Viewliner II Delivery/Production

ApproachMedium wrote:That should make things interesting when the passengers go for that attendant call button.

Why it's not like it does anything now in my experience.

Call buttons are going to be operational when this plan goes into effect.

Greg Moore wrote:

ApproachMedium wrote:That should make things interesting when the passengers go for that attendant call button.

Why it's not like it does anything now in my experience.

They will work on the new cars. The superliners they work just fine. The systems on the old viewliners never worked right. The companies that made the stuff all pretty much went out of business after the cars were made so there was no spare parts when the stuff broke. Same with the fire alarm system. One or two viewliners got retrofitted with the attendant call system from a superliner (probably a wreck or something) and in my days as a car electrician it did work.

ApproachMedium wrote:The reason the viewbags came thru the pipeline first is the speed they could be installed, meanwhile bugs with the sleeper diner and bag dorm prototypes could be worked out elsewhere instead of revenue service. I do not know the numbers, but considering the bags are the highest number of cars being replaced across the country thats a huge savings in the maintenance cost of the old cars which are constantly being shopped for issues and failures. Yea a sleeper may being in $225k or so a day, but with these new baggage cars amtrak is looking at ways to make revenue off baggage. Keep in mind amtrak does still offer express services and charges to ship bikes etc using baggage cars. So its not a real looser like some may think. The cost savings per day per unshopped car with the new bags could alone be paying for itself in increased bag availability for amtrak express and checked luggage services.

An new baggage car - numbering 70 - will bring in a fraction of what even ONE Viewliner sleeper with. And since it has taken five years just to get the baggage cars out, we might be lucky to see the diners, let alone sleepers by 2020.

When you take into account the added costs associated with adding sleepers to existing trains/new trains, you really aren't going to make substantially more because you need more people qualified in every aspect from Conductor to LSA. The cost of removing cars that are antiques with limited part resources and require a high amount of maintaining may be less than the revenue generated by a sleeping car, but outlying factors such as crew members being able to do things more efficiently to not having to use passenger equipment as a baggage car is paying for itself. Think about all the times an Amfleet needed to be kept around in case a low-revenue, non-passenger carrying baggage car needed to be bad ordered? That car can now be more freely distributed to create revenue instead of being held by a yardmaster because he knows the inevitable is likely to happen.

Some may argue that Amtrak crafts are overpaid but I suspect even a sleeping car attendant doesn't make $225K/night

That said, like others, I still think getting the new baggage cars out first made a lot of sense. Now I can't wait for the diners.

Observed #5 (6), Zephyr, with a V-Bag in consist.

Also in consist on the rear were three PV's (CN liveried Burrard, Promontory Point lettered Central Pacific, unknown) so with Phase II on the head, Phase IVb Supers, and the PV's made a sight reminiscent of Early Amtrak "circus trains".

Two of 'em, 61038 and 61053, are in #5 (8)'s consist. I'll have to "stake out" #3 to see if V-Bags have found their way into those consists.

The answer is: yes, they have. One was spotted in Flagstaff the other day.

Moments ago. About 15ML, I observed @ 17.96, 5 ( 11) with 61049 in consist. Even though I had my phone, he 'sneaked up on me," hence no photo.

Anything new going on with deliveries? Its been a while since anything has been released.

Thanks

Mike Scholz

lirrelectrician wrote:Anything new going on with deliveries? Its been a while since anything has been released.

Thanks

Mike Scholz

Deliveries have been about 1 every 8 - 9 calendar days . So with 12 to go expect maybe final 96 days from last delivery of Aug 12. Maybe Nov 20th. But that is very close to Thanksgiving which may not allow for spare equipment to pick up final baggage. Then construction completion of diners might release 4 Dec 21 with acceptance by Jan 31st. That is very close to the Star's no diner experiment. Any bets ?

Alternative schedule pure speculation: Impatiently thinking about the latest seeming delay reminded me that the original plan was to build 55 baggage cars on one assembly line and 75 diners/bag dorms/sleepers on the other track.

Then they decided to build 70 baggage cars first, using both tracks. That turned out to be a good idea, as reputedly many bugs appeared in the bag cars. Better to have such problems with the simpler bag cars than with the more complicated diners.

But now Amtrak has put almost 58 baggage cars in service. Maybe it's not in that big of a hurry for the last 12 to be delivered. Maybe the last 12 heritage bag cars can hang on a couple of months longer as protect cars. Maybe Amtrak can hold its breath and hope no new bag cars need to go to shop just yet. Maybe they can get by with 58 Viewliner II bag cars for a few more months. Or CAF can release only 5 or 6 more soon in a "half-batch".

Slow baggage car delivery, speed up diner delivery.

Speculation, maybe since they sent the last full batch in mid-August, CAF has been working on bag cars on only one line. Maybe they have begun to finish diners on the second assembly line.

If they can push 5 diners out the door and into service in time for the Silver Star diner-less experiment to end, that would be very good. Well, 10 new diners, to do the Meteor as well, that would be great.

Yeah, pure speculation. But since Amtrak and CAF have been keeping their business more secret than any Congressional Committee has ever been able to do with their business, we know nothing. I don't blame them, since they've missed every deadline they announced. But it means we know nothing, and so we can speculate. .

With the old views being put thru 125mph testing now hopefully the diners will come next and we will see the elimination of the C speed trains except for when carrying pvt cars. That should open up a bit more time in the scheduling on the corridor for the long haul moves.

And speaking of testing, DutchRailnut posted in the unusual equipment sightings thread that a V-Bag was sighted with a new Sprinter at New Haven today.