Viewliner Bedroom

[The Journalist]

It seems like every topic about the Silvers or Lake Shore someone bemoans the expense and/or unavailability of Viewliner bedrooms. Makes sense-there's only two per car instead of six in a Superliner. Has there been any talk of making some of the new Viewliner sleepers all-bedroom cars like the Deluxe Sleeper on the Auto Train? Or, since the new Viewliners won't have bathrooms in the roomettes, converting some of the old ones with the plumbing already there into all-bedroom cars? Is this plausible/sensical? It seems like the relative shortage will only get worse-especially since anyone who doesn't want to share a bathroom might want a bedroom after the roomettes lose them. The downside to this I suppose would be that there'd only be 10-11 revenue rooms, which might be a problem...Thoughts?

 

[AlanB]

Actually there are only 5 Bedrooms in a Superliner, not 6.

And no, no talk of adding more Bedrooms to the Viewliner cars. And I rather doubt that Amtrak ever will, unless they get some dedicated source of funding that lets them easily replace the existing fleet and increase the total size of the fleet to the point where they could afford the luxury of all Bedroom Viewliners.

 

[HotlantaAl]

Well keep in mind that the Viewliner replaced the Heritage Sleepers, which most of them had 6 bedrooms and 10 roomettes. So there seems to have been a conscious effort on Amtrak's part to reduce the number of bedrooms with the Viewliner design.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

Actually there are only 5 Bedrooms in a Superliner, not 6.

And there is essentially 3 bedrooms in a Viewliner, not 2.

 

[Big Iron]

Well keep in mind that the Viewliner replaced the Heritage Sleepers, which most of them had 6 bedrooms and 10 roomettes. So there seems to have been a conscious effort on Amtrak's part to reduce the number of bedrooms with the Viewliner design.

Part of the thinking might have been that the Viewliners have the capacity for 2/roomette where the Heritage sleepers only held one. I assume they figured that some twosomes would opt for a roomette over a bedroom.

When Amtrak went from steam heat to HEP most of the all beroom sleepers bit the dust save for a few on the Auto Train.

 

[GAT]

Presumably you can get more passengers with more roomettes and less bedrooms in any given car, no? Would this be at least part of Amtrak's equation?

 

[AlanB]

Well keep in mind that the Viewliner replaced the Heritage Sleepers, which most of them had 6 bedrooms and 10 roomettes. So there seems to have been a conscious effort on Amtrak's part to reduce the number of bedrooms with the Viewliner design.

But those cars were built before ADA, which mandated an accessible room. So there went one "Bedroom". Then those cars were built without a shower or a room for the attendant. That took out another bedroom. And then the Viewliner has 12 roomettes, instead of 10. Due to the slightly larger overall size of the roomettes and the extra space that the H room takes up, that eats up the final Bedroom.

In theory if Amtrak felt the need for more Bedrooms, they could add a C room by removing 2 of the roomettes, dropping the car to 10 roomettes. Of course with the floor plan for the new Viewliner II's moving the attendant from room 14 to room 12, and installing public toilets in the space of 14, adding an extra Bedroom would drop the number of roomettes down to 9 now.