Sleeper Alternative: First-Class Airline-Style Fold Flat Sections

STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Sun Feb 12, 2023 3:11 pm I'm a mixed bag here. I agree with you, West Point, that the Superliners have to be replaced with a 1-to-1 setup. The load on all the overnight long-distance services isn't enough to justify expanding service with such specialized equipment.

But certain areas do have the load and possible demand. The Regional's "Night Owl" from Washington to Boston is 9-10 hours overnight. Any day-trip service that takes 8+ hours and has times of pure sell-out could use a night-time service. The Pennsylvanian has enough of a load and demand to justify a second run later in the day, and I bet there could be special service for overnight carriage (which we mused about in that train's dedicated thread). So it's worth at least exploring concepts.

As I suggested before, the Night Owl, which actually runs from Newport News to Boston and not D.C., is the only existing train that could use a lay flat first class car in lieu of a first class sleeper car. Why build just 3 cars of a specific type? Better to just use an already existing Viewliner sleeper as the first class car, and avoid confusing everyone with the 3 abreast business class car using normal reclining seats with first class lay flat seats altogether. There are up to75 Viewliner sleepers in Amtrak's equipment roster.
For those that argue lay flat seats provide more privacy and more room than a reclining seat, what gives you that idea? Lay flat seats are only better than reclining seats only if you plan to sleep in them. Who sleeps well on trains at 8 am or 8 pm with daylinght shinning through the windows?

I agree. I've traveled in lie-flat bus seats in Chile, and they are not quite as comfortable as even a Viewliner bed. If they are in a 2-and-1 configuration the person at the window on the 2 side has a devil of a time getting up to use the restroom or whatever; if you stagger the 2 side to give each person privacy behind their own little wall, you lose some capacity; if you do 1-and-1 you've got no more capacity than with single-occupancy roomettes.

The basic sleeper configuration (two facing seats that make a bed and a folding bed above) fits the shape of a railroad car better than anything else, and it works with rectangular mattresses on pretty simple, robust seats-bunks. (Well, Viewliner 1 has those crazy lower berths, but that was just a dumb decision; better to leave the bathrooms at the end of the car.) Why complicate things?

8-12 hour overnight trains can use regular sleeping cars, but don't have to come with meals, so no diner costs. If the trip is short enough that pax would basically be in bed until they get dressed and detrain, maybe the beds could be down all the time and the linens changed at the terminals, eliminating the need for attendants and possibly saving money. (People who wanted to sit up could easily roll up the mattress and put the seats back up themselves: the Superliners, at least, have instructions on how to do that on plates on the walls, IIRC.

STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Sun Feb 12, 2023 3:50 pm
Ahh, travel when you had enough room to stand a 6' 8" long bed on it's smallest side. Now... not so much, but splitting the mattress into two 3' 4" mattresses makes some sense... and allows for two people to sit. May have to make the seating move up/down in line with the bed being up/down, but that's more of a mechanical feature.

There’s another accommodation formerly used in the United States:


And unlike the rolling coffin of the Superliner upper, the berth was not only full width, IT HAD WINDOWS

Amtraks design engineers need to meet Almstom at the IRM Library in Union IL, and look at IRMs custodial archive (on behalf of Almstom) of railroad passenger accommodations. They might learn something.

John_Perkowski wrote: ↑Tue Feb 14, 2023 2:58 pm And unlike the rolling coffin of the Superliner upper, the berth was not only full width, IT HAD WINDOWS

Colonel SIR, The only Pullman design I can recall with Upper Berth windows was the 4-6-6 "American--". Possibly "Imperial--" had such for the Drawing Room Uppers, but I can't recall ever noting such.

The above only applied the the pre-war varietals; the postwar I can report first hand simply did not. Postwar "American--", "National--", --Pine", "--Beach", et. al. likewise, did not.

I wish we had more roomettes available on more routes. I'd love to see CAF churning out Viewliner II sleepers, but alas, even the ones Amtrak has are being underutilized.

However, when I went to the movies recently I was thinking about how the recliner in the theater would be nice on a train for a long day trip route like, say, New York to Montreal!

The most comfortable seat I've ever had on a train: the swivel chair on the Coast Starlight Pacific Parlour car!

GBN,

Add to the list
Many of UPs articulated Pullmans
ATSFs 8 section, X DBR, X Compartment cars starting with FORWARD
ALL the 4069 series cars…the 4-4-2s

Let’s not forget several postwar classes.

I'm actually playing with a model of this right now in Solidworks out of idle curiosity; it's based on the Delta One long-haul business class suite. Looking at layout, this would need to be 1+1 to fit in a car, and pitch is still TBD while I tweak a bunch of things. I'm shooting for 76-77" of space when lying flat so that everyone fits, and then the actual seat pitch depends on how deep into the next seat your footrest space winds up going. That said, I'm estimating probably 45-50" pitch, which means total capacity in a train car would probably be around 30-35 seats (at 48" pitch and 64' of usable car space you'd have 32 total lie flat seats).

