Look at the car behind the lounge. That looks like Heritage equipment to me.
Wow. They must be really cash strapped on this route. That diner looks like its right out of the 1950's. We will see first hand what it is like in June when we travel to NOL.
There aren't any single-level full diners except for Heritage (and ONE Viewliner diner prototype that isn't in service). They were all built in the 50's.
Informed speculation.
That's been discussed extensively as well. It was finished, and the layout was awful, so they took it off the road. It's currently at BG getting kitchen mockups installed and modified to come up with a better layout for a future delivery of Viewliner based Diners.
It's not getting mockups, it's getting the real thing. It will return to service when the work is done.
Some are older than that: several of the Heritage diners were built in the 1940s.
Yup. I've eaten in that Viewliner diner. I think it was on the Crescent quite a while back. The Heritage Diners have been nicely refurbished at least on the inside. I'm sure the reliability's not a strong point though considering their age.just 'cause here is what it looked like back when it was being used:
I'd love to see some picture looking the other direction.
peter
I don't see what is so terrible about that layout. Looks OK to me. The only issue might be the kitchen as its not shown.just 'cause here is what it looked like back when it was being used:
I'd love to see some picture looking the other direction.
peter
It would have had to be quite a while back. I think that the car ran for about 2 or 3 years, before it was pulled from service. So that would have been the very early 90's.
That was exactly one of the bigger problems, the kitchen. The layout of the kitchen was incredibly poor; the product of letting engineers design things without consulting those who actually use the kitchen. As such, you had crazy things like a waiter having to walk behind the cook making omelets on the grill, to get orange juice for the passenger.
The car carriers on the Auto Train are essentially brand new; they came online in 2006 and as such are amongst the newest cars owned by Amtrak.
You mean uninformed speculation. The baggage car was moved to the rear because of the ride quality ("tail wagging") of the Viewliner when it is the last car in the consist. That is the only reason it moved back there. Meanwhile, a dozen or so Superliner trains run with the baggage car up front every day, not to mention that Amtrak's longest consist (except for the Auto Train), the Lake Shore Limited, continues to have a baggage car up front of the Boston section.
No, I meant exactly what I typed. GML said that he got it from someone inside Amtrak, so I would consider that to be more informed than random posters on an internet message board.
