Superliner trains' removal and restoration of cars (2022-2023)

[lordsigma]

Lucky you to have a senator who takes you seriously. Both of mine just sent me irrelevant canned responses.

Too true and thats always been part of the problem with Amtrak. It’s weird mash between public and private sector and its owners (Congress) have never really given it the attention it deserves nor a consistent long term message. Can’t lose a dime on food service - profit is priority one. Now we have the opposite policy. Not that this excuses decisions made at Amtrak but it makes it hard to have a long term plan for the future when you’re always having to plan for the next congress and administration. There’s a lot more to the problem but the general lack of attention and oversight has always been a contributor to consistency issues at the company. This is probably why Amtrak has a CEO whose pre Amtrak background was the hill instead of someone with significant transportation experience - because of the need to navigate political waters. Our ridiculous disfunctional US politics do not help with having a sturdy reliable Amtrak.

 

[Bonser]

Just a point of clarity on car line numbers, otherwise I agree with you entirely.

The cars safest from these cuts throughout this clown show are what I call the "base" sleepers. Second in safety are the transdorms.

On most Superliner trains the base sleeper is the 30 car line and the transdorm is the 40 car line. The at risk second sleeper is the 31 car line. With the following exceptions:

5/6 - base sleeper is the 31 car. Transdorm is the 40 car line. The risky second sleeper is the 32 car line.

7/8 - base sleeper is the 30 car line. Transdorm is the 32 car line. Risky second sleeper is the 31 car line. Note that both standard sleepers and transdorms as the 32 car line on various consists.

27/28. Doesn't generally have a second sleeper assigned. 30 car line is the base sleeper.

1/2. No second sleeper. 30 car line is safe.

21/22, 421/422. No second sleeper, no transdorm 30 car line should be safe.

11/14 - no transdorm. Up to 3 sleepers. Beware 31 and 32.

29/30-base sleeper car line 00, risky second sleeper 01.

Until this definitely blows over, always call for reservations and try to get placed in the "base" sleeper. This has been going on since May, first on the Builder, then on the SW Chief and finally the CZ. Do not treat any train as safe even if it is running a second sleeper today.

Finally, while they are not notifying people on timely basis, generally it seems that it will show on the app pretty much as soon as the cars are cut from inventory. If the car has been cut and the reservation cancelled, the reservation will stop showing a QR code in the app. For anyone holding sleeper reservations currently, I suggest checking the app every few days to make sure it looks okay. If it doesn't, call. You'll beat those pending the late notifications in getting any open base sleeper accommodations or on another day.

I do not excuse any aspect of Amtrak's handling of this. I only offer the information in the spirit that a little knowledge and insight can help make the best of a bad situation.

What exactly is a QR code and where on the app can one find it? Sorry if this was asked before.

 

[Trucker72]

Just a point of clarity on car line numbers, otherwise I agree with you entirely.

The cars safest from these cuts throughout this clown show are what I call the "base" sleepers. Second in safety are the transdorms.

On most Superliner trains the base sleeper is the 30 car line and the transdorm is the 40 car line. The at risk second sleeper is the 31 car line. With the following exceptions:

5/6 - base sleeper is the 31 car. Transdorm is the 40 car line. The risky second sleeper is the 32 car line.

7/8 - base sleeper is the 30 car line. Transdorm is the 32 car line. Risky second sleeper is the 31 car line. Note that both standard sleepers and transdorms as the 32 car line on various consists.

27/28. Doesn't generally have a second sleeper assigned. 30 car line is the base sleeper.

1/2. No second sleeper. 30 car line is safe.

21/22, 421/422. No second sleeper, no transdorm 30 car line should be safe.

11/14 - no transdorm. Up to 3 sleepers. Beware 31 and 32.

29/30-base sleeper car line 00, risky second sleeper 01.

Until this definitely blows over, always call for reservations and try to get placed in the "base" sleeper. This has been going on since May, first on the Builder, then on the SW Chief and finally the CZ. Do not treat any train as safe even if it is running a second sleeper today.

Finally, while they are not notifying people on timely basis, generally it seems that it will show on the app pretty much as soon as the cars are cut from inventory. If the car has been cut and the reservation cancelled, the reservation will stop showing a QR code in the app. For anyone holding sleeper reservations currently, I suggest checking the app every few days to make sure it looks okay. If it doesn't, call. You'll beat those pending the late notifications in getting any open base sleeper accommodations or on another day.

I do not excuse any aspect of Amtrak's handling of this. I only offer the information in the spirit that a little knowledge and insight can help make the best of a bad situation.

My wife and I went through the "your sleeper has been cancelled" on the CZ this past September. Since then I have learned so much on this forum that it's unbelievable! This post is just another example that will really help me when I put next September's trip together. Thanks to all that post here!

