Baggage cars - how full?

I know the answer is "it varies", but on a typical LD run such as SW Chief, CZ, or Builder, how full are the baggage cars on a normal day? I notice a few Superliner coaches are coach/baggage, are those mostly used on trains like the Builder where the train is split up?

I'm wondering too.

The baggage car on 7/8 is usually fairly well patronized. During most of the year, there's just enough room to have neatly sorted piles and to be able to walk around in there. During peak season, the amount of baggage going to GPK and WFH (and as always, MSP) is monumental, and you can only stack those piles so high until they start to fall apart!

A "normal day" bag count (on/off totaled together) for MKE - 20-50. MSP, 40-80. For the long haul, CHI-SEA and v.v. is usually around fifty bags either way. Total out of CHI? Well, this is just a wild guess, but maybe about two hundred. All of these numbers are liable to double or triple during peak periods...

The Portland section coach/bagg routinely carries a varying amount of express business eastward, consisting of fresh flowers from an Oregon-based florist. Sometimes the floral load is so great that the boxes are literally stacked floor to ceiling.

AFAIK, the Beagle and the CONO (which normally turn for each other in Chicago) are the only LD trains which depend solely on a Coach/Bagg.

EricL is correct as it relates to the builder, but forgot to mention during the winter the volume of Skis that get checked to Whitefish. I once was on #7 where we put FIVE floats (bag carts - the old REA kind) of skis on at Grand Forks...

But of course most people on this board claim there is no need for baggage cars...

AMTK1007 wrote:EricL is correct as it relates to the builder, but forgot to mention during the winter the volume of Skis that get checked to Whitefish. I once was on #7 where we put FIVE floats (bag carts - the old REA kind) of skis on at Grand Forks...

But of course most people on this board claim there is no need for baggage cars...

I will certainly concede Mr. 1007's point on skis! I once spent 26 minutes at Columbus, WI just loading up a group of Whitefish skiiers and all of their accouterments - this is normally carded for a five-minute stop. This is a station WITH an agent and checked baggage service, AND we had all the well-muscled ski fellows help hoist all their stuff up into the baggage car! We didn't even care about sorting stuff out; I did that afterwards while on the road. Literally all this dwell time was spent just physically hosting stuff up into the baggage car and then respotting the train for actual passenger loading. There were just that many of them, and that much of their stuff!

What about the Hiawathas and 66/67? I heard that the latter had really light baggage loads.

The Hiawathas usually have nominal baggage loads, but it's sort of a moot point, since they are running with F40-NPCUs anyways. The NPCUs are in place much more for their utility as cab cars - the "empty engine room space" baggage room function is just a secondary added benefit. The most Hiawatha baggage is handled on the trains to/from CHI L-D connections. For instance, no. 334 handles baggage for most of the mid-afternoon CHI departures - Eagle, Zephyr, Chief, etc. Relatively few people check baggage when they are only actually traveling between MKE and CHI and no further. The train trip is only an hour and a half, so why waste 10-20 minutes checking + claiming baggage at each end? The train crews are not appreciative of the increased volume of "carry-ons", but is is simply a reality of short-distance intercity travel.

Notably, the Talgo trains that are supposed to be replacing the current Hiawatha service have no dedicated baggage space. Still not sure about how the baggage situation is going to play out, once these new trainsets are deployed, but the backup plan is to revert to the old-school default: MKE-CHI baggage handled on 7/8 only and subject to applicable delay.

Cool info, thanks guys. I've never been in a baggage car and I was a bit curious. I seem to recall Gunn waging a war against them, and I was curious if it was warranted.

EricL wrote:The Hiawathas usually have nominal baggage loads, but it's sort of a moot point, since they are running with F40-NPCUs anyways. The NPCUs are in place much more for their utility as cab cars - the "empty engine room space" baggage room function is just a secondary added benefit. The most Hiawatha baggage is handled on the trains to/from CHI L-D connections. For instance, no. 334 handles baggage for most of the mid-afternoon CHI departures - Eagle, Zephyr, Chief, etc. Relatively few people check baggage when they are only actually traveling between MKE and CHI and no further. The train trip is only an hour and a half, so why waste 10-20 minutes checking + claiming baggage at each end? The train crews are not appreciative of the increased volume of "carry-ons", but is is simply a reality of short-distance intercity travel.

Notably, the Talgo trains that are supposed to be replacing the current Hiawatha service have no dedicated baggage space. Still not sure about how the baggage situation is going to play out, once these new trainsets are deployed, but the backup plan is to revert to the old-school default: MKE-CHI baggage handled on 7/8 only and subject to applicable delay.

