Viewliner II Delivery/Production

ApproachMedium wrote:I cant wait until we get new sleepers. These old viewliners are really taking a beating with the cold and freezing up. The undercarriage has no real protection from this kind of constant weather.

You raise a good point: How did the legacy carriers deal with freezeup? I can't imagine B&M or Canadian Pacific suffered 100 years of problems with freezeups. Nor can I imagine that the main carbuilders, the southernmost of which was ACF in St. Louis, were unaware of the problem. What is the lost art? Is it the transition from steam heat?

Followup question: What is it about the new Viewliners that will prevent this? Is that the purpose of the underbody skirting? I thought it was strange to see underbody skirting after 30 years of seeing it removed by shop forces.

Retention toilets & plumbing seems to be the major difference between then and now.

The big difference here is the steam heat. old cars steam went over everything, and the yards had steam heat until about 5 years ago when they removed it. The steam in sunnyside was used to quickly thaw out doors, drains, retention tanks etc. The underbody of the new viewliners is NOT skirting, it is actually a full enclosed compartment like the Acela. The components are totally protected from cold air blowing over them to keep them from freezing up during travel. The stuff the old cars had was purely for looks and had nothing to do with functionality which is why amtrak removed it.

I dont know what is causing problems with the new diners freezing up but all they have is a sink drain so i can imagine there must be an issue with that.

Even old viewliners did fine in cold weather, but insulation kind of disappears during maintenance . Heaters meant to keep critical things warm are not always checked .
even newer cars are subject to curse of careless maintenance worker, be it a viewliner a coach or diner.
Winter just points out were the shortcuts were made.

ApproachMedium wrote:The big difference here is the steam heat. old cars steam went over everything, and the yards had steam heat until about 5 years ago when they removed it. The steam in sunnyside was used to quickly thaw out doors, drains, retention tanks etc. The underbody of the new viewliners is NOT skirting, it is actually a full enclosed compartment like the Acela. The components are totally protected from cold air blowing over them to keep them from freezing up during travel. The stuff the old cars had was purely for looks and had nothing to do with functionality which is why amtrak removed it.

I dont know what is causing problems with the new diners freezing up but all they have is a sink drain so i can imagine there must be an issue with that.

Interesting, we still have steam in Chicago for just that. I'm a bit surprised they cut the steam lines out at SSYD if it makes it so easy to melt the cars. Perhaps even a pickup truck with boiler on the back would help.

https://scontent-dft4-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=5AEAC7E6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chicago had its steam shut off for one winter. They had to turn it back on. Chicago was supposed to have it removed. SSYD has a steam truck, and its useless. It used to take 20 minutes to steam and unfreeze an entire amfleet set of 7-8 cars in ssyd now it takes 20 minutes a door with that truck and it can only be in one place at a time.

As per a source on another site Two more Viewliner Diners came out from CAF this morning.

Has NOL had a protect at any time in the last decade?

Don't forget way back when the railways had a helluva a lot more cars sitting around in there yards that could be used for backup trains I really don't know how they do it in Chicago with having to turn the "Capital & Lakeshore every day!!! Kudos to them ! Listening to all these arm chair critics whine all the time in there warm homes gets so tiring !!! :(:( Sorry for the rant. Now poor old Amtrak has just enough cars to run the trains they have and that's it ! Any hick-ups they are screwed or scrambling for cars. I used to work outside in Montreal and up the St.Lawrence towards Baie-Comeau , Chicoutimi at -40 below . So give it a rest you armchair critics...

Train2009 wrote:As per a source on another site Two more Viewliner Diners came out from CAF this morning.

68017 MONTGOMERY and 68016 MADISON are on their way down to FL on train #97 which it left NYP this afternoon 55 minutes late.

After waiting for years, I'm not too jaded to celebrate! Feels like we are finally getting enuff V-2s to do some good.

Really hoping for a real dining car in 2 weeks on 48/49. I see the menu hasn't changed on line, but I will remain very cautiously optimistic!

Mr. Norman,

So the verdict would be appear to be "next month" ... Maybe?