I have a couple images here to demonstrate the concept (that I'm planning to drop into an AAR B compliant car shell to see how things shake out):

For what it be worth, I think the "pitch" on the Business Class pods in the latest deliveries of B-787-10's to United, has "shrunk". The reason I note this is because on earlier pods, such as those on 777-300's and 787-8's, I could slide my suitcase into the seat so I could get stuff out that I wanted during the flight before placing it in the overhead.

Further, I learned (an Attendant) that those pods cost over $100K EACH, and are maintenance "challenged".

Honestly, does anyone think that Amtrak would incur that kind of cost simply to divert revenue from their Sky High Sleeping Car rates just to dilute them with some "econosnooze" product? I think not.

Lest we forget, despite what some Long Distance advocates hold, those inhabiting One Mass, aren't stupid.

Does anyone here know a rough breakdown of the costs of Amtrak sleeping-car service: How much for owning and maintaining the car, how much for owning and maintaining the bedding, how much for the attendant, how much for the fraction of an assistant conductor per car, how much for hauling the car around, how much for meals? Mr. Norman refers to the fares as sky-high, and they do seem high compared to similar accomodations (but without meals and sometimes without any special attendant) in Norway, in Chile, and on Baltic ferries (obv not an exact match because ships are huge), but what makes them high? Obviously renting something like 1/27 of a Superliner or 1/15 of a Viewliner is going to cost more than renting 1/80th or whatever of a car of the same size, but just how much of the cost is the space and furniture and how much is the "first-class service"?

Arborwayfan wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 7:56 am Does anyone here know a rough breakdown of the costs of Amtrak sleeping-car service: How much for owning and maintaining the car, how much for owning and maintaining the bedding, how much for the attendant, how much for the fraction of an assistant conductor per car, how much for hauling the car around, how much for meals? Mr. Norman refers to the fares as sky-high, and they do seem high compared to similar accomodations (but without meals and sometimes without any special attendant) in Norway, in Chile, and on Baltic ferries (obv not an exact match because ships are huge), but what makes them high? Obviously renting something like 1/27 of a Superliner or 1/15 of a Viewliner is going to cost more than renting 1/80th or whatever of a car of the same size, but just how much of the cost is the space and furniture and how much is the "first-class service"?

I do not think anyone knows for sure, even at Amtrak.
Never-the-less, the only reasons people keep suggesting Amtrak provide lay flat seats as an option is that they want a "cheaper" alternative to sleeper roomettes and rooms. But airlines charge their highest fares for these seating accommodations, would those wishing for cheaper accommodations pay full fare price of a sleeper? Because Amtrak will want to charge as much as the airlines. Ir would be just as expensive as a sleeping accommodation, because that is what they would be providing.
Given a choice, I would want the sleeper.
.

Having had enough flights in that Business Class pod configuration, given the 80'x9' available space of a railcar, and provision for three potties and a shower. I would think 28 such modules, recognizing that your feet stick some two feet into the "guy ahead's" space, and the "guy behind's" stick two feet into your's, are as good as you will get.

Another point to consider is that only half the pods have window seats. So if Sight/Flight seeing is important, as it is to me, fifty percent of the time, you're outta luk (go to seatguru, start with United as that is the airline I'm familiar with and start evaluating there).

If Amtrak were to have had some of their V-II order configured all-Roomette, they'd likely have 18 of such, or max 36 passengers.

So who wins considering we are talking "econosnooze" accommodations, nevermind all the electro wizard needed in the pod?

The double occupancy Roomette is as good as you will get.

electricron wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 9:00 am Never-the-less, the only reasons people keep suggesting Amtrak provide lay flat seats as an option is that they want a "cheaper" alternative to sleeper roomettes and rooms.

I've never argued this being about the cost or "cheaper" alternatives. I've argued for lie-flat seating to improve utilization.

This type of car can be in standard business class service in daytime, and is suitable for overnight runs as well.

The current sleeper cars are only needed in certain markets, and really not practical for daytime use given the amount of cleaning that's needed.

Electricron, I would also prefer a sleeper. I'll go further: I'd prefer the upper of an open section to a pod, esp if it had windows.
Eolsen, I see your point about utilization. I hadn't understood that before. It's kind of ironic, because IIRC what George Pullman and others did was make a car that had decent seats and decent beds, so it could be used day and night. Do many sleepers sit idle all day, though? Most of them seem to be on trains that run a lot during the day, not just at night.

One word; Slumbercoach.