Amtrak Capitol Limited Thread

[jp1822]

And how much money was wasted on this Cross Country Cafe project? Yes, I realize Amtrak was mandated to "overhaul" its dining practices and try to reduce the cost of such, but I have never seen a more silly design of an eating area as the Cross Country Cafe booths. The "designers" must have had their blinders on when they were out riding these original Superliner Diners on the railroad - so as to see what design would work best. However, I wonder if the later as ever even done. These Cross Country Cafe cars could have easily been created in a vacuum - car sitting still in the yard and stationary. Granted there were some modifications from the original design, but I am not sure if it helped.

[Gilbert B Norman]

I must wonder if the CCC seating was salvaged from the Capstone A-I full length Cafe's that were withdrawn during the Gunn era, or it such was designed from scratch (I've never had occasion to set foot in a 370XX Cafe)?

If the former, someone was trying use what was on hand, so give 'em an A for effort, if the latter. it's Kool-Aid time.

However I wholly agree that whatever Critter thought the SDS initiative was ever going to save Amtrak a buck, and I think the "culprit' was Rep. Mica (R-7th-FL) with his little Committee "stage shows" of setting fire to dollar bills, has been proven quite mistaken. Likely Amtrak has developed expertise in the off-train preparation of certain items and still present a tasty menu to a passenger, but was the 370XX rebuild project necessary?

[Printman2000]

The "designers" must have had their blinders on when they were out riding these original Superliner Diners on the railroad - so as to see what design would work best.

That is assuming they EVER rode in them.

[Tadman]

If said designers had rode these cars, they would have committed hari-kari. The seating configuration is useless and obnoxious. For those that have not had the displeasure, instead of having 3 standard McDonald's-style booths on each side of the aisle, the CCC has two booths on each side of the aisle, one in standard config and one in horse-shoe config. When at a bar with friends, a horse-shoe booth may make sense. When riding in a tight railcar with strangers, a horse-shoe merely constrains seating to three. In other words, seating capacity of the diner goes from 48 to 28. Way to go, fellas... It now takes twice as long to serve the same amount of passengers.

[Gilbert B Norman]

According to the Hebners site, there are seventeen (37000-16) Cross Country Cafe's on the property; where are they assigned at present?

[jp1822]

If you get the answer to that one, Mr. Norman, I'd also like to know where the other 11 Viewliner sleepers that are not in daily service are sitting. The best answer I can rationalize with the Viewliners is that "39" is the max number Amtrak is willing to operate with Viewliner sleepers, and the other 11 cars, or 25% of the fleet are just going to float around the system or be in for servicing - not used in revenue service. I don't see why no more than 3 Viewliner sleepers would need to be in for servicing at one time - for periodic maintenance etc. - and then potentially 3 cars as backup - one each in Miami, Chicago and NYC. NYC Amtrak has some leeway to rob Peter to pay Paul. But even at that, it leaves 5 Viewliners in the same boat you pose as above with the Cross Country Cafe's. And I have no doubt that the Cardinal could use an extra Viewliner, as could some other single level trains operating with Viewliners (or did operate with Viewliners) now that the Heritage crew dorms are gone and the crew has to now be stowed in what were "all-revenue based Viewliners."

Here's my best shot at the Cross Country Cafe's:

Cross Country Cafe Cars:

3 - Capitol Limited (maybe 1 as a backup)
3 - City of New Orleans (maybe 1 as a backup)
4 - Texas Eagle (maybe 1 as a backup)

Now that is a count of 13 out of 17 cars?

Course this would likely put three backup Cross Country Cafe Diners in Chicago, which makes no sense.

Amtrak tried using these Cross Country Cafe Cars (aka Diner-Lounges) on the Seattle-Vancouver train (since Superliners are subbing for a Talgo train set that is out of service due to overhaul/restoration), but I heard that bcomplaints were so bad from passengers and crew on how horrible this car was (the Cross Country Cafe) that they put a Superliner Sightseer back on this route (and this is a route that currently just runs with two Superliner Coaches and a food service car (3 cars + engine) to get passengers to/from Seattle and Vancouver, BC.

Amtrak must be running with a shortage of regular Superliner Diners and a surplus of the Cross Country Cafe Cars (aka Diner-Lounge Cars). But it remains to be seen as to what the future has in store for these Cross Country Cafe Cars if you were to ask me - especially if Amtrak already has plans to convert the Capitol Limited to having a regular Superliner Diner after 3 Superliner Diners are rebuilt from the wreck-rebuild line.

Could these Cross Country Cafe Cars be used like the "Pacific Parlor Car" on the Coast Starlight, that is a "lounge" of sorts exclusively for sleeping car passengers in the near future? It would provide space, aside from the Diner for Empire Builder passengers, for example, to partake in the wine and cheese event. Let alone the fact that the CA Zephyr and Empire Builder's Sightseer Lounge car often fills up to the brim with passengers as it goes over the Rocky Mountains etc. This car would sort of help in providing an outlet to packed long distance trains. They could even remove some booths and put in more of a "lounge" type seating that faces out towards the window and inwards to the "aisle" for your viewing pleasure.

