Empire Builder - no sleepers?

Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.

George K

Conductor
Joined
Sep 7, 2014
Messages
1,192
Location
The Chicago Burbs
On the "America's Amtrak" Facebook group, a member posted her experience on #7 this week. Apparently, sleeper pax were told that there would be no sleeper cars and probably no diner on departing CUS. Everyone had to go to coach, which is how they went to St. Paul. The entire consist was four coaches.

I don't know how far this person went, or whether there was an addition to the consist later in the run.

Anyone know anything about this?
 
I believe there was a "stub" train (Empire Builder 7) from Chicago on 7/16 as a result of the freight derailment. I was on 7 on July 17th, which had an extra sleeper because of the lack of sleepers the previous day.
 
On the "America's Amtrak" Facebook group, a member posted her experience on #7 this week. Apparently, sleeper pax were told that there would be no sleeper cars and probably no diner on departing CUS. Everyone had to go to coach, which is how they went to St. Paul. The entire consist was four coaches.

I don't know how far this person went, or whether there was an addition to the consist later in the run.

Anyone know anything about this?
This was a coach-only stub train operated on July 16 just between Chicago and Saint Paul. Amtrak canceled the Empire Builder west of Saint Paul that day due to a derailment on BNSF near Culbertson MT. They substituted this coach-only train to fulfill the CHI-MSP demand. The next day's westbound Builder (July 17) had an third Seattle sleeper added to help cover the extra sleeper demand from the July 16 cancelation.

I was on the westbound #7 of July 17 from Chicago to Saint Paul. It was, shall we say, an interesting trip. While adding the extra sleeper was a great thought, Amtrak somehow failed get an extra Seattle sleeping car attendant assigned to work the train. To add insult to injury, they had one of the two regular Seattle section attendants not show for some reason. As the train was about to leave, they had one attendant to serve three fully-booked Superliner sleepers.

At the very last moment (before a 35 minute late departure), a second attendant was scraped up to help out this poor, bedraggled fellow. As I understand it, this last minute attendant could only work the train as far as Saint Paul. I heard that a replacement attendant for her was to be flown(!) into Fargo ND to meet the train and work the rest of the way west.

The train actually made it through the derailment area, but fell so far behind schedule that it was terminated at Spokane. Buses worked the rest of the way west to Seattle and Portland. I got off in Saint Paul and missed all that fun.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
St. Paul - Chicago needs its own train. :p In addition to everything else, this would simplify matters whenever there was trouble west of St. Paul.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top