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Konrad

Konrad

Lead Service Attendant
Joined
Jan 10, 2008
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258
Location
Australia
It's been nearly a year since I travelled on the Cardinal with diner 8400 in tow from Washington to Indianapolis (for Beech Grove).

Any progress reports? Any photographs?

After a year they surely could have designed and built a whole new prototype.
 
Konrad,

I haven't heard anything regarding the Viewliner diner, but Amtrak did plan to give it a full overhaul including new trucks I believe. Additionally, part of the reason for bringing it back was to make it serve as a test bed for the new dining cars that hopefully will be on order soon.

The Viewliner cars are modular cars, in that they remove a big panel on the side of the car and just slide the rooms and/or furnishings into the car. They're then bolted down, have power and plumbing as needed connected to the module. So the single diner was supposed to serve as a test bed if you will to ensure that all the modules being built would actually fit properly into the car. It is possible that they hit a snag and something didn't fit and they had to go back to the drawing board. Or it could be that they just didn't get the modules built quickly enough.
 
Konrad said:
It's been nearly a year since I travelled on the Cardinal with diner 8400 in tow from Washington to Indianapolis (for Beech Grove).
Any progress reports? Any photographs?

After a year they surely could have designed and built a whole new prototype.
Click to expand...
like Amtrak has the money. your country government supports rail which is why you got high speed rails like England. Our government does not and until obama came along was always trying to find ways to kill it. if you know so much about running a railroad why don't you run Amtrak. see how many railcars you can build brand new from the ground up on a shoestring budget. :rolleyes:
 
amtrakwolverine said:
Konrad said:
It's been nearly a year since I travelled on the Cardinal with diner 8400 in tow from Washington to Indianapolis (for Beech Grove).
Any progress reports? Any photographs?

After a year they surely could have designed and built a whole new prototype.
Click to expand...
like Amtrak has the money. your country government supports rail which is why you got high speed rails like England. Our government does not and until obama came along was always trying to find ways to kill it. if you know so much about running a railroad why don't you run Amtrak. see how many railcars you can build brand new from the ground up on a shoestring budget. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Calm down, Wolverine, the redo of the Viewliner diner is funded under the stimulus rebuild program. Since the 8400 will be prototype for the new order of Viewliner diners, I would assume the design work is taking some time, along with the actual physical work of building the modules. I haven't seen any reports lately from visitors to Beach Grove, so the status of the 8400 work looks to be unknown at this time. Anyone in Indianapolis (or better yet, anybody who works at the Grove), have any sightings of the 8400 lately?
 
I was on the Cardinal from New York to Indianapolis in late January. It was the normal diner serving warmed food.

There was only one Amtrak employee working in the diner and I must say he was doing a pretty good job!!

The menu was the standard diner-lite menu. Food and service was good.
 
amtrakwolverine said:
Konrad said:
It's been nearly a year since I travelled on the Cardinal with diner 8400 in tow from Washington to Indianapolis (for Beech Grove).
Any progress reports? Any photographs?

After a year they surely could have designed and built a whole new prototype.
Click to expand...
like Amtrak has the money. your country government supports rail which is why you got high speed rails like England. Our government does not and until obama came along was always trying to find ways to kill it. if you know so much about running a railroad why don't you run Amtrak. see how many railcars you can build brand new from the ground up on a shoestring budget. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
High speed rail in Australia!

Surely you jest - the XPT from here to Sydney takes almost 7 hours to cover 400 kilometres. And that's about 35 miles per hour. :angry:
 
At today's Town Hall Meeting, they said that 8400 is being refurbished for entry into service.
 
Well there were photos of it a couple months back being rebuilt. I think by now they have done alot since then and I can see it coming back before summer starts...
 
The last I heard was that as of early this year, it's still gutted and in much the same condition as the pictures show from November. As I understood it, Amtrak's still waiting on all of the prototype modules to arrive. Remember, everything's being fabricated for a brand new configuration. I'd rather them take their time and get it right before putting it out for test runs than have them rush something before it's fully baked. That said, I'll make it a point to try and get a meal in it when it's back on the rails! ;)

Rafi
 
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