Too Narrow Door/Hall Width on H Rooms

[sueb]

Recently rode CL and SWC from PA to AZ and back with my handicapped son (trip report will be posted shortly). On the CL out of CHI coming home his adaptive stroller would not fit thru the door into the H room. The rear wheel hubs caught on the door frame. It appeared the room door had been damaged, as part of its latch had been replaced with a piece of white plastic held on by a screw. The door did not fully retract into the wall and so my son would have been trapped in an emergency. I told the SCA and the conductor we could not ride in this compartment. The train was sold out, but they put us in the H room of the Transition Dorm car, after moving someone from the crew out. In the end our trip was not delayed, but it concerns me that SCAs and others are not checking to see that the H room is actually accessible to a standard width wheelchair (same width as my son's chair) since Amtrak says this accomodation is available to wheelchair users in their literature, etc. We had no trouble with halls and doorways on 3 other Superliner cars on this same trip. Anyone else ever have a similar experience? Any suggestions for avoiding this problem in future?

 

[Tony]

..., but it concerns me that SCAs and others are not checking to see that the H room is actually accessible to a standard width wheelchair (same width as my son's chair) since Amtrak says this accomodation is available to wheelchair users in their literature, etc.

Here is what Amtrak actually says about it...

Wheelchair Restrictions
Amtrak trains accommodate most wheelchairs in use today, provided they meet the ADA definition of a "common" wheelchair. Please note:

Dimensions: The chair should not exceed 30 inches (76 centimeters) wide, 48 inches (122 centimeters) long and 2 inches (5 centimeters) of ground clearance.

Weight: The weight limit for an occupied wheelchair is 600 pounds (273 kilograms).

Manual and battery powered: We permit both manually operated and battery powered wheelchairs that meet the above limits.

 

[MrEd]

Sue, sorry to hear about your trouble with the H door.

I would recommend calling amtrak, agent and then ask to speak with the accessibility department.

 

[sky12065]

Recently rode CL and SWC from PA to AZ and back with my handicapped son (trip report will be posted shortly). On the CL out of CHI coming home his adaptive stroller would not fit thru the door into the H room. The rear wheel hubs caught on the door frame. It appeared the room door had been damaged, as part of its latch had been replaced with a piece of white plastic held on by a screw. The door did not fully retract into the wall and so my son would have been trapped in an emergency..../ /...Anyone else ever have a similar experience? Any suggestions for avoiding this problem in future?

Sue, I have traveled in an H room twenty-one (21) times in the past 11 years and I have never experienced the H room door not being able to open to it's maximum width.

As for avoiding this problem in the future, I don't believe that there is a way to avoid this problem in the future. Things happen and the best we can do sometimes is find a way to adapt when confronted with the problem.

The best thing you could do is to explain the problem you've had in the past and be very specific when making your reservations that you will have a problem with the H room if the door is restricted in anyway from opening to it's full width. It's not a guarantee that you won't have a problem, but it at least will give the onboard crew a chance to know of a potential problem in advance and take corrective action if possible before you actually board.

Anyway, I'm glad that they were able to find some solution for you. I've been in similar position a couple times with problems of a different nature, and I'm thankful that they were able to resolve those problems for me.

 

[sueb]

..., but it concerns me that SCAs and others are not checking to see that the H room is actually accessible to a standard width wheelchair (same width as my son's chair) since Amtrak says this accomodation is available to wheelchair users in their literature, etc.

Here is what Amtrak actually says about it...

Wheelchair Restrictions
Amtrak trains accommodate most wheelchairs in use today, provided they meet the ADA definition of a "common" wheelchair. Please note:

Dimensions: The chair should not exceed 30 inches (76 centimeters) wide, 48 inches (122 centimeters) long and 2 inches (5 centimeters) of ground clearance.

Weight: The weight limit for an occupied wheelchair is 600 pounds (273 kilograms).