However, if this Cross Country Cafe Car can't work on a simple corridor train from Seattle to Vancouver, BC - something is seriously wrong. I did ride the route with the Cross Country Cafe in tow on this route, and forming a line to get your food and then trying to eat your food in a booth without having someone fall into your booth unexpectedly when the train hit rough track or go around a curve was quite an experience you don't get that often on regular corridor or long distance trains. Quite frankly, the Cross Country Cafe (aka Diner-Lounge) I found to be a little dangerous while in operation on the Seattle-Vancouver, BC train.

I think the book remains open for the Cross Country Cafe (aka Diner Lounge) cars. Not sure presently if Amtrak knows what to do with them not that they are basically a complete flop for what they were intended for. Perhaps they are running ok on the City of New Orleans, but if the City of New Orleans added a coach or added a sleeper, would it still be able to function as designed?

[SwingMan]

I think that the CCCs should have there "three skinny people booths removed and regular (CCC regular) 4 people booths in. Thats all I can come up with for now.

lirr415-Peter

[Gilbert B Norman]

Considering the girth of all too many out there nowadays, my own included, not a bad idea, Peter.

To continue, obviously Amtrak has backed away from the SDS initiative first set forth during 2006 to convert all Diners (save those assigned to Auto Train) and Sightseer Lounges to "Food Service Cars", and assign one or two of such to each train depending on the volume of travel at any given time.

While "settees" are quite appropriate for a Lounge area; it appears, if I have read the discussion properly, the only train on which the cars are used as a Diner Lounge are 58-59 City of New Orleans. In view of the late departure of The Louisiane (whoops, #59 City) from Chi and that a goodly number of Sleeper passengers are accustomed to "sup's on the table at 6", the Diner is not that busy out of Chi - and the business diminishes with every passing station stop South of Memphis. Likely the City is the only train to which those cars operated as intended is justified. For this we are talking four cars.

As Peter noted, the remaining thirteen should be converted back to the as delivered Diner configuration.

While the SDS initiative "forced" Amtrak to evaluate the menu items that could be prepared off-train without a compromise to their attractiveness (veggies), as well as those that simply cannot (eggs), the conversion of seventeen cars simply represented waste. Prebably the "finest hour" for the converted cars is that one or two of such were in the "Good Morning America" consist from this past September.

[Alcochaser]

The 37000 series cars are a real enigma right now, they could indeed be mostly sidelined. They really did bastardize the cars. The GMA train used CCC cars because they were least needed cars and GMA unbolted the tables and put SCADS of TV equipment in the cars.

Right now the big push is to get the 4 of the 6 wrecked 38000 series cars in service as full diners. This dovetails with the 2 refurbished Heritage, and 1 Viewliner diner to restore the LSL to full dining.

But don't forget that the superliner fleet was ordered in numbers to cover trains that ether, do not use Superliners now, or do not run at all now. So if you repair full diners to replace the CCC cafe cars, these CCC cars will be extra and sit. because here is the thing, with a converted lounge you can still use it as a full lounge. (Amfleet II & Horizon), but when you convert a diner, you can not use it as a full diner any longer.

At least someone had enough sense to only turn the Superliner 1 Diners into CCC cars. Most of these cars were gonna need total refurbishment from the ground up anyway.

[pablo]

I'll be traveling to Washington, DC for my anniversary with my wife in early August, about a month from now. It's a part of my attempt to travel on anything that goes through Pennsylvania within the next 12 months. I have the Roomette on the way back, but "coach" on the way out.

I'd like to "live blog" the whole way, wife permitting (don't get me started, please, on that little limiter) and report on what I see, hear, and experience. Since there's some time between now and then, I thought I would open up the floor and let people offer suggestions as to things that they might like to know about or for me to look for as I go.

You can expect a report on the food and on-time performance, as well as internet connectivity; I have a wireless modem from Verizon to keep me connected.

Thoughts, folks? Thank you in advance.

Dave Becker

[hi55us]

I hope your verizon modem works, mine works pretty well on the nec.

[pablo]

I expect some concerns in the hills...but I don't know how many.

Dave Becker

[quadrock]

I took the Capitol Limited back in April from Chicago to Washington DC and used a Verizon Broadband Access Card. It seemed to work best through Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Going through West Virginia, I pretty much has no service the whole time until hitting the DC suburbs. Also, make sure you charge everything up for the coach part of the trip. None of the Superliner Coaches I had were updated with the electrical outlets.

[pablo]

Ew. That will make updating hard. Perhaps I'll use the wife's netbook. The battery holds up very well.

Dave Becker

[quadrock]

For the coach part of the trip, if you're lucky, you may get a car with outlets although this is very unlikely. I saw a lot of people getting creative, by plugging in to the outlets in the lounge car. I think there are 2 behind the desk on the 2nd level. Also, on the lower level, there is an outlet in the bathroom. I ended up sitting at a table there and had my charger plugged in the bathroom outlet (just ran cord underneath the door). This gets to be a pain though because you have to unplug if anyone needs to use it.