Federal, Night Owl, Twilight Shoreliner (Trains 65, 66, 67)

What happened to the silver palm and the 3 rivers sleepers ?

Murjax wrote:

m11stephen wrote:

Murjax wrote:Well first of all, it is impossible to have 10 Viewliners out of service if there are 50 all together because 44 are used on any given day. Now the question is, are these remaining 6 available to use, and if so, is there a reason why we cannot put 3 Viewliners on each train?

I'm pretty sure that only three viewliners are out of service and these are the three prototype Viewliners that are in storage.

Ok, that means 3 are available. So are there any other issues that would prevent a Viewliner sleeper from being added to these trains?

The three prototypes are not part of the 50 production ones. All 50 production Viewliners are in service. So there are indeed 6 not assigned for regular duty. Usually that is enough cover for a few in inspection/maintenance and a few on standby duty in case something goes wrong with one of those that are assigned to a train.

David Benton wrote:What happened to the silver palm and the 3 rivers sleepers ?

The Three Rivers used Heritage sleepers, and they weren't plumbed for retention toilets. Non-holding toilets were outlawed in the late 1990s, and Amtrak used it as a convenient excuse to truncate the route in Pittsburgh, since they wouldn't be getting state support from Ohio and Indiana.

Not sure about the Silver Palm - either it also used Heritage equipment, or its Viewliner equipment moved to the Cardinal when the Silver Palm again became the Palmetto and truncated in Savannah, Georgia. Perhaps both, at different times.

In very simple terms, the Viewliners formerly assigned to the Three Rivers went to The Cardinal; those on the Silver Palm became a third line on the Meteor or Star. Those assigned to the Federal went "to the shops".

I concur with Mr. JP's compilation of 39 Viewliners needed to fill existing assignments. There are likely six assigned as protects 2 SSY, 1ea HIA, NOL, CHI (anyone know Lumber Street's station code?). The remaining five are either at HIA for periodics or BEE for "heavys". HIA can live with one protect likely because if they had two B/O's simultaneously, they could either "shovel on the coal", i.e. authorize some OT, or "cut corners' on a car presently shopped for periodics (FRA could care less whether a car is periodically e-cleaned, but then maybe some health department does; passengers? "sorry 'bout that').

In short, I am inclined to hold that Amtrak is utilizing the fleet in the best possible manner and that no additional assignments such as a BOS-67-WAS-91-MIA and vv line can be "squeezed" from the existing fleet.

Finally, lest we note, when compared with the Superliner fleet, Amtrak has been quite "lucky' with the Viewliners in so far as their trucks on surfaces other than steel rail.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:

m11stephen wrote:This is probably not possible but Amtrak is sure creative with the Amfleet cars so would it be possible to make a few Amfleet cars into Amsleepers?

Actually, Mr. Stephen, that is a "been there done that". There was a fleet of "Amsnoozes" which had two Roomettes in addition to 60 Coach seats. They were assigned to the Wash-Parkersburg "B.lue Ridge".

But I will defer to Ms. Bly, as previously here she has reported that she actually rode one.

I thought one, if not the main, reason the Viewliners were designed was that "Amsnoozes" and other "Amsleeper" experiments failed.

Private car owners on this Group have reported that the overnight NorthEast Corridor train is already hobbled with a Heritage Baggage Car and a 110 mph speed linit,.

Jishnu wrote: The three prototypes are not part of the 50 production ones. All 50 production Viewliners are in service. So there are indeed 6 not assigned for regular duty. Usually that is enough cover for a few in inspection/maintenance and a few on standby duty in case something goes wrong with one of those that are assigned to a train.

Some may disagree, but wouldn't it be better to use the "reserves" in regular service rather than hold them for an event that is not likely to happen? The advantages seem to outweigh the disadvantages. In the event that a Viewliner(s) has to go to the shops for a repair, all you do is temporarily cancel sleeper service on some trains. Having them stuck in reserves doesn't seem logical unless these cars are often being sent to the shops.

To re-instate NEC sleeper car service, you would only need 2 Viewliners, not 4. This would provide at least one Viewliner for #66/67. What I was referring to as "day-rooms" would simply be the same train sets operating in daylight hours. For example:

- Southbound Federal arrives into Washington DC by 8:00 a.m.
- At 10:30 a.m. it is sent north again to Boston, arriving at 6:30 p.m. for a 10 p.m. southbound departure once again.

As for the saga of the Viewliners between the Cardinal, Silver Palm and Three Rivers, after the Hertiage sleepers were retired on the Three Rivers, all single level sleeping car service was in the Viewliner form. I am sure the fleet may have been stretched thin, but it also benefitted from some same day turns of equipment, which is currently lacking in the Amtrak system.