Notably, to add to Mr EricL's commentary, I have also noticed, upon cursory inspection 334 in particular carrying an increased amount of checked baggage for the later departures, 30/59/48 as of late. Checked baggage started out on the Hiawatha's as 2 trains each way sort of as a test, (IIRC 333/334/336/341 were the trains) and it was expanded to all the trains a short time later.

Amtrak7 wrote:What about the Hiawathas and 66/67? I heard that the latter had really light baggage loads.

I'll field this one. 66 and 67 are incredibly light between Bos and Was. It's not exactly thriving between NPN and WAS either. 51/50 doesn't generate a lot of luggage over the NEC.

I will say 79/80 carries a respectable amount of luggage.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when there are more baggage cars available. I assume more trains will have them again. I suspect that will help encourage customers for certain trips.

I think trains like the Ethan Allen would benefit from having checked baggage again.

Greg Moore wrote:It'll be interesting to see what happens when there are more baggage cars available. I assume more trains will have them again. I suspect that will help encourage customers for certain trips.

I think trains like the Ethan Allen would benefit from having checked baggage again.

I also think that with the reappearance of Baggage Dorms, you will see more "Right Sizing" of Baggage cars.

3/4/5/6/7/8 carry a significant amount of baggage ( 3&4 will carry baggage to the unstaffed station at Raton in the summer with the Boy Scouts going to Philmont Ranch) While a train such as 50/51 or 66/67 might only rate a bag dorm due to the limited amount of baggage they carry, saving the Full Bag's for those trains that can actually use them..

Another point of Clarification from Mr. EricL's comments. He mentioned about the significant Express Business that America's train does eastbound with Floral products. While all the baggage is moved from the coach bag to the full bag at Spokane, the Flowers reamin in the Coach Bag due to the Climate Control in the baggage section of that car as opposed to the lack there of in a regular baggage car.. there was a period of time in the early '00's where the Portland section was only running with one coach ( thus was a FULL coach for ADA requirements) and a MHC ping ponged between Portland and Spokane to cover the checked baggage and express requirement. It only took 2 or 3 trips with that uninsulated non climate controlled MHC for people realized that there were going to be issues with the flowers.. Fried in the summer Frozen in the winter.. I once walked in to the Bag car ( IN DECEMBER) in chicago to check on pallets of express for Milwaukee, so we could let them know if they needed to bring the Forklift over, and the bag car was nice and Toasty ( thery hadn't finished loading yet, and the pallets were last to go on as they left them in the doorway). I went back up right after leaving Glenview ( 24 Minutes North) and the snow that had melted in the car in chicago was already frozen and you could tell just how cold it was outside!

Skip to 24:34 in this video I posted and you can get a quick glimpse (porbably better if you pause it) into the Westbound Southwest Chief's Baggage Car in Mid July 2010. Not sure if baggage loads vary considerably depending on where you are in the route but the next stop Westbound was La Junta, CO if that helps.

Davis

I've been on the eastbound Empire Builder a number of times, and on two runs, it lacked a baggage car out of Seattle. All the baggage had to be put in the Superliner Trans/Dorm Sleeper. I assume that the Portland section had a Superliner coach/baggage. And both times when the Seattle section lacked its baggage car, it was peak summer time season - or peak consists for this train.

I do have to wonder if Amtrak should have ordered more Viewliner baggage/dorm cars than pure baggage cars. Also begs the question if other trains in the Amtrak system could actually get a baggage car if there are enough Superliner baggage/coach cars. The idea of more Viewliner baggage/cars would be to put these on more heavily populated sleeper trains and then use the Superliner Trans/Dorm in the consist as an all-roomette revenue car........

Course one also has to realize that the baggage cars were removed from trains like the Ethan Allen Express, Adirondack, and Vermonter for cost savings reason (that was decided by the state that helped subsidize the service). Amtrak did "find" baggage cars for the Cardinal train sets. Another train that could likely benefit from a baggage car would be the Pennsylvnian, especially with the connecting passengers to/from the Capitol Limited and the fact that this trainset has to have the baggage car tacked on or off of the train set that rotates in with the Palmetto.

Worth noting - my buddy Rob lives in Japan and posts Shinkansen pics regularly on another forum, non-rail related. Because the Shinkansen has a tapering profile, the ceiling becomes too low for a baggage rack and thus one of the seats is replaced by a seat-sized baggage rack.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v228/ ... 100914.jpg

Here is a wide-angle, you can barely see the baggage seat at lower right.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v228/ ... 100915.jpg