Pacific Parlour Car Status?

The flow of information about the status of the Coast Starlight's Pacific Parlour Cars seems to have stopped. Has anyone seen or been on a Starlight recently which included a PPC in the consist?

My Girlfriend and I rode the Southwest Chief out of LAUS on December 31 and saw one in a trainset (Spare ?) in the coach yard.

Anyone else have any information?

FP7 Driver said:

The flow of information about the status of the Coast Starlight's Pacific Parlour Cars seems to have stopped. Has anyone seen or been on a Starlight recently which included a PPC in the consist?
My Girlfriend and I rode the Southwest Chief out of LAUS on December 31 and saw one in a trainset (Spare ?) in the coach yard.

Anyone else have any information?

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the past 3 nights in a row all of the CS's have had Parlor Cars arriving in LA...

There are still 4 PPC's listed as active, last I had heard 3 were running with one in the shop in LA awaiting on parts. Mind you that info is over a month old, so it may have changed.

The 5th remaining PPC owned by Amtrak has been stricken from Amtrak's active roster and remains in Beech Grove unusable and awaiting a still hoped for overhaul.

AlanB said:

There are still 4 PPC's listed as active, last I had heard 3 were running with one in the shop in LA awaiting on parts. Mind you that info is over a month old, so it may have changed.
The 5th remaining PPC owned by Amtrak has been stricken from Amtrak's active roster and remains in Beech Grove unusable and awaiting a still hoped for overhaul.

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Thanks for the info.

does anyone have a picture of the ppc?

Yea Here's one of 39973 I took when it was going to Beech Grove while on Train 4 http://amtrakfan.rrpicturearchives.net/sho....aspx?id=267165 Hey I Took that 1 Year Ago Tommorow.

And, here is one sitting in Beech Grove.

And here is one that I was on.

another view

And if you wish to see the rest

we took the cs this past week. the first trainset we got on in portland didn't have a parlour car. we had to take the bus around a derailment however and the trainset we were on then did. it was wonderful. we spent all our time except for sleeping and eating there. it, for us, was like a museum on rails. they had a sumptious cheese, cracker and and juice snack set out when we boarded and put out a nice continental breakfast in the morning(before we went to breakfast in the diner!). our sleeper attendant, robin, took care of all that as the car is unstaffed. the wine tasting is also in the ppc but that occured on our first tainset so was in the diner for us.

i hope they restore one for each train as it would be a disappointment to travel sleeper on the cs and not have one. probably not cost efficent for amtrak to continue with this car but would rather see my tax dollars going toward it that to some of what they go to at present.

our train had one on the way home but we ,alas, were in coach.

It's still hard for me to believe that the Parlours are unstaffed these days!

Anthony said:

It's still hard for me to believe that the Parlours are unstaffed these days!

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i was surprised also at the amount of extra work our sleeping car attendant had to do(the attendant from the other sleeper didn't participate that i saw). i don't know who is responsible(other than passengers)for keeping it clean. it was immaculate.

Anyone have any updates?

Guest said:

Anyone have any updates?

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What cars they have in service still run, unstaffed.

we will be on the cs in bit over a week. i notice that amtrak has taken mention of the ppc's off their route description for the cs on the website. i had heard they were being refurbished for the "new" cs this spring. what is their current status? do must runs have a ppc? is a 1st class sightseer lounge still being substituted for runs without a ppc? thanks a lot,

I am planning on taking a trip in early March and hope they have the re-launched CS running by then.

I know the head of the Empire Builder and Coast Starlight pretty well (G. Erford) and when I talked to him last in October, he mentioned the launch would come sometime in March.

When I was on the CS in June 2007, they didn't have a PP car... not a "first class" lounge car... just the regular consists minus the PPC.

I am going from CHI-PDX on 27... and then PDX-LAX on the Coast Starlight using my AGR points.

I was planning to go CHI-LAX on 421, but all the roomettes were already booked (!!!) the week I'm going.

rtabern said:

I am planning on taking a trip in early March and hope they have the re-launched CS running by then.
I know the head of the Empire Builder and Coast Starlight pretty well (G. Erford) and when I talked to him last in October, he mentioned the launch would come sometime in March.

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I hope that means there'll be one when I ride CS in June or so! Which leads to another question...

I'll be taking CONO-EB-CS (as an AGR itinerary, so the dates for each train are inflexible, while the date for the entire trip is rather flexible). Obviously, I'll be booking this somewhat far in advance, but just how far in advance ought I be looking to book this? As in, does one or more of these particular trains tend to get completely booked up for the summer months by sometime in the spring? Is there (as with the airlines) a policy where only low-bucket fares can be AGR'd, or can the very last high-bucket roomette still be claimed as an AGR reward?

