New Superliners

[mtuandrew]

My sincere apologies, Mr. Olesen - that shows my own political bias and the people who I’ve personally seen doing advocacy. It obviously doesn’t show the full extent of the advocacy community. I’ll let that part of my comment stand as an object lesson but gray it out from respect.

Again, I’m sorry to have ignored your and your fellow conservatives’ roles in this work.

[bostontrainguy]

I just refreshed my memory of the various floorplans by checking the Amtrak website. I don't think we can easily dismiss the numbers here:

Viewliner - 3 bedrooms (6 pax) + 12 roomettes (24 pax) = 30 pax (plus 2 public toilets)
Superliner - 7 bedrooms (14 pax) + 14 roomettes (28 pax) = 42 pax (plus 4 public toilets)

[electricron]

The Family Bedroom on Superliners can officially sleep 4 passengers, so the maximum passengers for them should be 44, unless you suggest kids are not passengers.

[bostontrainguy]

Not paying ones
You could actually say that the bedrooms can hold three if you want to really max out the space.

[eolesen]

I don’t think you can reasonably argue for full capacity as the benchmark... what percentage of bedrooms and roomettes go out at single occupancy?

[electricron]

Few businessmen take a long distance train using a sleeper. Most overnight sleeper passengers are couples, or families booking more than one room/roomette. Therefore, I do not think Amtrak have that many single occupancy in sleepers. The cost for the sleeper room or roomette is hard for most passengers to justify financially with single occupancy. That is the reason why so many are expressing they want a single occupancy solution, whether it is a lay-flat seat or a smaller, tiny roomette, they do not want to pay the fee for a double occupancy roomette.. On every trip I have taken, a few roomettes were single occupancy, but most were double occupancy.

I have no idea where to find room/roomette occupancy data from Amtrak, so I am expressing my opinion.

[mtuandrew]

Superliners could be uniquely suited for point-to-point overnight business travel in my opinion; they have a capacity that at least approaches a single-level coach. As such Amtrak would do well to try out single berths.* I have a suspicion, not backed up by current fact but somewhat supported by historical data, that WAS-CHI would have a higher occupancy rate and substantially higher farebox recovery if half of its double roomette capacity were instead singles (that is, seven double roomettes and fourteen singles per car.)

That does depend on better timekeeping and scheduling of course, no one can financially plan on waiting a second night before scheduling a meeting that could happen around noon on the day after departure.


*berth generally, not specifically an open section

[dgvrengineer]

A possible solution would be slumbercoach type rooms on one level and roomettes on the other level. I rode in slumbercoach rooms several times and though they were small, they were still better than coach.

[bostontrainguy]

I have also rode in a slumbercoach double room once. You are forgetting that they are staggered in height so your concept is not possible.

[mtuandrew]

Ok, best I can figure for a Gallery sleeper is 8 double roomettes; 8 private reclining seats upstairs; 3, maybe 4 bedrooms; 1 accessible/family bedroom; and 2 full-height bathrooms. And the roomettes would be rather uncomfortably short. That’s not great, better in some senses than the Viewliner but nowhere near a Superliner. I’ll put a pin in that concept and work on something else.

[daybeers]

My sincere apologies, Mr. Olesen - that shows my own political bias and the people who I’ve personally seen doing advocacy. It obviously doesn’t show the full extent of the advocacy community. I’ll let that part of my comment stand as an object lesson but gray it out from respect.

Again, I’m sorry to have ignored your and your fellow conservatives’ roles in this work.

Lots of respect for leaving the content there but drawing attention to it. Good on you!

[John_Perkowski]

For rail overnight to compete with air, it must ...

- Beat the price of an 11th hour full fare seat on Southwest or Spirit.

- Have 100Mbps WiFi end to end.

- Have a comfortable bed. Some of you need to try a Pullman berth from the day.

- Provide a better meal than I can get at LGA, BWI, MDW, LAX, or (insert major airport here).

- Have a pickup agreement with Uber or Lyft that takes you from the station to your destination.

AND

Absolutely, positively, arrive on time.

[John_Perkowski]

Lest we forget, here are some great trains between active business city pairs that died before Amtrak

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY LIMITED

The Broadway Limited

The Lark

[bostontrainguy]

I thought I'd like to try and see what would happen if Amtrak went with an Ultradome type car for it's next Superliner.

Looking at the Superliner floorplans I am guessing the following:

Top Floor:
5 Bedrooms (10 pax) + 8 Roomettes (16 pax) + 1 shower module + 1 double toilet module.
I eliminated the middle car toilet to open up that space and make the car airy and more spacious.

Bottom Floor:
4 Bedrooms (8 pax) + 8 Roomettes (16 pax) + 1 shower module + 1 double toilet module.
I eliminated one bedroom to allow Bedroom "D" to be expanded for the ADA room (in room toilet like the Viewliner II) and to allow for the doors and entranceway.

Pass through would be on both levels. All mechanicals are under the bottom floor and built-in lifts are provided.

So this type car could carry up to 50 passengers. Now that would be impressive!

Optional configuration would be to block off the upper ends and put luxury car-wide penthouse suites or larger family rooms up there.

[STrRedWolf]

For rail overnight to compete with air, it must ...

- Beat the price of an 11th hour full fare seat on Southwest or Spirit.

- Have 100Mbps WiFi end to end.

- Have a comfortable bed. Some of you need to try a Pullman berth from the day.

- Provide a better meal than I can get at LGA, BWI, MDW, LAX, or (insert major airport here).

- Have a pickup agreement with Uber or Lyft that takes you from the station to your destination.

AND

Absolutely, positively, arrive on time.

Forget 100Mbps Wifi ANYWHERE. Latest Wifi spec gets half that in good (no-interference) conditions. On an airline? Satellite or cellular, and that's going to be maybe 10-25 Mbps. Toss that out the window (oh wait, you can't. They're SEALED).

Let's compare what we got currently. Lets say I get the call Sunday morning saying "We need you in Chicago by Monday." I'm basically in Baltimore, and can hop on an Amtrak or plane at BWI.

Southwest from Baltimore to Chicago, 11th hour. BWI's a Southwest hub. One way, non-stop, $388 to Midway, take the Chicago L into the city, 2 hour flight, 2 hour recommended arrival at BWI, 15 minutes to get luggage and maybe a half hour to get to the heart of Chicago.

Amtrak...

• BWI-NYP via the Regional, NYP-CHI via Lake Shore Limited, $400, no sleeper. Okay, that's out.
• BWI-WAS via the MARC ($7) then WAS-CHI via the Capitol Limited, $462, with sleeper.
• BWI-WAS via the MARC ($7) then WAS-CHI via the Cardinal... sorry, sold out.

So we're close... now only if we can get food back on these trains.