New Superliners

[mtuandrew]

I obviously knew the first two, Col. Perkowski, but had to look up the Lark. Wouldn’t this be nice as part of a LD equipment replacement order?

Food and beverage service was provided by the Lark Club, a three-car articulated food service unit (kitchen/crew dormitory car, dining room car, and tavern-lounge car from front to rear) that became known for late-night business transactions and a place to share a nightcap, and in the morning, offered a full breakfast menu.

Absent HSR, an overnight California sleeper could make some traction; just guarantee connections to San Francisco by motor coach (or Lyft if you must) and terminate in Sacramento for the legislators.

[John_Perkowski]

It sank in the 60s because business found air less expensive.

I can get a flight right now! On Southwest for 184. I’ll be there in an hour.

Using the Starlight as a surrogate for an overnight train, I CAN get a roomette today, for $324!

Even rolling in 3 hours to get to/from home and hotel, my air travel time is 7.5 hours. My rail time is 11 1/4 hours plus enroute to Station, enroute from Station.

Finally, there are over 1000 seats after supper, daily, from LA area airports. Amtrak can offer what, 66 beds?

Reviving the Lark is a fool’s errand.. Amtrak cannot compete on time, cost, or capacity.

[Gilbert B Norman]

Food and beverage service was provided by the Lark Club, a three-car articulated food service unit (kitchen/crew dormitory car, dining room car, and tavern-lounge car from front to rear) that became known for late-night business transactions and a place to share a nightcap, and in the morning, offered a full breakfast menu.

"The Lark" is a "been there done that" for me. Everything within the captioned Wiki article I will heartilly concur.

In addition to such, allow me to note a "raise the shade" experience Southbound (whoops, EB in "espeese") during December '63. At about 630A, there was a "sliver" of sunlight getting into my Engineer side Roomette. I opened the shade to a crystal clear view somewhere around Point Conception.

One of my memorable rail riding moments - back when there were "experiential" memories to be had.

But I wholly concur with Col. Perkowski's thoughts. The market moves in 737's or 320's between the four major airports around LA to the three around the Bay. Sure, the only "experiential" memories will be of prods down the cattle chute (wonder why I've had my last flight on WN?) that most would sooner forget, but that is how business travel is done today. It's not meant to be fun - at least for the lesserlings. It's just something to get "over and done".

I highly doubt if those "Auto-Pullmans" out there attract the business crowd. The trip reports I've seen don't think all that much of them. In Western Continental Europe, I still hold the OBB Governors had a little too much Gruner Veltliner when they signed on for more of what the others were bailing from.

But then, that's me.

[bostontrainguy]

Just out of curiosity I searched for the dimensions of the LIRR double decker cars:

The C1 stands 14 feet 6 inches (4.42 m) tall.[15] This was necessary in order for the car to fit through the East River Tunnels, and shorter than similar designs such as the gallery cars used in Chicago or Amtrak's Superliners, both of which exceed 15 feet (4.6 m).[16][17] The cars are 82 feet 2 inches (25.04 m) long and 10 feet (3.0 m) wide.[15]

The car has vestibules at both ends. It was designed for use at high-level platforms, so the doors sit roughly 4 feet 3 inches (1.30 m) above the rail. The interior is split into lower and upper levels, with accessible seating on the entrance level. On the upper and lower levels seating is 3–2. This dense arrangement permits a maximum capacity of 180–190 passengers.[15] Each level measures 6 feet 5 inches (1.96 m) from floor to ceiling.[8] Passenger response to the 3–2 seating was poor, leading to the adoption of 2–2 seating in the C3.[18]

Does anyone know the interior height of a Superliner? Checking pictures online the ceilings look like they are just at the top of the end doors.

I really think a low-profile Superliner could be built for universal Long Distance routes since these cars have a 6' 5" interior height. That still leaves the ends over the trucks at platform height for high-level boarding and any underfloor mechanicals and plumbing (showers, bathrooms, ADA room in sleeper [Viewliner module], etc.).

Some clever design could make things more comfortable like upper berth windows to make the rooms more open and bright. Also the cars could be built to run in pairs so that you could have upper-level walk-through at one end and a single high-level vestibule at the other. That would allow more efficient use of the interior space and also allow the placement of a large Family Room or Deluxe Suite at the blind end of the lower level of the sleeper.

There would be plenty of combinations possible (+ indicates the upper-level walk through):

COACH+COACH / LOUNGE+DINER / SLEEPER+
COACH+COACH / COACH+LOUNGE / DINER+SLEEPER / SLEEPER+
COACH+COACH / COACH+COACH / LOUNGE+DINER / SLEEPER+SLEEPER / SLEEPER+

Just fun food for thought.

Surf.jpg (69.54 KiB) Viewed 1663 times

Picture showing ceiling height of Superliner/California Car

[MACTRAXX]

BTG: Interesting thought of a new multilevel Superliner car...

The LIRR C1 and C3 are of the same dimensions with the clearance requirements of the East River tunnels...
More specifically these cars have to clear the overhead catenary wires in each tunnel with sufficient clearance
as not to allow a "flashover" of the AC current to the roof of the car. 25KV needs more space than 11 or 12.5KV.

