Amtrak Great Dome Schedule Sightings Status

EricL wrote:

ThirdRail7 wrote:

Jersey_Mike wrote: The long term good news is that I asked both the Indy and Huntington crews what the policy was with leaving the dome car open all night and they told me that this year at least Amtrak had instructed them to do so. Still, some crews are grumbling about having to "work" and extra car so who knows if that policy will hold up next year. If it does that means it might be possible to ride the Cardinal without needing to obtain sleeping accommodations.

Can you explain this? I thought the dome car was a non revenue car that didn't require additional ticketing. How do you "work" a non revenue car? All you have to do is pass through it and make sure no one is brawling.

To echo, somewhat, Mr. JerseyMike:

This has been a point of great contention between unions and management, over the years. Management has wanted to have their cake and eat it too, hence: while they will happily claim that certain cars (cafes, especially) are "non-revenue" cars, not subject to the applicable rules about train consist vs. # of crew members, they would also come back and say: well so-and-so fell asleep in the lounge car and missed their stop, so it must be the train crew's fault!

The consequences of "carry-by"s are elevated to a level of ridiculousness aboard Amtrak. I honestly don't know what the policies and procedures were, back during the days of "real" passenger trains. But today, it is Amtrak's view that, if a passenger does not detrain at his scheduled stop, for any reason - no matter what - it is the Conductor's fault.

So therefore, every time the Conductor allows a passenger into a car without some kind of seating/destination accountability system (diner, lounge, dome, whatever) - he is taking a huge risk against his livelihood, since he is now personally responsible for fetching that person for detraining, if they should become distracted by food/drink/views/whatever while their stop is approaching.

But since such "non-revenue" cars are expected as a perk of long-distance travel, there is not much that this Conductor can do, apart from rely on his (sometimes flaky) car attendants, and the (often nonfunctional) public address system. Hence the general reluctance, system-wide, of allowing folks into cars that they are not "supposed" to be riding in. These rules-qualified operating employees are forced to be reduced to glorified babysitters, lest they be put out of service for some passenger's own ignorance.

EDIT: I should clarify that while I refer mainly in the above to long-distance trains, this zero-tolerance carry-by policy is officially in effect on EVERY SINGLE Amtrak-operated train in the country. Such a policy may seem unrealistic on the NEC, for example, due simply to the established "culture" - but it is indeed on the books. The consequences are much more dire out here in "flyover country", where the next station is an hour away, and the next train back home is probably not until tomorrow.

Thanks for the valuable background. On one hand while I think the policy is admirable, at some point I think passengers have to accept some responsibility if they miss their stop. (I supposed I'd have slept a bit more when I used to go to Toledo had I known that the system was designed to work so well. I honestly never trusted the sleeping car attendant and as a result wouldn't sleep very well.

I can sort of see where this puts a burden on the conductor since suddenly they might have a number of empty seat checks for 2-3 upcoming stops, and an equal (hopefully number of passengers scattered across several cars that they have to track down w/o annoying other passengers who aren't in a rush to get off and might be trying to catch a catnap in dome car.

(as an aside, I have fond memories of my first and only ride in a dome car on the original Auto-train. Overnight I had some nice views from the dome.)

Jersey_Mike wrote:On overnight LD trains the conductor knows exactly how many passengers are expected to get off and they get them wrangled well in advance. I suspect that the dome presents no more of an issue of simply giving passengers and additional place to hide. Of course the complexity of the Cardinal pales in comparison to a train full of Superliners each with a lower level and a plethora of bathrooms.

See, that's the thing. How far in advance? If you have a person/persons who are outright trying to dodge you, it might all damn night to chase them down. The company handbook recommends having LD passengers in place ten minutes prior to detraining. Trust me, sometimes it can take much longer than that, just to wrangle up all the LEGITIMATE passengers, much less the cheaters.

It gets especially interesting during the dinner hour. The dining car staff typically pays absolutely no attention to who a passenger is, or where they're going. Someone might reserve a 5:30 dinner seating, and meanwhile the train arrives on-time at their destination at 5:50, while they are still at dinner. No one is the wiser, except for the Assistant Conductor, who has been panicking for the last twenty minutes over that one person he hasn't been able to find. And even if he did find them, how rude would it be to pull them out of the Diner, while they were in the middle of eating? It's quite remarkable, some of the stupidity that goes on. Obviously, trying to tell the Dispatcher that the train was delayed by some random schlub busy eating dinner, is not going to go over very well. Believe it or not, ridiculous things like this happen all the time, and it infuriates me a little bit whenever I see posts on this very forum saying things like "oh, well if you to to ABC stop on XYZ train, you should have _JUST_ enough time to get dinner, westbound!" I wouldn't care, honestly, if I hadn't once been that very Assistant Conductor finding himself placed into that very lousy situation.

A good many passengers have become wise to Amtrak's policies. These sorts of folks want to have THEIR cake and eat it, too. They'll get on with an unpaid reservation - or a paid ticket to someplace shorter than where they're actually going - and then hide. Whether it's hiding in the bathroom, the lounge, the dome, or under someone else's seat-check, they'll hide. Then the legitimate person they displace (be it short or long), by misfortune or Murphy's Law, misses their stop at ABC. Well, the trainman counted the correct # of people off at ABC, so they highball. Come to find out that the dodger rode for free to ABC, artificially inflating the off-count, and therefore the person who unfortunately slept in... well, you see where I'm going, here.

There are situations, even on LD trains (the 15 minutes between Portage, Wis. to Wis. Dells, Wis. on #7/8 is a good example), where the travel time between stops is simply too short for the train crew to account for everybody. What do you do then, when there is a circumstantial discrepancy in the on/off count, caused by a dodger(s), that ends up resulting in the carry-by of a legitimate passenger? The company doesn't actually care about protecting solidly 100% of the revenue, as long as they get "close enough" - but they sure won't hesitate to punish the responsible employee(s) when they find out someone was passed over.