Manual and battery powered: We permit both manually operated and battery powered wheelchairs that meet the above limits.

That text says the H room should accommodate a 30 inch wide chair. My son's chair is 30 inches and the room in question did not accommodate it. That is my point exactly. The fact we had a person with a mobility impairment using the room was on the manifest, so shouldn't someone be responsible for making sure that particular H room was in fact wheelchair accessible? I realize many people who use the H room don't need the full door opening, but we needed it and it wasn't there. I'm guessing most, if not all, other H rooms in that train would have accommodated us. At what point does a specific rolling stock assignment get made that links passenger accessibility need with equipment functionality? What is to prevent the car we had trouble with being again assigned to a wheelchair user? Does Amtrak have any mechanism to see that this car's door gets fixed or that the car is listed as having an H room that CANNOT acomodate a standard wheelchair?

 

[sunchaser]

..., but it concerns me that SCAs and others are not checking to see that the H room is actually accessible to a standard width wheelchair (same width as my son's chair) since Amtrak says this accomodation is available to wheelchair users in their literature, etc.

Here is what Amtrak actually says about it...

Wheelchair Restrictions
Amtrak trains accommodate most wheelchairs in use today, provided they meet the ADA definition of a "common" wheelchair. Please note:

Dimensions: The chair should not exceed 30 inches (76 centimeters) wide, 48 inches (122 centimeters) long and 2 inches (5 centimeters) of ground clearance.

Weight: The weight limit for an occupied wheelchair is 600 pounds (273 kilograms).

Manual and battery powered: We permit both manually operated and battery powered wheelchairs that meet the above limits.

That text says the H room should accommodate a 30 inch wide chair. My son's chair is 30 inches and the room in question did not accommodate it. That is my point exactly. The fact we had a person with a mobility impairment using the room was on the manifest, so shouldn't someone be responsible for making sure that particular H room was in fact wheelchair accessible? I realize many people who use the H room don't need the full door opening, but we needed it and it wasn't there. I'm guessing most, if not all, other H rooms in that train would have accommodated us. At what point does a specific rolling stock assignment get made that links passenger accessibility need with equipment functionality? What is to prevent the car we had trouble with being again assigned to a wheelchair user? Does Amtrak have any mechanism to see that this car's door gets fixed or that the car is listed as having an H room that CANNOT acomodate a standard wheelchair?

Sueb,

You said that the Conductor & Sleeping Car Attendant were aware of the problem & moved you & your son to another room. That's good- they more than likely put it in the repair book (probably not the right phrase).

The cars are supposed to be inspected after repairs & cleaning. I would also expect that after a repair, someone should check/measure for proper access & clearance.

I would call Amtrak, ask for an Agent, then ask to be transferred to Customer Relations. Have your reservation/ticket # handy, explain what happened. If you know the car#, (the big one on the side & sometimes on the interior doors) give that to them too. That way, the agent can pass the info along & they can get it fixed right.

I don't know if there is any way to avoid it happening again, but I'm glad they were able to move you to another room!

I'm sorry to hear you had the problem, though. I'm sure it intially gave you quite a bit of worry.. But certainly call, I wouldn't email-takes too long to respond.

 

[sueb]

Sueb,You said that the Conductor & Sleeping Car Attendant were aware of the problem & moved you & your son to another room. That's good- they more than likely put it in the repair book (probably not the right phrase).

The cars are supposed to be inspected after repairs & cleaning. I would also expect that after a repair, someone should check/measure for proper access & clearance.

I would call Amtrak, ask for an Agent, then ask to be transferred to Customer Relations. Have your reservation/ticket # handy, explain what happened. If you know the car#, (the big one on the side & sometimes on the interior doors) give that to them too. That way, the agent can pass the info along & they can get it fixed right.

I will try to call and make sure the car gets fixed properly. I don't know the car number, but it should be identifiable from the trip and route info.

