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electricron wrote:They are only refurbishing four (4) dining cars? Wiki suggests their roster includes 13 dining cars, what do they plan to do with the remaining nine (9) dining cars?Operate them until next slack season maybe?
electricron wrote: ↑Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:05 am They are only refurbishing four (4) dining cars? Wiki suggests their roster includes 13 dining cars, what do they plan to do with the remaining nine (9) dining cars?~6 are already refurbished and are in operation on The Canadian. The "plan" appears to be to convert The Ocean to Budd equipment as the Renaissance equipment is fully withdrawn in the next few years. VIA has a responsibility to provide a safe workplace for those working in the dining cars, safe food handling, etc., and the older diners are increasingly problematic not to mention asthetically ugly on the inside.
gaspeamtrak wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2019 3:17 pm Just wondering if anybody has heard how the refurbishment of these 4 diners is going???The Canadian's diners were refurbished 5-7 years ago or so, and are in excellent shape. Aside from tweaks such as LED lighting, I doubt there will be much of anything noticeable customer wise with this additional batch of refurb'ed diners. The refurbishments had to happen as VIA will apparently be moving to Budd stainless equipment on the Halifax-Montreal "Ocean" train and it would be unfair to customers and staff to use old equipment.
I'm taking a trip on the "Canadian" in February 2020...
marquisofmississauga wrote: ↑Sun Oct 27, 2019 3:38 pm There isn't much information on VIA's site. This is the description of the refurbishment: "Kitchen reconfiguration and modernization of the dining area."Didn't they have to cobble together another set or something to do the Vancouver-Edmonton-Vancouver service? I know the Prestige Park wasn't in service on the Vancouver-Edmonton-Vancouver runs (nor was the Panorama dome car). So they probably "stole" a Park car from the Churchill train to cover that requirement. And thus to preserve a dome, they'd need to stick a Skyline onto the Churchill train.
The four being refurbished have left VIA short of dining cars. The two from the Churchill trains have been used on the Canadian this summer season. As has been posted on several sites there have been Skyline cars used as diners on the Churchill run.
There was a computer-generated image of what the kitchen and dining area of the refurbished diners would look like but I don't recall where I saw it and can't find it now. It looked like bench seating would replace the moveable chairs.That would be nice. That moveable chairs and tables area is always underutilized. And occasionally Economy fills up so badly that the Skyline is the overflow, and I think people would prefer sitting on the benches than trying to make do with the tables and chairs.