Viewliner II - Part 1 - Initial Production and Delivery

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Amtrak has always said that they will sell excess space in the bag-dorms.

There won't be much excess space. A typical dining car on the LSL, Silver Star, Silver Meteor, or Crescent has 4 or 5 staff members, there's 1 staff member in the lounge, there's 2 or 3 coach attendants already, and we're up to 7 to 9 staff members each of whom gets their own roomette. If the trains get longer, there will be even less space.

Amtrak has said that the sleeper attendant from the next car would handle the one or two revenue roomettes in the bag-dorm, which should be manageable given that Superliner sleeper attendants handle a lot more.

(The Cardinal should have more extra space, unless it gets its full dining car back. I'm not sure how Amtrak will handle that.)
 
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A short video of the three new Viewliner IIs on the move has been uploaded to youtube: New Amtrak Viewliner passenger cars on the move 7/8/2014

There is also a new youtube video of the #98 Silver Meteor departing Trenton with the 10004 American View inspection car on the end. Since 10004 is a rebuilt Viewliner prototype, I figured the video link is appropriate for this thread.

Did a search for Amtrak Viewliner on youtube. I expect there will be a number of videos showing up in the coming days.

Edit: link fix attempt
 
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NE933 said:
The YouTube link to the new VIIs doesn't work.
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I just double checked and the links to both videos work for me. The title of the Viewliner II video on youtube is "New Amtrak Viewliner passenger cars on the move 7/8/2014" if you need to search for it.
 
Yes, thanks to all who worked to bring out the great news, and the videos!

Now we must hope for them to pass all the tests, that they are quickly deployed without a single moment to loose, and that more will be ordered, because we all know that the trains will be able to carry and move more passengers, more efficiently.
 
Hey, when enough get accepted, let's make a special AU trip on one of the sleepers by group reserving and going someplace just for the heck of it! New Orleans, Florida, or somewhere on the Cardinal! Or Virginia Beach, anybody?
 
The cars themselves look sharp... this new phase "IIIb" paint scheme looks awful. I don't mind the bright red, white and bright blue so much... it's the awful "Amtrak America" logos. It look like it was done by a college student still taking their freshman graphic design classes.

The sooner those stripes are pulled off and replaced with the proper phase IVb stripes... the better.
 
As I understand it the Phase IIIb will not be replaced by Phase IV on these cars anytime soon. This I heard from a proverbial horse's mouth in a manner of speaking. But of course anything is possible :)

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum
 
Another short video of the Viewliner II move has been posted to Youtube: Maiden Trips - NB CP ??? (NS 056). This one is of the other side with the train having switched ends on the trip. Shows 5 pairs of windows on the baggage-dorm car. (Hopefully this link will work for everyone who wants to view it).



The order of the 3 cars is baggage-dorm, sleeper, diner and they appear to be oriented as they would be in a regular consist. Bag-dorm with the roomette end connected to the sleeper, the sleeper oriented with the ADA bedroom next to the seating end of the diner. So over the next 12 to 24 months, this should become a common sight on the eastern LD trains; bag-dorm, 2 or more sleepers, diner car like these first sightings in the wild videos.
 
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rickycourtney said:
The cars themselves look sharp... this new phase "IIIb" paint scheme looks awful. I don't mind the bright red, white and bright blue so much... it's the awful "Amtrak America" logos. It look like it was done by a college student still taking their freshman graphic design classes.

The sooner those stripes are pulled off and replaced with the proper phase IVb stripes... the better.
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I'm with you on this one. I do know that the current Amtrak logo will return on these cars. I do hope that Amtrak phase IVb will return!!

Amtrak172
 
ImageUploadedByAmtrak Forum1404915639.680608.jpg

I'm on Amtrak train #63 the Maple Leaf and just left Albany, NY. As we were leaving the station, we past Amtrak's yard here. I'm not sure what this yard is called. Anyway, I saw a few awesome things here. Amtrak's great dome #10031, Amtrak 10-6 sleeper Pacific Cape #10021, and Amtrak Viewliner II baggage #61000 were here. Unfortunately, 10021 and 10031 were not visible in the camera but luckily the baggage car was.

