Viewliner II Part 2: Dining Car Production, Delivery, Speculation

[jis]

Steve4031, there's a nice little feature in AU that you can use if you think posts are inappropriate. It's the Report feature. Try it, you might like it.

Or one can selectively "Ignore" posts from so called "crap posters" too, instead of posting more crap posts about crap posts about crap posts, like I am doing right now.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Bloviation is not limited to Ohio.

 

[jis]

Bloviation is not limited to Ohio.

 

[KnightRail]

If the radar is indeed not faulty this time, Christmas is either coming eight months early or four months late, based on your philosophical preference.

 

[Thirdrail7]

Wish you all would quit posting this crap.

And your comment does no good. Those "crap" posts. Whatever they are will keep coming up. So I'm English. Deal with it.

Fair warning: The remainder of this post will have pictures. If that is problem for anyone, it is fortunate that Devil's Advocate has recently told us how to this should be handled:

Now, for those who are still reading:

If the radar is indeed not faulty this time, Christmas is either coming eight months early or four months late, based on your philosophical preference.

Radar reports are confirmed. Excelsior is staffed and approval has been granted .

The capital of New York should have a meeting with these two cities by Tuesday.

 

[jis]

Oooh! We are going to double the speed of delivery, eh? Good news indeed. We can now project the order completion by about 2022 then?

 

[neroden]

You know, this might be enough to equip an entire train route. Consistently.

I wonder whether we will first see a route *abandon its Heritage*, or whether we will see a *Restoration*. (Hoping for the latter.)

(Also fishing for hilarious cryptic photos)

 

[Ryan]

Apparently they're going to roll out in alphabetical order.

 

[StriderGDM]

Makes sense since they're most likely to come out in numerical order, and the city names are assigned in alphabetical order to the numbers.

 

[Ryan]

Yeah one of those things that you don't think of until you see it, then it's blindingly obvious.

 

[jis]

And then as soon as it becomes obvious, comes an exception to prove the rule

 

[WoodyinNYC]

I wonder whether we will first see a route *abandon its Heritage*, or whether we will see a *Restoration*. (Hoping for the latter.)

Sorry, I know the Lake Shore Ltd is your train, but I'm hoping it gets new diners last. Among the many advantages of the new cars should be improved reliability in every way. One way that matters a lot to Amtrak, is cars that fail on the NEC, and cars that go slow on the NEC.

When ALL the slow and failure-prone Heritage cars are gone from the NEC, the On Time Performance should improve for ALL other trains. You can't get the full effect you need with many new cars replacing many Heritage cars, or replacing most of them. It's ALL or nothing. And it's worth it.

So the one and only LD train that never operates on the NEC should be the last to benefit from new diners. Such is life.

 

[Anthony V]

You know, this might be enough to equip an entire train route. Consistently.

I wonder whether we will first see a route *abandon its Heritage*, or whether we will see a *Restoration*. (Hoping for the latter.)

(Also fishing for hilarious cryptic photos)

All of the Heritage equipment that is still roadworthy should be held onto as "Reserve Fleet," so if one or more of the Viewliners are taken out of service for whatever reason (such as a wreck), there will still be some backup equipment available to use until the Viewliners are fixed.

 

[jis]

Depends on how much it costs to keep equipment that require handcrafted parts, roadworthy.

 

[R30A]

Furthermore, even if the Lake Shore, Silver Star and Cardinal all get diners, AND the cardinal becomes daily, there will still be a fairly substantial spare factor, without keeping any Heritage cars active.

 

[KnightRail]

Furthermore, even if the Lake Shore, Silver Star and Cardinal all get diners, AND the cardinal becomes daily, there will still be a fairly substantial spare factor, without keeping any Heritage cars active.

Exactly. 25 new diners plus 8400 makes 26 which is more than sufficient. There is no need to hoard old worn out heritage equipment. It's time to let it go.

 

[neroden]

4 (Crescent) + 4 (Star) + 4 (Meteor) + 3 (LSL) + 4 (Cardinal according to some!) = 19

+ 20% shop count of 4 = 23

+ 1 protect each in Miami, New Orleans, Chicago + 2 protect in NY == 28

26 is not sufficient for expansion It's not even the number you want for the existing trains, really.

If the daily Cardinal only takes 3 and you only have 1 protect in NY you have exactly enough.

Anything further (such as the suggested branch of the Crescent to Fort Worth) is stealing from another train (most likely the Star, which may never get its dining car back).

The Heritage cars are beyond unmaintainable at this point and must be retired. But I do think that 26 dining cars isn't enough; Amtrak needs to get a few extras in case of wrecks, at least.

 

[A Voice]

+ 1 protect each in Miami, New Orleans, Chicago + 2 protect in NY == 28

If Amtrak doesn't maintain 'protect' cars with Heritage equipment old enough to draw Social Security - and they do not - they certainly shouldn't need to with new Viewliner dining cars.

 

[Dutchrailnut]

from reliable source: Should be an Amtrak special going to Elmira from Albany on Monday April 24th to pick up some new Diners. Amtrak Crew onduty at 7am in Albany. Power should be the 514 going south, a coach, and a P42 on the north end. All subject to change of course.

 

[Bob Dylan]

from reliable source: Should be an Amtrak special going to Elmira from Albany on Monday April 24th to pick up some new Diners. Amtrak Crew onduty at 7am in Albany. Power should be the 514 going south, a coach, and a P42 on the north end. All subject to change of course.

Hopefully this isn't Fake News,aka Trump World's "Alternate Reality".
If so it's Great News!

Once the testing is done, we'll have long threads here discussing which Trains will get the Diners first!

 

[me_little_me]

I guess there's no chance of the Star getting its diners back by the middle of next month for my upcoming trip. Oh well! :wacko:

 

[Bob Dylan]

According to posts on trainorders, Friday CAF will serve up Two Diners,68002 (Atlanta) and 68003 (Agusta).

Hopefully the testing will go well, and many more will be rolling out of the Factory!

 

[jis]

That information was originally posted here, though in a coded form.

 

[Anthony V]

I guess there's no chance of the Star getting its diners back by the middle of next month for my upcoming trip. Oh well! :wacko:

Take the Meteor if you want a diner.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

I guess there's no chance of the Star getting its diners back by the middle of next month for my upcoming trip. Oh well! :wacko:

Take the Meteor if you want a diner.

The Meteor does not serve all the stations the Star serves so that may not be an option for him.