An example of a clearance issue that I recall concerning Superliner equipment is when they were placed on display
during an event at Philadelphia's 30th Street Station in which the car roof came close enough to the catenary wire
above that the wire in question above Track 1 (which has a low level service platform on one side) had to be
de-energized to prevent any possible flashovers...MACTRAXX

[STrRedWolf]

Did the MARC IV/NJ Transit Multilevel cars ever go through Philly 30th Street, without having to shut down the catenary? If so, why not build the new Superliners out of that?

[mtuandrew]

Re: a NEC-capable bilevel, I think there’s a way to build a passenger coach with high-level passage between cars, two high-level and two low-level doors (one each per side), and two staircases, and have it all fit in the most restrictive Amtrak loading gauge. I don’t know about a sleeper, that would be difficult with the limited headroom in a BBD MLV-equivalent.

[electricron]

Did the MARC IV/NJ Transit Multilevel cars ever go through Philly 30th Street, without having to shut down the catenary? If so, why not build the new Superliners out of that?

Excellent question, let’s see if it could possibly work.
The height a a Bombardier MultiLevel car is 14 feet, 6 inches.
From photos and drawings, it appears top of rail to bottom of car is about the radius of the wheels, so 6 inches at least.
So both levels must be around 7 feet high, including floor, mid floor, and ceiling thickness.
Most seats are around 2 feet high, so that’s the level of the bottom rack including the cushion
So that leaves 5 feet of clearance for two bodies lying down and the top bunk cushions.
Is two feet clearance sufficient for a body lying down?
I’m assuming all the water and waste water tanks can be squeezed on the mid floor levels.
A Superliner is 16 feet, 2 inches tall, and there is no spare wasted vertical spaces. It is 1 feet, 4 inches taller, 8 inches more vertical spaces on both floors. Would you miss those 8 inches in a Superliner room and roomette?

[Greg Moore]

A Superliner is 16 feet, 2 inches tall, and there is no spare wasted vertical spaces. It is 1 feet, 4 inches taller, 8 inches more vertical spaces on both floors. Would you miss those 8 inches in a Superliner room and roomette?

For someone who has ridden the Superliner upper bunk (and recently) yes. Definitely.

[bostontrainguy]

The original post mentions that the original Superliner design is 40 years old. Don't you think that more modern construction procedures and materials maybe could bring that car down to a lower, lighter, stronger profile? I don't know for sure but stronger, lighter and thinner steel certainly has been developed. Carbon fiber roof and cross beams? I don't know myself, but the fact that double-deckers can now even come into Penn Station must be the result of more modern design and materials.

[mtuandrew]

There’s a clue on potential design from the Budd Hi-Level Wikipedia article:

Sleeping car proposal

Santa Fe considered equipping the Super Chief with Hi-Level sleeping cars, and Budd drafted a design for such a car in 1957. In this design there was an aisle on the lower level only, and set against one side instead of centerline. The lower level also contained six single bedrooms and a toilet. The upper level would have eight two-person "Vista Bedrooms" which spanned the width of the car. Access to these rooms would be from four sets of stairs from the lower level aside. Each Vista Bedroom would contain an individual toilet and two beds: one stacked above the bed in the single bedroom beneath, and one lengthwise over the aisle. Nothing came of this proposal. Pullman-Standard adopted a more traditional design for Amtrak's Superliner I in the 1970s: five bedrooms and ten roomettes on the upper level, two bedrooms and four roomettes on the lower level.

I recall reading that Hi-Levels are shorter than Superliners, though they’re still a foot too tall to enter the North River Tunnels at 15’ 6”.

[John_Perkowski]

Shorter and narrower, but neither car was designed to access electrified territory or NYC.

[mtuandrew]

Shorter and narrower, but neither car was designed to access electrified territory or NYC.

I love that first picture of three (four?) generations of Amtrak bilevel cars.

From the third picture, it’s pretty clear that a 14’ 6” bilevel would be entirely incompatible with the current Superliner fleet in terms of walk-through passages. Probably best to scrap the idea of a high-level walkthrough passage (which also makes them incompatible with Viewliners) and spec a split-level pattern of the MLVs and other commuter cars.

[electricron]

HiLevels cars.were slightly shorter than Superliners in height, but not one of them was ever built as a sleeper car. I doubt two levels of bunk beds sleeper cabins was possible. Additionally, all the chairs and all the tables on a HiLevel car were on the upper level, the lower level being reserved for equipment, water and sewage tanks, rest rooms, galley, and baggage racks. Much later Amtrak converted a few of them into crew dorm cars, I’ll admit I do not know how that was accomplished.

[Backshophoss]

With Nippon-Sharyo retreating back to Japan after the Lost Face" crush test failure for the 3rd gen Surfliner,that leaves the original plans
by Pullman under BBD Control
Amtrak no longer considers BBD as a Vendor/Supplier after the Hippo/Acela I lawsuit,would BBD be willing to license Kawasaki
the rights to build the 3rd gen Superliners?