Viewliner II - Part 1 - Initial Production and Delivery

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Bill, you must have forgotten the Pennsy Green, there's still a few examples around although I admit that PRR Red and Gold is what you see most!

The Texas State Railroad, along with the Austin Steam Train, have several of the Red Coaches that run on their Steamer Tourist trains!!
 
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Spotted TWO new bag cars tonight rolling through my southwest DCA neighborhood tonight. The first was on the end of the southbound #19 Crescent. Immediately after the Crescent passed, the 2-hours-late northbound #80 Carolinian rolled through with a shiny new bag car on the end. Two for the price of one!
 
The Capitol Limited still has heritage baggages I believe, although there are a bunch sitting in Hialeah still, so I doubt that will be the case for long.
Saw one in NC today, the one left over from the wreck. It and 185 are rerailed on a siding.
 
Saw one of the new V2s sitting at the end of the LSL at CUS this evening. I was in a hurry to board the Metra, so I didn't snap a pic, but you still believe me, right?

RIGHT???
 
No I do not believe you. Sorry. It never happened. The viewliners are an illusion.
 
Yesterday's Cardinal (50) had a Viewliner bag car. I didn't catch the car number, unfortunately, as I was driving at the time.
 
I finally saw a new bag on the Silver Meteor from the NJ Turnpike just south of Secaucus train was lead by an ACS-64 the other 3 people in the car had no idea why I was so excited to see it. Then I watched their eyes glaze over as I explained how these were replacing cars that had been rolling since the 1950s, so seeing Amtrak finally get baggage cars that they ordered was a milestone of sorts.
 
I wonder if the experiment going on with the Silver Star starting in July will have an impact on the diners ordered. If the experiment goes well, will they cut back the order? Could they reconfigure some of them to be more efficient to fit the new normal?
 
The old diners are apparently at the end of their useful life and don't handle the rails as well as newer cars.

I would definitely keep the diners on long haul trains including Silver Star and SIlver Meteor and its a reason to book Silver Meteor when you can as Silver Star tends to have more shorter haul passengers

I think the experiment is a bad idea for the long haul but it will reduce wear and tear on the existing heritage diners till the new dining cars start to come in.

I am thinking that this is the real reason for the removal of the dining car on test trains but while this happens, they get to see if it would become a viable option but I personally don't believe it will be and they will be resuming service
 
I personally want the diners to stay as well, but the writing is on the wall, in pencil at least. With the pressure on Amtrak to curb dining costs, besides the Star, they might want to elimiinate diners on routes that have limited meal service anyway; the Capitol Limited, the Lake Shore Limited and the City of New Orleans only serve two meals per trip. If this does come to pass, I would hope there would be a more efficient way to serve passengers than is currently happening on the single and double level cafe/lounge cars. If the new cars can help in this regard, on the eastern routes at least, now might be a good time to explore those possibilities.
 
Amtrak has nothing to replace the dining car service yet and hasn't even experimented with any such thing. And is not currently experimenting with any such thing. Furthermore, the current "Dinerless" Silver Star scheme is designed to fail. The current cafe cars are not set up or operated for acceptable service for trains travelling over long periods, regardless of whether the individual passengers are travelling over long periods.

Therefore the dining cars will stay. Removing them blindly without thoughtful replacement, as Amtrak is doing on the Star, is simply taking a bludgeon to ridership & revenue.

Incidentally, the Lake Shore Limited is cutting it inappropriately close by not serving a third meal eastbound in any case, and it irritates a lot of people, particularly when there's no time to run into the Albany station to get food.

Personally, I hope they find a way to improve service without increasing labor costs. Point-of-sale inventory tracking is a *really obvious* one.
 
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I think the LSL's food service problems will be substantially addressed if they'd get off their duffs and simply do the Diner/Cafe proposal that has been floating around ever since the PIPs were put together. They just need to be able to keep it open minimally through to POU and preferably through Croton, on the eastbound.
 
jis said:
I think the LSL's food service problems will be substantially addressed if they'd get off their duffs
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Yeah, that seems to be true of a number of problems, doesn't it? :)

I was very pleased by the PIPs; they were full of well-thought out solutions and responses to specific problems and situations. Then they were largely ignored.
 
Maybe we need some member of Congress to slip a passage in an Amtrak authorization or appropriation requiring Amtrak to explain its (lack of) progress in implementing the recommendations in the PIPs. Weren't the PIPs originally created because of a Congressional mandate?
 
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