gokeefe wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2019 9:36 pm
In another conversation I came to the realization that Amtrak is easily one of the largest sleeper car operators in the World and certainly in the "West".
How many rooms (roomettes, bedrooms, & family bedrooms) does Amtrak have on the rails on an average night? I've never tried to calculate this but as I started to do the math in my head the number got into the hundreds in a hurry.
I think it would be interesting to discuss Amtrak's sleeping car operations in aggregate and specifically to understand total system capacity. It would be interesting to see what some of the comparisons might be to a stationary hotel system.
The first step is to identify how many sleeper cars Amtrak has in its fleet.
Per
http://on-track-on-line.com/amtrak-roster.shtml
49 Viewliner I with 15 rooms and roomettes, total capacity 30; 30 x 49 = 1470
1 of 25 Viewliner II with 14 rooms and roomettes, total capacity 28; 28 x 1 = 28 and 28 x 25 = 700
59 Superliner I with 21 rooms and roomettes, total capacity 44; 44 x 59 = 2596
47 Superliner II with 21 rooms and roomettes, total capacity 44; 44 x 47 = 2068
6 Superliner II Deluxe with 16 rooms and roomettes, total capacity 34; 34 x 6 = 204
42 Superliner II Dorms with 18 roomettes, total capacity 35*; 16 x 42 = 672
* Note: Where used for passenger service, less than half of the roomettes are use.
My math suggests 7038 bunks are available, plus another 672 could be added using Transistion-Dorm Superliner cars.
1470 + 700 + 2596 + 2068 + 204 = 7038 ; 0.9 x 7038 = 6334
Assuming an average 90% availability for all the sleeper cars, 6,334 bunks could be available every night.
How many sleepers in use on any specific night can vary throughout the year. That's why I kept my numbers nationally, and assumed a 90% of them could be in service.
Additionally, most trains with sleepers start their journey in the afternoon and evening, and finish their journey in the morning or early afternoon. There's usually plenty of time to turn them that same day - possibly on a different route but still on the same day. So most of the sleepers are in service every night, except for those pulled for maintenance.
10% of them in maintenance at any given time seems logical to me, I can't visualize 16 sleeper cars being worked on in the shops. Some more math totaling sleeper cars seems to be calculated now.
49 + 1 +59 + 47 + 6 = 162. 10% of that would be 16.