I have seen the "honey wagon" emptying the tanks on the TE northbound at STL. But they do have one stationed at STL, because the MORR and Lincoln Service end there. At FTW, the HF ends there. They probably emptied them at SAS, because the TE ends there. But no trains end at Denver or Tucson, so there is no "honey wagon" or employee "on call" (ie getting paid to sit around) - just in case.

Personally, I'd rather have Amtrak save the $100-200K per "honey wagon" and the employee at stations like Tucson or Denver or ABQ or CLE or ... and use that money to buy new cars!
Click to expand...
I can't say that I've seen it happen in Denver, but I've seen the honey wagon emptying the SWC at ABQ.

So they do have provisions for emptying the LD's enroute.
 
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