Viewliner II Delivery/Production

[SouthernRailway]

Hopefully no matter where the Viewliner IIs run, they won't be as shaky as the existing ones. Having the upper bed rattle, rattle and rattle and shake, shake and shake, and the door rattle, rattle and rattle, and shake, shake and shake, both on the Northeast Corridor and even south of Washington, cuts into the enjoyment of a nice train ride.

[David Benton]

For a trip such as NY-Montreal, one reason to take the train is that you can leave later than a flight would or you'd arrive earlier than a flight would.

So leaving NYC at 1am and arriving Montreal at 5am would be ideal, even if you can sleep longer than that period.

How do you do a 12 hour trip in 4 hours?

[SouthernRailway]

For a trip such as NY-Montreal, one reason to take the train is that you can leave later than a flight would or you'd arrive earlier than a flight would.

So leaving NYC at 1am and arriving Montreal at 5am would be ideal, even if you can sleep longer than that period.

How do you do a 12 hour trip in 4 hours?

The Adirondack is painfully slow. Google Maps shows NY-Montréal in 5h43. So it could be sped up significantly even though 4 hours for that trip is unrealistic.

[Greg Moore]

Considering that it currently takes 2:30 from NYP-ALB and that's the FAST portion of the trip, yeah, 4 hours is unrealistic.
But again, it doesn't have to be super fast.
Leaving at 7:00 PM, arrive at 8:00 AM, that's definitely doable for an overnight train.

[SouthernRailway]

Is Amtrak working on ensuring that Viewliner II sleeping cars don't shake and rattle as much as the current ones- particularly doors and upper bunks?

[gokeefe]

We probably won't know until they're out on the lines. My guess: "Yes"

[Tadman]

I don't have a lot of faith on that issue. Amtrak is the "Shake rattle and roll" champion for years. I still remember my first solo sleeper trip in 2004, I could barely sleep. All this snazzy marketing and big talk and they can't get the Superliner doors and top bunks to quit rattling. It makes me feel like management never really rides the trains.

[SouthernRailway]

Well, having Slumbercoach rooms again with just one bed would solve the issue of upper bunks rattling.

[bostontrainguy]

The worst rattling I have experienced was the sliding door between the bedrooms on a Viewliner. The attendant was experienced and well prepared however and stuffed face cloths into the top channel to stop the annoying racket.

[Gilbert B Norman]

Oh when the Saints go marching in.

"Reliable sources elsewhere" report that 62509 and 10, St Johns and St Joseph River, are to be released by CAF "next week". Their routing will be the usual: Passenger Extra Elmira-ERIE-Binghm-D&H-ALB-SSY-HIA where they will join their six other fleetmates "sunbathing" indefinitely.

[Alphaboi]

So the plan for refurbishing the Viewliner Is is just to remove the hoppers and put 2 shared WCs in place of on roomette, right? What if they with a few (2-4) cars and just replace the roomettes (& possible the non-handicap bedrooms) as open sections? Stick them on route and use it as an experiment to see if a mid-tier option between economy coaches and sleeping compartments is worth pursuing. If the results are promising they use it as a starting point for a modern Slumbercoah (call it the Ampod) or or even just roll out sections system wide.

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[lordsigma12345]

Based on emails I received regarding my October Amtrak reservation, the VL2 dining cars may be returning to the Silver Service upon the July 6 schedule reduction to one daily train. The email states that the Meteor/Star will operate identical consists with some expanded capacity over what they've been doing. According to the email the standard consist will include 5 of the refurbished Amfleet II coaches, 3 Viewliner sleeping cars, 1 Amfleet cafe car, and 1 Viewliner II sleeper lounge serving the flexible dining. This would mean that the Star would have a Viewliner II diner/sleeper lounge for the first time.

[lordsigma12345]

So the plan for refurbishing the Viewliner Is is just to remove the hoppers and put 2 shared WCs in place of on roomette, right? What if they with a few (2-4) cars and just replace the roomettes (& possible the non-handicap bedrooms) as open sections? Stick them on route and use it as an experiment to see if a mid-tier option between economy coaches and sleeping compartments is worth pursuing. If the results are promising they use it as a starting point for a modern Slumbercoah (call it the Ampod) or or even just roll out sections system wide.

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The most recent five year Equipment Line plan hinted that they have abandoned a large scale modification of the Viewliner Is to make them consistent with the new cars and instead will do a "refresh" more along the lines of what was done with the Amfleet I and II cars. It went on to state that they will address the difference in configuration by not mixing Viewliner Is and IIs in the same consist. Instead they would deploy the VL1s and 2s to different routes. Obviously there's a new boss in town so who knows what actually will happen, but that's what the most recent plan indicated.

[ApproachMedium]

Considering theres no money to run trains and stuff is tight, i would say nothing will be happening with the original sleepers until things pick back up

[Gilbert B Norman]

While the reservation system could certainly support handling Sleepers with different configurations - just as it does today with Auto Train, the utilization of V-II's will be adversely affected when it will be necessary to assign a "protect" to each end point as well as provide for "shops" as the cars become older.

If the configuration were standardized to that of the V-II's, definitely less "protects" and likely less "shops" would be the case.

I'm sure that the necessary provision for "shops" as the V-I's became due for "heavys" was a factor in withdrawing the lines from 66-67 "Night Owl".