 

[Carolyn Bryat]

Just checked my reservations for Dec 18th. Our family room on the CZ was CANCELLED. No noticed I just found out by my weekly checking, on hold with consumer relations now…

Spent an hour plus with Guest relations. The 32 cars are gone until next summer from what they can tell. I asked why wasn’t I notified she said unfortunately Amtrak has been sending out the notification emails 2 weeks before the travel date. She agreed this was horrible since they know in most cases months in advance.

I was able to get a Senate staffer involved, since I had brought this subject up with them just this week, that helped immensely. Long story short Guest relations wasnt able to help us on the 18th but we got a small upgrade on 12/19 going from a family room to one bedroom and one roomette in the transition car not ideal but we had too many other travel plans that were non refundable we couldn’t cancel.

If you have any reservations in the 32 cars on any train check them weekly. Reading between the lines from what the guest relations agent and her supervisor said and implied this is being done deliberately at some level.

 

[Carolyn Bryat]

Same thing happened to us with a June 2022 reservation Columbus WI to Whitefish MT on the Empire Bldr. I only found out by reading the Facebook fan page. I called Guest Relations and no one there knew what was happening. Our car was canceled, and we had been moved from a Family Bedroom to 2 roomettes in the transition sleeper without any notification. I explained that I was traveling with 2 small grandkids and could not have those roomettes separated by 5 rooms during the night! The agent was understanding and said she had a Bedroom open in a different car, which she gave me. I think the car was canceled due to a shortage of on board staff. Had I not been on Facebook, I would not have known in advance and would have had to cram all 3 of us into a roomette as I could not let little kids be alone all night.........

I travel in sleepers at least 4 - 6 times a year, and have had lots of issues this past year.......pays to be alert!! Like you, I know that they knew in advance about that canceled car.......good luck with your trip.

 

[joelkfla]

What exactly is a QR code and where on the app can one find it? Sorry if this was asked before.

The modern equivalent of a bar code, like this:

What the conductor scans. It's on the home page of the app, for each ticket.

 

[joelkfla]

Just a point of clarity on car line numbers, otherwise I agree with you entirely.

The cars safest from these cuts throughout this clown show are what I call the "base" sleepers. Second in safety are the transdorms.

On most Superliner trains the base sleeper is the 30 car line and the transdorm is the 40 car line. The at risk second sleeper is the 31 car line. With the following exceptions:

5/6 - base sleeper is the 31 car. Transdorm is the 40 car line. The risky second sleeper is the 32 car line.

7/8 - base sleeper is the 30 car line. Transdorm is the 32 car line. Risky second sleeper is the 31 car line. Note that both standard sleepers and transdorms as the 32 car line on various consists.

27/28. Doesn't generally have a second sleeper assigned. 30 car line is the base sleeper.

1/2. No second sleeper. 30 car line is safe.

21/22, 421/422. No second sleeper, no transdorm 30 car line should be safe.

11/14 - no transdorm. Up to 3 sleepers. Beware 31 and 32.

29/30-base sleeper car line 00, risky second sleeper 01.

Until this definitely blows over, always call for reservations and try to get placed in the "base" sleeper. This has been going on since May, first on the Builder, then on the SW Chief and finally the CZ. Do not treat any train as safe even if it is running a second sleeper today.

Finally, while they are not notifying people on timely basis, generally it seems that it will show on the app pretty much as soon as the cars are cut from inventory. If the car has been cut and the reservation cancelled, the reservation will stop showing a QR code in the app. For anyone holding sleeper reservations currently, I suggest checking the app every few days to make sure it looks okay. If it doesn't, call. You'll beat those pending the late notifications in getting any open base sleeper accommodations or on another day.

I do not excuse any aspect of Amtrak's handling of this. I only offer the information in the spirit that a little knowledge and insight can help make the best of a bad situation.

For Silver Meteor 97/98, sleepers 10 & 11 so far have been safe; 12 is the one at risk.

I got zapped from it a couple of months ago, and @jis said he got bumped this week.

 

[Ryan]

The modern equivalent of a bar code, like this:
View attachment 29898
What the conductor scans. It's on the home page of the app, for each ticket.

Clever example. . This is my go-to demonstration:

 

[The Quaking Widow]

Ironically, today Amtrak Marketing sent a multi-page beautiful email advertising sleeping accommodations on Amtrak!

 

[Katymo]

Just when you think it can't get any worse, Amtrak proves otherwise. They seem to be specialists at this and over and over again cause incalculable damage to their own business.