Actually the SCA did not seem concerned about the problem at the time. He got maintenance people to come look at the door after I pointed out our problem to him (one arrived with an unlit and reeking cigarette in his mouth) and they said it was "fixed." Or maybe they meant that it was as fixed as they could make it. Well, it still wasn't accessible to my son's chair, so I personally went to the Conductor.

After we were moved to the Trans Dorm H room, the original SCA came and asked if we were OK now. He stood there and I think he expected me to give him a tip. I didn't and he left. The SCA who took care of us in the Trans Dorm, while also handling the full adjacent Superliner sleeper, was outstanding. His name was Carlos and he went out of his way to make us feel safe and taken care of. I gave him a good tip when we left the train in Pittsburgh.

 

[sunchaser]

I know it's frustrating when someone does a lousy job, but it's good to hear that Carlos & the Conductor took care of you guys. So it wasn't a total mess. If it were me, when I call Amtrak, I would make sure to mention the staff by name who were helpful, & the ones that were not.

This way the good ones will be noticed. The not so good ones, too.

 

[DET63]

Whenever you're traveling, unless you're going in your own car, your safety and comfort is in the hands of others. People who work in the travel and hospitality business should remember it, but sometimes it seems they don't. They may get annoyed at or frustrated with someone who feels vulnerable or at least a bit unsafe, but what the train (or airline, or bus, or whatever) staff may forget is that their everyday job may be an experience that their customer goes through once a year, or even less frequently.

I would think that having a room in a railroad car, especially one that is for, and being used by, a person with a disability, prepared properly and safely would be something automatically done, but such is sometimes not the case. There may be good reasons for the room not being up to par if it was occupied earlier in the trip, but shouldn't be a problem for a passenger or passengers boarding at the beginning of a journey.

I don't know how much of a case SueB has, but if the wheelchair fit within the dimensions prescribed in the rules, she should have had no trouble getting it into the room in question. If, as she indicated, she did have trouble, then her complaints appear to be legitimate and should be recorded.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Sue, this is a very unfortunate thing, and it is good that things were resolved in the end.

But the reality of the matter is, Amtrak is underfunded massively. They repair their stuff with duct tape, quite literally, sometimes. Problems like this are more the responsibility of consistent congressional underfunding, and I'd take it up with them.

 

[zephyr17]

Sue, this is a very unfortunate thing, and it is good that things were resolved in the end.
But the reality of the matter is, Amtrak is underfunded massively. They repair their stuff with duct tape, quite literally, sometimes. Problems like this are more the responsibility of consistent congressional underfunding, and I'd take it up with them.

If they have duct tape. They've been know to borrow mine, once the OBS staff knows I have some. Not kidding.

 

[sueb]

Sue, this is a very unfortunate thing, and it is good that things were resolved in the end.
But the reality of the matter is, Amtrak is underfunded massively. They repair their stuff with duct tape, quite literally, sometimes. Problems like this are more the responsibility of consistent congressional underfunding, and I'd take it up with them.

If they have duct tape. They've been know to borrow mine, once the OBS staff knows I have some. Not kidding.

Unfortunately this particular door malfunction would not be fixable with duct tape. We'd only be able to (maybe) tape the door into a permanently open position. Not good when you need to use the en suite accessible toilet. This door definitely looked like it had been damaged and repaired. It's just that the repair did not bring it back to its original opening width specification. That should be part of checking to see the repair meets standards, but possibly it met the width criteria when it was just repaired, as the width shortfall was less than an inch.

This room would still be usable by non-wheelchair-using pax.

Anybody know what percent of H rooms are carrying people who cannot use other rooms on any given day? Would be an interesting statistic.

 

[goodnightjohnwayne]

Sue, this is a very unfortunate thing, and it is good that things were resolved in the end.
But the reality of the matter is, Amtrak is underfunded massively. They repair their stuff with duct tape, quite literally, sometimes. Problems like this are more the responsibility of consistent congressional underfunding, and I'd take it up with them.