One limiting factor delaying our booking is my friend and I making arrangements with our friends in California for the week after the Amtrak trip, so we do our trip when they're not on holiday; so the question is "how quickly should we be pushing them for answers about dates they'll be free for visitors?". They might have answers in February, or they might not until March or April; is waiting 'til March or April dangerous for us?

yarrow said:

we will be on the cs in bit over a week. i notice that amtrak has taken mention of the ppc's off their route description for the cs on the website. i had heard they were being refurbished for the "new" cs this spring. what is their current status? do must runs have a ppc? is a 1st class sightseer lounge still being substituted for runs without a ppc? thanks a lot,

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Well all cars are listed as active and most just went through a major rebuild, so I would think that anything going on right now would be light work in nature. Therefore the odds should be rather good that you'll get a car, but with only 5 cars in service any problems will result in a consist going out without a PPC.

rtabern said:

I was planning to go CHI-LAX on 421, but all the roomettes were already booked (!!!) the week I'm going.

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Yeah that seems to be a common problem on those Amtrak trains that run empty!

:lol: :lol: :lol:

wayman said:

I'll be taking CONO-EB-CS (as an AGR itinerary, so the dates for each train are inflexible, while the date for the entire trip is rather flexible). Obviously, I'll be booking this somewhat far in advance, but just how far in advance ought I be looking to book this? As in, does one or more of these particular trains tend to get completely booked up for the summer months by sometime in the spring? Is there (as with the airlines) a policy where only low-bucket fares can be AGR'd, or can the very last high-bucket roomette still be claimed as an AGR reward?

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If there is a room available on the day you want to travel when you call up AGR, then it's yours. Even if it is the very last room on the train for that day. There are no capacity controls.

wayman said:

One limiting factor delaying our booking is my friend and I making arrangements with our friends in California for the week after the Amtrak trip, so we do our trip when they're not on holiday; so the question is "how quickly should we be pushing them for answers about dates they'll be free for visitors?". They might have answers in February, or they might not until March or April; is waiting 'til March or April dangerous for us?

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You didn't specify what type of room you want, which makes it a bit harder to answer your question. If you are looking for bedrooms the whole way, then I would suggest getting the reservation done before February is over. If you're after roomettes, then you can probably hold off until maybe April or May to make the reservation.

And again all of the above guidelines can be affected by your flexibility to start on different days.

Rode the CS northbound out of LAX on Friday and no Parlour Car.

My car's attendant said that he hadn't seen one in a while and didn't know if or when they'd be back. Another passenger, going back home, said that a crew member from the trip going out said they were gone for good.

sechs said:

Rode the CS northbound out of LAX on Friday and no Parlour Car.
My car's attendant said that he hadn't seen one in a while and didn't know if or when they'd be back. Another passenger, going back home, said that a crew member from the trip going out said they were gone for good.

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Well that would run contrary to published statements by Amtrak. They mentioned the upgraded service, with Parlour cars in several places, including the December Amtrak Ink.

Now I will grant you that Amtrak has announced things before, then never implimented them. But somehow I don't believe that this is one of those occasions.

Well, it's not entirely recent anymore, but there was a Pacific Parlour car, staffed by sleeper car attendants, on the southbound train from Seattle on December 11.

IF THERE IS ANYONE FROM AMTRAK THAT EVER READS THIS FORUM this is the sort of thing that irritates me. i am an amtrak lover who rarely finds much to complain about. but why doesn't managment just tell the truth. what is wrong with keeping the travelling public and amtrak employees in the know. just issue some sort of release giving the status of the parlour cars. i think that a lot of people, diehard railfans and regular travellers, look forward to the ppc on the cs and it only hurts amtrak when an expected amenity is not there. SO IF ANYONE FROM AMTRAK MIGHT SEE THIS HOW ABOUT JUST LETTING YOUR CUSTOMERS KNOW

AlanB said:

Now I will grant you that Amtrak has announced things before, then never implimented them. But somehow I don't believe that this is one of those occasions.

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I've talked to several OBS folk who were very certain of upcoming or current Amtrak policies that were ... just wrong. This fall, several train crew folks I talked to said "oh, Diner/Lites are going to replace all the Heritage and Superliner diners in the whole system within the next year", and were extremely, 100% sure of this, for instance.

yarrow said:

IF THERE IS ANYONE FROM AMTRAK THAT EVER READS THIS FORUM this is the sort of thing that irritates me. i am an amtrak lover who rarely finds much to complain about. but why doesn't managment just tell the truth. what is wrong with keeping the travelling public and amtrak employees in the know. just issue some sort of release giving the status of the parlour cars. i think that a lot of people, diehard railfans and regular travellers, look forward to the ppc on the cs and it only hurts amtrak when an expected amenity is not there. SO IF ANYONE FROM AMTRAK MIGHT SEE THIS HOW ABOUT JUST LETTING YOUR CUSTOMERS KNOW

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Well I'd say that the following paragraph printer in the Fall 2007 timetable is about as good a way as any to communicate with the customers:

Coming in Spring or 2008-The Coast Starlight
Step aboard the Coast Starlight as we celebrate the re-launching of our premiere West Coast train. Returning it to its days of glory, the Coast Starlight will emerge with new services, ammenities, and feature newly refurbished Pacific Parlour Cars. Sleeping car passenger will be treated to additional amenities, regional wine tasting, entertrainment venues and exciting new dining options. Coach passengers will enjoy expanded entertainment in the lounge, plus new food and beverage options such as "at seat" meal service.

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