I just called Guest Services and the correct story is that they are taking one Sleeper out of service at a time for renovation. Goodness knows they need it. A couple weeks ago I traveled on the CZ from Grand Junction to Chicago with NO working toilets in my car!! I have the accessible bedroom precisely because I need an available toilet!!! I did get a voucher as a form of recompense.

As the Guest Services agent commented, "We couldn't afford to take all Sleepers out of service at one time."

 

[Rasputin]

I just called Guest Services and the correct story is that they are taking one Sleeper out of service at a time for renovation. Goodness knows they need it. A couple weeks ago I traveled on the CZ from Grand Junction to Chicago with NO working toilets in my car!! I have the accessible bedroom precisely because I need an available toilet!!! I did get a voucher as a form of recompense.

As the Guest Services agent commented, "We couldn't afford to take all Sleepers out of service at one time."

It has got to the point where I don't believe a word that they say. Very disappointing.

 

[Amtrak25]

I just called Guest Services and the correct story is that they are taking one Sleeper out of service at a time for renovation. Goodness knows they need it. A couple weeks ago I traveled on the CZ from Grand Junction to Chicago with NO working toilets in my car!! I have the accessible bedroom precisely because I need an available toilet!!! I did get a voucher as a form of recompense.

As the Guest Services agent commented, "We couldn't afford to take all Sleepers out of service at one time."

If one sleeper car line was removed from the SW Chief (5 sets), Coast Starlight (4 sets), and Zephyr (6 sets), that was 15 cars out of service after Labor Day. That is in addition to the Empire Builder never getting its 2nd Seattle sleeper back for most of 2022.

I took the CZ in 2010. Toilets systems break very easily on the D&RGW, so they get a plumbing truck along the way to pump them out, which takes about 15 minutes. Their hydraulic systems do not like high elevations.

 

[UserNameRequired]

... Long story short Guest relations wasnt able to help us on the 18th but we got a small upgrade on 12/19 going from a family room to one bedroom and one roomette in the transition car not ideal but we had too many other travel plans that were non refundable we couldn’t cancel.
...

I am just curious, did you get an H room on the lower level and a roomette on a real transdorm car, or did you get a A-E bedroom and a roomette on a normal sleeper being used as transdorm? On the CZ normal sleeper transdorm we had in August the A-E were taken up by Amtrak employee type people. @Amtrakfflyer

 

[Amtrakfflyer]

Bedroom C in the sleeper and roomette 19 in transition sleeper. Not ideal but we can all squeeze in the bedroom during the day since kids are so young, the roomette was just in case we needed more room to sleep at night. They were very accommodating since coach or even 2 roomettes isn’t feasible with a 4+ and 2+ year old. We needed some floor space we usually put a $5 Walmart blanket on the floor so they can play with toys etc.

EMY-GBBCar 631 | Room CCar 640 | Room 19

 

[trimetbusfan]

I am just curious, did you get an H room on the lower level and a roomette on a real transdorm car, or did you get a A-E bedroom and a roomette on a normal sleeper being used as transdorm? On the CZ normal sleeper transdorm we had in August the A-E were taken up by Amtrak employee type people. @Amtrakfflyer

Based on YouTube sightings they seem to regularly be running the Zephyr with a transdorm and one full sleeper these days. Sometimes they will sub a normal sleeper for the transdorm, but that only adds capacity so it is not a big deal.

 

[UserNameRequired]

Bedroom C in the sleeper and roomette 19 in transition sleeper. Not ideal but we can all squeeze in the bedroom during the day since kids are so young, the roomette was just in case we needed more room to sleep at night. They were very accommodating since coach or even 2 roomettes isn’t feasible with a 4+ and 2+ year old. We needed some floor space we usually put a $5 Walmart blanket on the floor so they can play with toys etc.

EMY-GBBCar 631 | Room CCar 640 | Room 19

Oh I get it now, the bedroom is in a separate car! Best wishes the rest of the trip can go as well as possible for you all!

 

[Bonser]

The modern equivalent of a bar code, like this:
View attachment 29898
What the conductor scans. It's on the home page of the app, for each ticket.

Thank you.

 

[Widfara]

Yesterday I got on the CZ at Sacramento heading to Chicago. I was booked in room 19 in car 640. Train arrived but 640 is a regular sleeper, so no room 19. I got room 11 downstairs. No notification. Both sleepers are booked solid and I'm told both coaches are pretty full. And someone apparently clogged the toilets in the 610 coach. Everyone there has to go next door.

 

[Katymo]

I just called Guest Services and the correct story is that they are taking one Sleeper out of service at a time for renovation. Goodness knows they need it. A couple weeks ago I traveled on the CZ from Grand Junction to Chicago with NO working toilets in my car!! I have the accessible bedroom precisely because I need an available toilet!!! I did get a voucher as a form of recompense.

