Silver Sleepers Sold out

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Seaboard92

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The entire months of July and august are sold out. I'm guessing it's a computer glitch. Does anyone know anyway to get reservations to investigate this.
 
The problem seems to go beyond August and well into October. I'd call the 800 Amtrak number and ask them. It's only a 91 problem. You can get a room on 97 to Orlando and then the Thruway bus over to Tampa, though.
 
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According to Amsnag.net........Trains 91 & 92 are being shown as sold out from August 1, up until the end of January 2016. When I went ot Amtrak.com for Feb.....I searched for Feb 1, Feb 8,& Feb 21.......also all sold out.
 
Maybe Amtrak is considering eliminating the sleepers on those trains effective August 1, and so has blocked all reservations for sleeper space thereafter?
 
chakk's theory seems very unlikely, but don't the new Viewliner sleepers have a different room configuration? If so, Amtrak may be hoping to have them in service by then, in which case the number of rooms available for sale might be different.
 
chakk's theory seems very unlikely, but don't the new Viewliner sleepers have a different room configuration? If so, Amtrak may be hoping to have them in service by then, in which case the number of rooms available for sale might be different.
The new sleepers almost certainly won't be available by then and even if they were, there's only one fewer roomettes, so it would be trivial to just sell one fewer room per car.
 
If the new Viewliner II Sleepers are being planned by Amtrak to be in revenue service starting in July, I think we should be seeing them starting to come out of the factory by now, no?
 
Could it be that they are thinking the dormitory cars might be ready at that time?
 
If the new Viewliner II Sleepers are being planned by Amtrak to be in revenue service starting in July, I think we should be seeing them starting to come out of the factory by now, no?
Correct. Think very late 2015 or 2016 for new Sleepers. They will not be available in July. This I have heard from very authoritative source within Amtrak.
 
Could it be that some "new" travel agency has gone online, gotten carried away, and booked all the sleepers?

IMHO, Amtrak policy of unconditional refunds, makes doing such a no-loose proposition for any agency. There has to be a way to friendly to regular travelers, but not to agencies that abuse the refund system.
 
This thread seems to be a mixture of true insider info, supposed insider info, speculation and rumor and out and out guessing!

Based on the posts by those I know and trust, it seems to be a lock that it will be 2016 @ the earliest before the Sleepers enter service.

Its great to see the new bag cars entering service! We out here in the West look forward to seeing our first new Bag car on the Superliner trains!

My question now is which comes next, the New Diners or the Bag/ Dorm cars?? Based on posts here and other sites, my guess is the bag/dorm cars will be next, which will allow testing of the new sleeper layout, and also free up revenue space in the Viewliner Is which is badly needed!

So those of you that haven't gotten to eat in a Heritage Diner will still have time to do so!

In the meantime Indianapolis continues to rotate among routes which gives the food service staff experience and training in the new Diner! Luck of the draw for passengers who have not gotten to eat in it. YMMV??!!
 
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I can understand that sleeper space on the Silvers and on the Autotrain could be sold out as the snowbirds make their way back to Florida but sold out from August until January? September can be a slow month for Florida travel. The mad rush South starts in Nov. and the snowbird traffic is heavy going North in April, May and June

My best guess is that Amtrak is holding the sleepers for sale at a later date for some strange reason. In any event this appears to be highly irregular. Only someone working on the inside would know
 
Just got off 98 this afternoon. HOL to NYP. I asked the conductor about no sleeper accomodations available for all those months. He said maybe the rumor he has been hearing is true, that trains 91 & 92 will no longer offer sleeping accomodations. I hope this is not ture.

BTW.......veggie burgers were no longer available. Something about a new supplier and that they contain peanuts. Chicken in the lunch salad was very moist and tasty.

The dining car was blue.......was this one of the Heritage diners? We usualy get the green ones.
 
This is my theory, however far-flung it may be:

Amtrak is constantly dinged by Congress about losing money on long distance routes and that the sleepers/diners should be replaced with coaches and lounges/vending machines to save money. Obviously we all disagree with this argument. But Amtrak needs hard numbers to show that having these amenities produces better financial results for the train.

So, Amtrak may want to try an experiment where these amenities are removed to see how it affects the train’s finances. Obviously Amtrak doesn’t have 2 identical trains on the same long distance route and they don’t want to destroy a large customer base from a route by removing sleepers/diners, but Amtrak does have 2 LD trains with similar schedules which serve similar cities (Silver Star, Silver Meteor of course). Some customers could ride the train offering beautiful, brand-new sleepers.

A somewhat controlled experiment would be to remove the sleepers/diners from one train (which seems to be supported by ARROW’s reservation choices) and see how it changes that train’s bottom line. (I would really hope that the LD train with the sleepers and full dining car has better financial performance than the stripped train!)

It’s all conjecture on my part but it does seem a tiny bit plausible. If Amtrak does in fact do this, perhaps customers and train advocates will write to Congress and demand Amtrak put the sleepers/diners back on.

In any case, I’m taking the Star with a roomette soon just in case this comes to pass as I haven’t ridden that route yet! I hope it doesn’t happen, but the lack of reservations in ARROW is troubling to me.

Something doesn’t add up with no sleepers available on the Star all the way through February, 2016.
 
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