Amtrak172
 
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CHamilton said:
CAF USA to ship first Amtrak cars
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Summary is Congressman Reed ® who has Elmira in his district tours CAF plant looking to take some credit in an election year as the 3 new Viewliners are ready to ship. The article photo gallery is not working at the moment, but I saw some of the photos earlier so maybe they will be available later.

Key piece of info in the news report: "So far, 70 car shells have been built of 130 on order, a company official said.".
 
RyanS said:
That isn't going to happen.
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Why...because you don't want it to? Guess what, what your saying might be bull crap. I know a guy that works at beech grove. He said that the possibility of Viewliner II's in phase IVb is low but it is possible.

Amtrak172
 
Haters are going to hate. Its the nature of humanity, especially since the Internet was born.

IMHO, Phase III(b) is classier than the current IVb, which I consider to be bland and utilitarian. It has bolder lines, richer colors, and stands out against the silver of the stainless.

However, nothing Amtrak has created for a color scheme has ever truly had Class. Nothing comes close to the Southern Pacific Daylight scheme, which I think is the most classy paint any train in the world has ever worn. Or the PRR Tuscan Red with gold pinstripes. Or even the grey and charcoal of the NYC.
 
Looking at the bag-dorms, I am absolutely certain there won't be enough baggage space for typical loads out of New York City on the LSL, Meteor, Star, or Crescent. The baggage area is simply too short; there's maybe room for 8 rack units, maybe only 6. The baggage load arriving at Syracuse NY from the west alone will fill 3 or 4 units, so I can't imagine how much baggage must be going from NY-Chicago or NY-Miami. And Amtrak's planning to allow bicycles, too....

Expect most trains to run with both a bag-dorm and a full baggage car; even if Amtrak tries to operate with only a bag-dorm at first, it won't work on most of the trains.

There may be some clever allocation of space so that the full baggage car is only opened at major stations and the bag-dorm is used for baggage to and from minor stations. I'd expect bikes to be preferentially placed in the bag-dorm. Something similar may be done on western trains where coach-baggage cars are available.

---(edit)---

...FWIW, the baggage car order is nearly enough cars to do this. Current deployments seem to use roughly 54 baggage cars. This doesn't count any which might be used on corridor routes in the Midwest or California, which should be going away with the new bilevel orders. And it doesn't count the Piedmont, for which NCDOT supplies its own cars. And it doesn't count the Hiawatha. But the LSL shouldn't need more than one full baggage + one bag dorm, so that frees up 3, and if the Cardinal can make do with a bag-dorm, that frees up 2 more. Although it would be highly desirable to add baggage to the Pennsylvanian, which uses up 2, and I'm not sure how many the Hiawatha uses.

As it is, 55 full baggage cars are being ordered; about 65...70 would be wanted to provide a suitable shop count for the scenario I just laid out. Even with 55, it baggage car maintenance could be scheduled during the weakest point of the off-season, the eastern long-distance trains could probably get a baggage car + a bag-dorm most of the year.
 
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Amtrak172 said:
RyanS said:
That isn't going to happen.
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Why...because you don't want it to?
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No, because Amtrak has said the brand was going to be applied across the entire single level LD fleet. While it's possible that they'll change their mind at some point in the future, I doubt that they're going to make all of this fanfare about a new branding and then roll them back to a difference scheme.
 
RyanS said:
Amtrak172 said:
RyanS said:
That isn't going to happen.
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Why...because you don't want it to?
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No, because Amtrak has said the brand was going to be applied across the entire single level LD fleet. While it's possible that they'll change their mind at some point in the future, I doubt that they're going to make all of this fanfare about a new branding and then roll them back to a difference scheme.
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Well, don't get why Amtrak wants to change their paint scheme on the single level LD trains again. I'd improve the interiors.

Amtrak172
 
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