As the Guest Services agent commented, "We couldn't afford to take all Sleepers out of service at one time."

If one sleeper car line was removed from the SW Chief (5 sets), Coast Starlight (4 sets), and Zephyr (6 sets), that was 15 cars out of service after Labor Day. That is in addition to the Empire Builder never getting its 2nd Seattle sleeper back for most of 2022.

I took the CZ in 2010. Toilets systems break very easily on the D&RGW, so they get a plumbing truck along the way to pump them out, which takes about 15 minutes. Their hydraulic systems do not like high elevations.

That usually happens, but not on my trip!!! The car attendant said they tried to get a pumper at several stations, but none were available. You'd think that in Denver with the long stop, they could have gotten a pumper, but they didn't!!!

I accepted a $200. voucher but I should have insisted on more. With mobility problems, it was a real problem to navigate the steps and getting to the next car to use the "facilities".

 

[Eric in East County]

That usually happens, but not on my trip!!! The car attendant said they tried to get a pumper at several stations, but none were available. You'd think that in Denver with the long stop, they could have gotten a pumper, but they didn't!!!

I accepted a $200. voucher but I should have insisted on more. With mobility problems, it was a real problem to navigate the steps and getting to the next car to use the "facilities".

Did the Shower work?

 

[Katymo]

Did the Shower work?

Yes, it did. The car attendant said that the water from the shower drops directly onto the track bed.

I may be wrong, but I think some men used the shower as a urinal!!

 

[jis]

MODERATOR'S NOTE: Time to return this thread to discussing "removal of sleepers" from SWC and CZ, and by extension what Sleeping Cars are actually running on these trains, instead of everything else on rails .

Thank you for you understanding, cooperation and participation.

 

[zephyr17]

Yesterday I got on the CZ at Sacramento heading to Chicago. I was booked in room 19 in car 640. Train arrived but 640 is a regular sleeper, so no room 19. I got room 11 downstairs.

I was wondering how they handled things when passengers are booked in transdorms when some consists have them on a given train and some do not, like the CZ or the Builder at present. Now we know, reassigned at boarding (or more likely when the SCA gets the manifest).

I do not think ARROW really can handle having differing consists on different days, even if it could with relative ease and I am virtually certain it would not be able to handle different car types running in the same car line number. 5/6's 40 car line is related to a transdorm car. If they were to vary that in the system, it'd have to be with a different car line number. Like 6(1) with a 640, 6(2) a 632, 6(3) a 640, etc.

You weren't notified because as far the system was concerned, your reservation was and remained entirely unchanged. The system never saw your reassignment, it was handled entirely manually. It had to be. I wonder if they have a standard cheat sheet cross reference, like 19=11, or if each crew just wings it? Neither would surprise me. As I think about it, downstairs makes it it easy, typically they'd sell 4 revenue roomettes in a transdorm and there are 4 downstairs in a standard sleeper.

Yet another reason to always try for the "base" sleeper until Amtrak gets their equipment management act together, if ever.

 

[PeeweeTM]

On my trip from Fullerton to Chicago last week, I heared a night shift conductor complaining to a sleeping car attendant, that some staff had self re-assigned rooms in the transdorm before the passengers came on board and didn't update the manifest.
So the conductor woke up a passenger in the early morning...

 

[Siegmund]

GDRRiley said:
Still always confused why amtrak retired the hi levels.

For the same reason you see very few 60 year old cars on the road?

At least at one time, there was some some sort of very expensive and invasive "40-year inspection" that was required when a passenger car turned 40 years old. I do not know the details of what it entailed --- but throughout the 80s and early 90s, it was cited as the reason why the Heritage Fleet absolutely positively must be replaced before circa 1995. We were told at the time that keeping any Hi-Levels in the west and any Heritage Sleepers in the east, no matter how badly they were needed, was a non-starter. (And then some exceptions needed made for a handful of Heritage diners and sleepers - at what cost, I do not know.)

I never heard about a change to this particular regulation. But apparently there was one... because Amfleet and Superliner I sailed right past 40 years without anybody batting an eye. I had been expecting to hear about a crisis, and a huge equipment order, circa 2010, that didn't happen.

The car example is interesting. In general automobiles are subject to few-if-any maintenance requirements; even the legal things on the books of the "must have working turn signals" variety don't get routinely enforced until a cop pulls you over months or years after the bulb burns out. And a lot of cars have lifespans of only 10ish years.
Rail equipment has a fair bit of mandatory maintenance, and often survives several decades.
Airplanes have some extreme maintenance requirements (every nut and bolt examined once a year, and planes are often out of service for some weeks if issues are detected during the annual inspection) --- and many tens of thousands of airplanes built in the 50s and 60s still fly today, and sell for more now than they were worth new.