- The Silver Palm's train set was sent to cover the Cardinal's route so the Superliners on the Cardinal could be freed up due to a shortage of Superliner cars due to various Superliner wrecks. Soon after, the Silver Palm was truncated to become the Palmetto. The Silver Palm typically only ran with one Viewliner to my knowledge. But it did run with Heritage diners, and for a time the Cardinal did operate with the Silver Palm's Heritage Diners. The Heritage diners, and the Heritage crew cars were retired early from the Cardinal's route though.

- When the Three Rivers' train set was given the axe (3 train sets with 3 Viewliners each) the three Viewliners and some of the Three Rivers' cars were sent to cover another train set that was required when the Silver Meteor had its southbound departure time changed from 7 p.m. to 3:15 p.m., thereby eliminating the same day turn of equipment it once had at Sunnyside. The Silver Meteor needed the Viewiners from the Three Rivers due to the schedule change of the Meteor. So the three Viewliners used for the Three Rivers were immediately marshalled to order.

Then we had a bad winter and the Viewliners were freezing up like crazy. That's when the Federal gave up its Viewliners to cover Viewliner assignments on longer runs. The Cardinal also ran with no Viewliners for a period of time during the Viewliner freeze-up (or meltdown, whatever one wants to call it). That's when Gunn sort of ordered some heavy maintenance to be done on the Viewliner fleet - much of which had been neglected since the early Warrington years.

But when all calmed back down and Amtrak gained back even two wrecked Viewliners (from the Hinesville accident), as Mr. Norman mentioned, it was still ahead of the game with its Viewliners than from the winter fiasco. The only problem was the Federal never got its Viewliners back when the Viewliners were put back in order.

Also the Lake Shore Limited's Boston section became a seperate train, and the New York section gained a third Viewliner for much of the year - as conciliation for elimination of the the Three Rivers.

I some how doubt there are any protect Viewliners in New Orleans, let alone more than 1 at Sunnyside Yard. Where the Viewliners hide, I don't know, but in the absence of the Heritage Crew Dorms, it would seem that more Viewliners need to be on the road even with existing train sets.

I could understand a protect Viewliner in NYC, Chicago, and Miami, as well as 3 Viewliners at a time in for regular overhauls. But that still leaves 5 Viewliners not generating any revenus in the system.

Let's not forget that Amtrak was fetching accommodation prices on the Federal nearly as equal to that on the Lake Shore Limited at one time.

I still think a big gain could be made by turning 1 viewlliner in each florida and crescent train at Washington . ( or use it to provide the federal service ) . Especially now the crew are using rooms , they dont need them between Washington and new york surely . Possibly Boston -south of Washington through service could then be offered too .

Boston and northern New England certainly get shortchanged; it's the largest city/area that Amtrak serves without sleeper service. You have to either take the stub train to meet the Lake Shore Limited in Albany (which takes 5 hours to crawl 170 miles), or go down to New York. It'd be similar to eliminating Miami and West Palm Beach from the Silver trains and making people connect to them in Orlando.

Minneapolis/St. Paul, Memphis, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Atlanta, Denver, Omaha, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, El Paso, Cincinnati, and Houston say, "We'll trade you our sleeper service for your 32 daily trains to New York. You can even keep the train to Albany."

Not having sleeper service to Boston is a bit annoying, but the rest of the country only wishes we had it so good.

Again, the solution is more equipment. Start writing the appropriate members of the 535 and getting money appropriated.

money,money,money it controls EVREYTHING related to Amtrak, that is a problem with us railfans, we have visions of a NE sleeper service, a Albany high speed corridor and a third silver train. The fact of the matter is that Amtrak won't have NEC sleeper service until they recive funding for 5 more cars. THEN they will consider putting it in place.

*Thinking outside the box* maybe they could run 66/67 on the inland route? It would be able to keep a better "overnight" schedule.

Greg Moore wrote:Again, the solution is more equipment. Start writing the appropriate members of the 535 and getting money appropriated.

even if they did get money, equipment for more frequent service to the cities named above should take priority, IMO.

Funding for 5 more cars? Even with 3 in reserve at various yards (i.e. Chicago, NYP, Miami) and 3 in the shop, there's still 5 cars not being used in the system, and all it takes for NEC sleeper service is TWO Viewliners. That still leaves another 3 cars available for spares. Every once in a while Amtrak takes a Viewliner from the Cardinal when it is not operating to get a train set out.