It takes years and years for a trainman to perfect the talent of memorizing passengers by appearance. This is a skill heavily used on commuter trains. It is less needed on intercity trains.

Sorry for getting off topic....

When does the dome typically run on the Cardinal? This is the first I've heard of it?

The weekends around November 1.

Most coach passengers have no concept of the Cardinal's present Amtrak Diner Lite dining option. Most think itis for sleeping car passengers only. It is not even promoted to coach passengers. In this way, the current Amfleet Diner Lite does nothing to increase the F&B revenue on this train, when it certainly could! The train needs not only another Viewliner Sleeper, but also a Viewliner Diner AND Viewliner Baggage/Dorm Car as mentioned. Then the onboard DINING STAFF and ONBOARD STAFF in general need to promote the Cardinal's services.

Even with the Lynchburg-Washington DC train running, coupled with the Crescent trailing its markers or vice versa, would seem that it needs a counter part to help with the Charlottesville-Washington DC ridership or at least another full route Amfleet II coach on the Cardinal.

Just realized that I forgot to provide proof that I accomplished my mission on this trip, despite the absence of a Dome Car.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

It looks as though the 10031 is head out on 4(12) heading towards CHI. Eventually, it is supposed to land in ALB.

ThirdRail7 wrote:It looks as though the 10031 is head out on 4(12) heading towards CHI. Eventually, it is supposed to land in ALB.

Excellent! that is good news!

Having read this forum for a long time, I know dome cars are frequently discussed. Apologies if this question has already been discussed to death.

Occasionally I'll read a book, magazine, or online source that says something like, "Dome cars have never operated in the Eastern United States because of clearance restrictions due to (check one):
-old tunnels
-catenary on the NEC
-New York Penn Station

Is it just one of these things, or a combination of the three? How tall can a passenger rail car be and still fit safely underneath any conceivable obstacle on the entire Amtrak system as it stands today? Or, is not a matter of designing a car at all? Are there some things that cars of a certain height may never pass under from a legal standpoint regardless of whether or not they fit? I don't know what the rules about this would be. Once upon a time I thought that the C&O Chessie low-clearance domes were intended to overcome the low-clearance obstacles found in the East.

NYP and the tunnels. The 14 ft. 5 in. height of an NJT and MARC MultiLevel coach is the tallest thing you can fit. The Hi-level dome cars, which are the same dimension specs the Superliners are based on, are 16 ft. 2 in. They also have the same low boarding style of the Superliners, which cannot interface with high platforms. So you would have no way of entering or exiting the car from a full-high without some very awkward bridge plate being manually inserted from the platform.

Catenary isn't a problem except in the aforementioned tight tunnels. I don't think there are any overhead bridges that squeeze it down as tight as the tunnels thanks to a century's worth of freight traffic, and out in the open the cat height is generally >20 ft.

Due to the tunnel clearances, could trains with cars exceeding 14'-5" use HOB instead of NYP (also with low level boarding)?

I thought there was an issue with 30th St station, if say a dome travelled between Harrisburg and Philly? I am ignoring the hi level platforms at 30th St Station as I think there is still one track at the station that may have low level platform access. I thought the main issue east of Harrisburg was catenary clearance.

However, I know they brought a couple of Superliners into 30th St. and had to use an Amfleet and Trans Dorm/Sleeper in order to gain access to any adjoining Superliners. I also thought the catenary had to be shut off - perhaps to be extra cautious and safe. It was a press or travel agent promotion if I recall.

Course there were also talks of converting the Broadway Limited into a Superliner train and running it out of Philly, as opposed to NYC.

There are plenty of clearance issues all over the northeast. Boston, New Haven, both stations in New York, Philadelphia, Washington and more. Domes once ran on the former New York Central Water Level Route but they did not run east of Harmon, they also once operated on Florida trains but not north of Richmond, the B & O had lower domes tham the other railroads had but they only ran them, as a rule, west of Washington and they did not allow passengers to occupy the domes until the cars were out from under the 11,000 volt catenary lines in Washington. This is basically the issue with any sort of high level cars north of Washington or east of Albany even today.
Noel Weaver

I think the Crescent had domes, but only south of Atlanta or perhaps DC.
Before the Capitol Limited got superliners it had a dome, and the crew ushered us out before we got under the wires in Washington DC. I think I heard that they relaxed that rule towards the end.
I'd expect superliners to be higher than domes, and I'd expect stainless steel roofs to be more electrically conductive than glass, so maybe there was no good reason for getting passengers out of the dome in DC, since I'm sure they don't tell Capitol Limited superliner passengers to stay on the first floor at DC.

In "recent" times, privately owned MOONLIGHT DOME (x-C&O) operated from Chicago to Philadelphia on Amtrak's Three Rivers, which included Harrisburg to Philadelphia under energized catenary. After a couple of days at Philadelphia, the car operated from Philadelphia to Charlotte on Amtrak's Carolinian, which included Philadelphia to Washington under energized catenary. The dome was occupied while under the wire; no restrictions on occupancy were included in the movement orders. The profile of the 6 Budd built former C&O Chessie domes is several inches lower than the standard Budd built dome.

AAPRCO's 2002 convention special train operated on Amtrak's northeast corridor from the north end of the NS freight yard on the north side of Baltimore to Perryville, under energized catenary. The consist included 3 occupied dome cars (SIERRA HOTEL, VISTA DOME, NORTHERN SKY).

Amtrak places no restrictions on the occupancy of privately owned dome cars under energized catenary at Washington Union Station.