If they have duct tape. They've been know to borrow mine, once the OBS staff knows I have some. Not kidding.

Unfortunately this particular door malfunction would not be fixable with duct tape. We'd only be able to (maybe) tape the door into a permanently open position. Not good when you need to use the en suite accessible toilet. This door definitely looked like it had been damaged and repaired. It's just that the repair did not bring it back to its original opening width specification. That should be part of checking to see the repair meets standards, but possibly it met the width criteria when it was just repaired, as the width shortfall was less than an inch.

This room would still be usable by non-wheelchair-using pax.

1. I doubt that specialized door hardware could be replaced before departure, so the maintenance worker most likely had done all he could. In some cases, specialized hardware is no longer available at all, as the cars themselves have been out of production for years.

2. Since a substitution was made, affording you accessible accommodations in another car, it seems as if there wasn't a problem in the end, other than momentary inconvenience.

3. What exactly are you looking for? Did you want to have the sleeper in question "bad ordered" and cut out of the consist and sent to Beech Grove over a jury rigged door latch?

Anybody know what percent of H rooms are carrying people who cannot use other rooms on any given day? Would be an interesting statistic.

1. Amtraks's policy for H room reservations is fully public:

http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServe...d=1080080554546

2. From what I've seen, Amtrak's policy is followed to the letter. Frequently, even when the rest of the sleeper is sold out, the H room frequently goes unoccupied. It really is the last accommodation to be sold.

3. Since your issue was resolved by moving a crew member, rather than moving revenue sleeperpassenger(s), I'd say that the outcome was entirely satisfactory.

4. I'd have to question why you are asking the question to begin with?

 

[gswager]

I believe the H-room will be available to the public (anyone) two weeks before departure.

 

[zephyr17]

I believe the H-room will be available to the public (anyone) two weeks before departure.

Yes, and goodnightjohnwayne provided the link to the Amtrak documentation that states as much. Do you have anything more to add?

 

[sunchaser]

I think what Sue is trying to ask is if other people have needed to use the H room because their roomette/bedroom had problems.

She is also expressing concern for others that may not be able to get their wheelchair into this room, which IMHO is a good point.

Trying to get on a train in a wheelchair either by yourself or as a caregiver can be a bit stressful.

Then add not being able to get into the room with the chair.

Yes, they moved them to another car, her point is that it should be accessible-that's the whole idea.

I only saw the H room empty once for a short time on the four trains we took.

It was always occupied by someone with a disability.

 

[zephyr17]

I think what Sue is trying to ask is if other people have needed to use the H room because their roomette/bedroom had problems.She is also expressing concern for others that may not be able to get their wheelchair into this room, which IMHO is a good point.

Trying to get on a train in a wheelchair either by yourself or as a caregiver can be a bit stressful.

Then add not being able to get into the room with the chair.

Yes, they moved them to another car, her point is that it should be accessible-that's the whole idea.

I only saw the H room empty once for a short time on the four trains we took.

It was always occupied by someone with a disability.

It sounds like the H room in the transition dorm isn't normally sold as revenue space. Which is consistent with everything I have heard about sales in that car. My own opinion is that transition-dorm H rooms should never be occupied by Amtrak employees -- there is plenty of room in the transition car's roomettes.

So, assuming the transition-dorm H room is in good shape, that sounds like a good fallback for a special needs passenger in case a regular revenue H room is not in good shape. Since it is not normally sold, it ought to be in reasonable condition. Moving the special needs passenger to the functional H room in the transition dorm is what happened in this case.

With that said, H rooms shoud work as intended. Bombardier bought the plans/patents for the Superliners from PS, and built the Superliner IIs. And they are still in business, so there is a Superliner vendor still in business, even if they are not active. Allowing for "no parts available from manfacturer" and parts cannot be purchased from Bombardier. Beech Grove has the capability to fabricate ANYTHING. I've been there (friend of the family works there). On any given car, though, given the backup H room capacity in the transition-dorm, fixes that can't be handled at terminals probably can wait until the car is backshopped at Beech Grove.

