Amtrak forum is an arm of Amtrak propaganda machine?

Ziv said:

No. That was the point of the "joke". It is a moment of levity, poking fun in an irritating manner after a serious event.
Mrs. Lincoln had just seen her husband, President Lincoln, murdered at Ford's Theater and the reporter asks her, "Other than that, how was the play?"
You almost got dumped onto a siding in the deep freeze section of the West with no heater...
Anytime you have to explain your joke, you have failed as a jokester. ;-)
Mea Culpa.

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I understood what you were saying.

OP, if you're still around, you are not crazy. It's not so much a propaganda machine, it is very much a clique with the usual clique rules. Listen, the only reason I'm posting here right now is because they've had some sort of software update and I've been getting daily updates on forum activity in my mailbox, that was linked to my former account that I thought had long been nuked. One of the topics caught my attention and here I am. It was either a self nuke or externally imposed, can't remember and doesn't matter as the censorship on here was not something I could stomach.
I give myself around 48 hours before the same thing happens again and if it's permanent I won't shed a tear.
Bottom line, there's no way this is an Amtrak PR machine. If it were they wouldn't go out of their way to alienate longtime Amtrak supporters just because some feathers were ruffled.

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Railroad Bill said:

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Ziv said:

No. That was the point of the "joke". It is a moment of levity, poking fun in an irritating manner after a serious event.
Mrs. Lincoln had just seen her husband, President Lincoln, murdered at Ford's Theater and the reporter asks her, "Other than that, how was the play?"
You almost got dumped onto a siding in the deep freeze section of the West with no heater...
Anytime you have to explain your joke, you have failed as a jokester. ;-)
Mea Culpa.

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Seriously----- I was returning to Chicago on the Zephyr New Years day 1978. 10 below zero and the steam lines to the coaches froze. ALL the heat was out in the coaches from just outside Reno where they began to freeze and all the way to Chicago---- but only to the coaches. ALL the sleepers were warm. I walked back looking for an empty sleeper (none) but I found instead that the train was pulling 5 empty coaches all warm. I sat there in the 1st of the 5 coaches till finally a conductor found me and ordered me back to the regular train. I refused---we argued and finally i told him that if he made me go back I would go and tell every passenger on the train that these 5 warm coaches were here. His response was "OK---but don't say I didn't warn you" and he left.
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I slept on that coach thru the night and at about 6am, I awoke to a "clanking and banging"--- I jumped up---staggering from being woke up like that and found the flexible curtain (between cars) was down and a guy was hammering on the lever to disconnect the coaches from the main train. He was startled to find me looking down at him when I stepped on the treadle to open the door and asked me where I came from. When I pointed to the coaches, he said "Are there any others on those cars"? I said no and he told me they were uncoupling those cars here at the siding.
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So as I was walking back through the sleepers, the train began to move. As I proceeded thorough the dining car, there was that Conductor and he said this to me--- "Well, Mr. Behling, I see you're still with us"

I could make this story MUCH longer because there was a lot more that happened, but I did write to Amtrak in Washington DC and they refunded 100% of my $300 rail pass cost. ---- It was 15 below zero there in Ogden Utah that morning, and this was no joke. But as I said before--- I do LOVE Amtrak anyway

With steam heating, it was a continuous pipe. It sounds like the steam pipe did not work after the sleepers, for whatever reason. The warm coach cars you slept in overnight would have been closer to the engine, the steam source. The cold coaches would be at the rear end of the train, after the blockage.
It sounds like the conductor knew the warm empty coaches were due to be uncoupled from the train at some point, so kept passengers out.
Glad you survived your adventure, anyway!

Ed.

caravanman said:

With steam heating, it was a continuous pipe. It sounds like the steam pipe did not work after the sleepers, for whatever reason. The warm coach cars you slept in overnight would have been closer to the engine, the steam source. The cold coaches would be at the rear end of the train, after the blockage.
It sounds like the conductor knew the warm empty coaches were due to be uncoupled from the train at some point, so kept passengers out.
Glad you survived your adventure, anyway!

Ed.

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I'm not trying to start an argument, but I remember when the heat began going out in the cars ahead of the original coach car I was assigned to in Reno where I got on, cars closer to the engine were freezing up first before ours. Every time another coach lost heat a new batch of people would come walking back through our coach looking for unoccupied seats. About an hour later, our coach lost heat and that's when I got up and walked back to the end of the train looking for something. I'm not saying that I know everything about how these cars were heated, but if the forward cars lost heat, then we should have all lost heat right immediately all the way to the end of the train and that wasn't the case. There must have been more than one steam line that went back to 1st class. The sleepers were definitely at the end of the train and they never lost heat----all the way to Chicago.

The conductor knew everything---- but he just was totally pissed off at me because I challenged him plus a lot more than I wrote about here. By the time he got home, I figure he probably beat his wife and kids because of me and our cross-country battle.

This adventure, described by Mr. Behling, reminds me of one I had during December 1962 - my only ride on the NKP (youngsters; that's the New York, Chicago, and St. Louis, known as the Nickel Plate.

I was returning home (NY) from Champaign, and I wanted to give the NKP a ride (I had missed out owing to a losing "platform dash" during Dec '61). By then, their train "New Yorker" was Coach only, so I was going to change to NYC #16, Ohio State Limited, at Cleveland.

Well, this #8 had heavyweight Coaches for the "revenue", but two LW Coaches, ostensibly deadhead, but otherwise for the crew.

Seems like the steam lines froze somewhere around Forstoria OH, and despite "fuesee thaws" at each station, never again generated heat. I went back to an adequately heated "deadhead Coach", but was promptly run out. "This is for crew only".

All told, I wish I had ridden during '61. Then there was a through Chi-Hoboken (to the EL@Buffalo) Pullman sleeper line, and up front, beautiful Alco PA "Bluebirds".

Gary Behling said:

I'm not trying to start an argument, but I remember when the heat began going out in the cars ahead of the original coach car I was assigned to in Reno where I got on, cars closer to the engine were freezing up first before ours. Every time another coach lost heat a new batch of people would come walking back through our coach looking for unoccupied seats. About an hour later, our coach lost heat and that's when I got up and walked back to the end of the train looking for something. I'm not saying that I know everything about how these cars were heated, but if the forward cars lost heat, then we should have all lost heat right immediately all the way to the end of the train and that wasn't the case. There must have been more than one steam line that went back to 1st class. The sleepers were definitely at the end of the train and they never lost heat----all the way to Chicago.

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What you describe is beyond my explanation, except maybe the heating was by electricity?
My experience is confined to working on British Rail steam heated trains, maybe the USA system of steam heating was different.

Ed.

Gary Behling said:

The conductor knew everything---- but he just was totally pissed off at me because I challenged him plus a lot more than I wrote about here. By the time he got home, I figure he probably beat his wife and kids because of me and our cross-country battle.

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(bolding mine) and you think that's funny to joke about?

caravanman said:

What you describe is beyond my explanation, except maybe the heating was by electricity?
My experience is confined to working on British Rail steam heated trains, maybe the USA system of steam heating was different.

Ed.

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In 1978 it would have been steam heat, Amtrak started introducing HEP the next year.

The fact the the forward cars lost heat and the rear cars were heated is puzzling. One explanation could be if the train were carrying a steam generator car in the back because of its length. UP would do this on the "City of Everywhere" but that train could be huge (20+ cars). Or they were carrying a steam generator car because the steam generator in the engine failed/was unreliable and so the steam was provided from the rear. Otherwise it is a real puzzle.