Aah, so Asian countries like China, India that offer such services are in the perfect world. Gotcha!
Amamba, I agree that many Americans crave privacy, but if you give us a chance to travel in Amtrak type comfort, but upgraded to a real bunk type bed at night instead of a reclining type seat that is almost impossible to sleep in, most of us will gladly kick off our shoes and sleep in a couchette. Privacy is nice, but having a cheap way to travel while seeing all the best of our countryside AND sleeping soundly at night? I will gladly share my room with 3 other people if I can sleep in a bunk instead of trying to sleep, unsuccessfully, in an Amtrak coach chair.
It's amazing to me that you can take my comments and twist them into "nothing can be done to improve Amtrak". There are plenty of things that can (and are) being done. Spending money that they don't have for cars that it isn't clear that there is any demand for isn't one of them.
The existence of a perfect world is superfluous.
I have to agree. Airfares may be cheap when flying to and from major markets, but when you aren't flying out of New York, Chicago, or LA, the train can actually be cheaper. We just rode from Iowa to Philly, and it was less than $250 round trip for each of us. It would have been closer to $350 to $400 each for air, and as much as $750 from a smaller airport.
If we back up to the pre-streamliner era, that is trains as they were up to immediately post WW2, for the most part sleepers in the US were very similar in concept to the current the current "couchette" They were called sections. you had an upper and a lower berth with a dividing wall between each section. In the daytime there were a pair of facing seats. I can't describe quite how they were set up right now, but the upper berth folded up against the wall and ceiling. The berths were sold individually. The upper berth with no window was cheaper than the lower. In the early days of room sleepers, there were some that built with all. A common arrangement was 6-6-4, that is, 6 sections, 6 roomettes, 4 double bedrooms. Apparently the demand for sections was such that not many of these cars were built. Thus, the most common makeup of the post WW2 sleepers was the 10&6, that is 10 roomettes adn 6 double bedrooms.I agree with Colobok on the European couchette type of railcars being something Amtrak should look into. There are as many types as there are countries, but most have the aisle/hallway on one side of the car and either semi-open or nearly fully enclosed rooms with 4 to 6 seats that fold into 3' by 6'6" beds. They are pretty comfortable, and I am 6'4". Most of the cars for nearly every train convert into couchettes so there is none of the half-sleep in coach that a lot of us have suffered through. The porter converts the couch into 4 beds (6 beds in second class, but that is a bit crowded) at 10 pm, you kick off your shoes, read for a bit, nod off and wake up at 7 am when the porter comes back through to convert the bunks back into couch seats. The couches aren't quite as comfortable as reclining Amtrak seat, quite, but the bunks are much more comfortable than an Amtrak seat to sleep in. No comparison. With the View Liner and Dining cars to hang out in, a Couchette car is a great value for someone that is traveling overnight but doesn't want to spring for a roomette. It would be cool if Amtrak would convert a dozen cars to couchettes and sell them at a slight premium from the regular coach on a couple routes, but with no meals included.I agree. In Ukraine where I am from almost all trains are "sleepers". It's not luxury, it's just the way trains should be. The standard room is for 4 adults (4 beds). So even if you travel for 2 hours you get a bed. The size of the room is approx. size of Amtrak "bedroom". You may also buy "luxury" room for 2 adults with the same size. No toilet or shower in the room, only a public restroom in the car. No meal included, you may go to the dinner car and buy meals yourself. This way one car takes 52 passengers, passengers get more room than in Amtrak roomettes, they pay for travel only, not for meals, shower, etc. and tickets for overnight trip are as low as $10-20. This is the way it should be. Price of $950 for one night in bedroom on Florida trains that I see very often is nonsense. I took it once (for points, not for cash!) and it was not any special from any Ukrainian trains for $10-20.I agree, but for overnight trips like Chicago to DC, I wouldn't mind sacrificing a rough night to save $80. With the price it is now, it makes absolutely no economic sense to take the train. If they lower fares on these overnight trains, then I am sure far more would flock to using them because money is always the prime motivator of changeThen my hope would be Amtrak introduce some type of budget sleeper accommodation, i.e no meals included, no shower, just a flat bunk bed. Even this would have to be 25-50% cheaper than flying for people to seriously use it.
They might be surprised by the reception.