BTW, I was offered an unsold H room enroute on the CZ once, because another roomette. which had been reserved as part of a group, had a bad order door, and they wanted to keep the group together. I didn't want to be downstairs, and declined. They ultimately worked it out.

 

[AlanB]

Anybody know what percent of H rooms are carrying people who cannot use other rooms on any given day? Would be an interesting statistic.

Sue,

I don't know for sure, but I'd hazard a guess that probably at least 40% to 50% of those traveling in the H room could not use any other room for various reasons, and it might be even a bit higher. But many of those probably would not be stopped by the door issue that you encountered. For some it's a matter of they just cannot use the facilities unassisted, and the H-room is the only sleeper that one can actually have someone helping you on and off the toilet.

For others while they are mobile enough that could leave the chair to take a few steps, anything more than that is not feasible. Therefore the problem that you encountered would not have stopped them. And please, I'm not suggesting that the repair should have been considered adequate. I do wonder how, where, and why it was fixed as it was, and then left instead of being routed to a shop that could have fixed it properly. In other words, did the problem occur on the ride just prior to yours and they had not time or no facilities to fix it right, or was it that way for months on end and no one either bothered to do it right or it somehow otherwise fell through the cracks.

 

[AlanB]

It sounds like the H room in the transition dorm isn't normally sold at all. Which is consistent with everything I have heard about sales in that car.

That is correct, the H-room in the Trans/Dorm is never sold. In part because it serves as it did in this case, as a room of last resort when something goes wrong. But it's also not sold because not every Trans/Dorm actually has an H-room. There are several cars, in the minority, that don't have an H room on the lower level. Instead, they have a large powder room for the ladies, with attached shower and a mens room with attached shower.

Since one can never know for sure just which kind of Trans/Dorm is going to land on which train on which day, the hard and fast rule is to never sell the H-room in the Trans/Dorm.

 

[EB_OBS]

The H room in the Trans-dorm, on the Empire Builder, is protect-space. Crew aren't assigned to use this room though they may as long as they understand it is a protect room. They must vacate the room if one of the other H rooms in the regular sleepers is Bad/Ordered for any reason. There are many reasons why a room could be BO other than just a door not opening fully. The Trans-dorm H room is vacant for just this situation.

It may be the same policy on the other long distance trains though I'm not positive about it. A good car attendant or the conductor would ensure that at a minimum the room's door is documented in the MAP21A book for repair. From that point it's up to mechanical to actually fix it.

 

[sky12065]

I believe the H-room will be available to the public (anyone) two weeks before departure.

This is true providing all other sleeping accomodations are booked. So long as at least one non-H room remains available on the train during the last two weeks, the H Room will not become available to a non-disabled person until there are no other accomodations left.

 

[sueb]

It sounds like the H room in the transition dorm isn't normally sold at all. Which is consistent with everything I have heard about sales in that car.

That is correct, the H-room in the Trans/Dorm is never sold. In part because it serves as it did in this case, as a room of last resort when something goes wrong. But it's also not sold because not every Trans/Dorm actually has an H-room. There are several cars, in the minority, that don't have an H room on the lower level. Instead, they have a large powder room for the ladies, with attached shower and a mens room with attached shower.

Since one can never know for sure just which kind of Trans/Dorm is going to land on which train on which day, the hard and fast rule is to never sell the H-room in the Trans/Dorm.

One final comment on the Trans Dorm H room we rode in last month. All the equipment worked fine, but the carpet on the floor was either extremely worn or very dirty in the corners around the seats. I didn't get down on my knees to see which, as we were about to put the beds down anyway. It looked like the corners of the carpet were coming loose from the floor. I'm guessing the Trans Dorm rooms that aren't in regular revenue service may not get cleaned as often or as well as rooms in routine revenue service. Didn't bother me as it doesn't present a safety issue.