Ziv
Well, there's one way to "test market" something like this: Do a deal with one of the major European RRs to buy a couple of used cars (5-10, depending on the routes you want to try them on), rehab them, and stick them on the route of your choice. It's not a risk-free approach, and there are certainly some risks that would be in the mix, but it'd be cheaper than buying a big order and then having to chuck them because you can't fill them at any price and are for all intents and purposes stuck with a low-capacity coach car...and you could probably punt the cars to a third-world country when you're done with the test (as happens with a lot of European cars).If we back up to the pre-streamliner era, that is trains as they were up to immediately post WW2, for the most part sleepers in the US were very similar in concept to the current the current "couchette" They were called sections. you had an upper and a lower berth with a dividing wall between each section. In the daytime there were a pair of facing seats. I can't describe quite how they were set up right now, but the upper berth folded up against the wall and ceiling. The berths were sold individually. The upper berth with no window was cheaper than the lower. In the early days of room sleepers, there were some that built with all. A common arrangement was 6-6-4, that is, 6 sections, 6 roomettes, 4 double bedrooms. Apparently the demand for sections was such that not many of these cars were built. Thus, the most common makeup of the post WW2 sleepers was the 10&6, that is 10 roomettes adn 6 double bedrooms.I agree with Colobok on the European couchette type of railcars being something Amtrak should look into. There are as many types as there are countries, but most have the aisle/hallway on one side of the car and either semi-open or nearly fully enclosed rooms with 4 to 6 seats that fold into 3' by 6'6" beds. They are pretty comfortable, and I am 6'4". Most of the cars for nearly every train convert into couchettes so there is none of the half-sleep in coach that a lot of us have suffered through. The porter converts the couch into 4 beds (6 beds in second class, but that is a bit crowded) at 10 pm, you kick off your shoes, read for a bit, nod off and wake up at 7 am when the porter comes back through to convert the bunks back into couch seats. The couches aren't quite as comfortable as reclining Amtrak seat, quite, but the bunks are much more comfortable than an Amtrak seat to sleep in. No comparison. With the View Liner and Dining cars to hang out in, a Couchette car is a great value for someone that is traveling overnight but doesn't want to spring for a roomette. It would be cool if Amtrak would convert a dozen cars to couchettes and sell them at a slight premium from the regular coach on a couple routes, but with no meals included.I agree. In Ukraine where I am from almost all trains are "sleepers". It's not luxury, it's just the way trains should be. The standard room is for 4 adults (4 beds). So even if you travel for 2 hours you get a bed. The size of the room is approx. size of Amtrak "bedroom". You may also buy "luxury" room for 2 adults with the same size. No toilet or shower in the room, only a public restroom in the car. No meal included, you may go to the dinner car and buy meals yourself. This way one car takes 52 passengers, passengers get more room than in Amtrak roomettes, they pay for travel only, not for meals, shower, etc. and tickets for overnight trip are as low as $10-20. This is the way it should be. Price of $950 for one night in bedroom on Florida trains that I see very often is nonsense. I took it once (for points, not for cash!) and it was not any special from any Ukrainian trains for $10-20.I agree, but for overnight trips like Chicago to DC, I wouldn't mind sacrificing a rough night to save $80. With the price it is now, it makes absolutely no economic sense to take the train. If they lower fares on these overnight trains, then I am sure far more would flock to using them because money is always the prime motivator of change
They might be surprised by the reception.
Ziv
Part of the issue might be that of concept. Even though the common term for coach was "daycoach" for nost people of normal financial circumstances the standard method of travel, if not on somebody else's nickel, was coach, whether overnight or not. For sure, of the 30 odd overnight train trips I made between the ages of 17 and 27, only 2 nights were in a sleeper. Of the dozen or so overnights made since, 3 were in sleeper.
Before jumping into the idea of the couchette cars or a new version of the section sleeper, we had better be sure that there is a market for that type of service. We may find that there is not. There are quite a few people that if given the choice of spending the night in a moving bed or spending a night in a reclining chair and saving $100 or so, you might find that most will take the money.
If anything, the concept of sitting up while traveling, even for very long trips, airline service has implanted the thought of being in a seat while traveling even more strongly into people's minds.
I don't know what being a Superpower has to do with the type of sleeping service provided in a train. I am yet to see how an ICBM or Aircraft Carrier helps people travel within the country - leaving aside the issue of securing fuel pipelines and maintaining the ability to twist others arms into selling such to us that is.
In the past they used to run married pair Restaurant and Kitchen cars, so they had ample supplies. One should also keep in mind that a standard Indian car is ~75' long, not 85' like here. But the longest overnight AC trains are 18 to 20 cars long with standard consists. So there will be either significant lengthening of trains - upto 24 cars is possible without lengthening platforms, or reduction of capacity or a combination of the two. So who knows how they will slice and dice this one.
Catering folks on Indian Railways are used to serving thousand passengers on a train. Now most of the popular long distance trains are 24 cars long, with upto 18-odd air-conditioned and non air-conditioned reserved sleeper cars and five or six unreserved Second Class cars attached at both ends of the train, which are not connected by vestibules to the remaining train, so they are out of contention for food service, but the remaining 18 cars have 60 to 70 passengers each, thus coming to around 1200 reserved passengers. There are food stalls at every platform at all major stations, so some passengers grab their food from there but still a large number depend on the train's catering service for their meals. Of course, no train on Indian Railways offers Amtrak style sit-down dining (there is only one train with a combined kitchen-dining car), it is more like prison food- prepared en masse in the Kitchen Car and distributed to passengers in plastic trays and aluminum foil packets at their berths. If there is to be an Amtrak style Dining Car on Indian trains carrying over thousand passengers, I can imagine the Dining Car attendant announcing in the morning- "Dining Car reservations are now open for, depending on the time your turn comes, breakfast, lunch or dinner!"
But they use what is close to UIC loading gauge specially at floor level. Indian passenger cars are based on two shell designs, both from Europe. The so called Integral Coaches are based on a Schlieren design of 1950s vintage and the more modern so called LHB coaches are based on an Alstom/LHB design of 2000 vintage. The former are pretty basic and even lack simple yaw dampers. The latter have relatively modern Fiat trucks with yaw dampers and are capable of 200kph.
That looks like the 25% off price if you buy the tickets at least 2 weeks in advance. Amtrak has had the >14 day advance purchase discount program for NE Regionals for a while now.
The higher ticket prices for flights to the smaller airports is just the beginning of a long term trend if oil prices stay above $100/barrel. (I'm using Brent crude price because that is a more accurate reflection of the average global price for oil in the past year than West Texas Intermediate). Brent crude is at $114/barrel as of today and has stayed above $100/barrel since early this year, despite the recent economic news.
I'm a little confused... Do you mean MARC or do you mean Amtrak? They are different. Many of these commuter services (ie: MARC, VRE, etc) have reciprocity deals with Amtrak for their fares, or at least upgrade programs. Amtrak is way more pricey than the commuters, but also tend to act as an express, skipping some local stops, is ready more comfortable and generally has better amenities.
