Amenities you would love Amtrak to add?

[PerRock]

I'd like to see an option for customers between the 1st class sleeping accommodations & 3rd-world coach seats we have now. Nothing extravagant, the Europeans have the shared sleeping compartments which are quite nice, they've squeezed 6-8 beds in one compartment. During the day the lower 4 beds make up bench seating for the occupants. The European sleepers like this included breakfast, but I wouldn't mind if Amtrak didn't.

Improved cafe services - Periodicals available (would be a simple restock at the 1st station stop in the morning), better food choices, rather then all the microwaved crap they serve now, focus more on cold-cut sandwiches and such, a lot of 'deli' food available at a grocery store is really fairly decent for the price and would not be that difficult to server on board. At the moment the Cafe car is really just a glorified vending machine & microwave.

Cart service - maybe twice a day have a SA come thru the train with a cart of cafe offerings, hot coffee, etc.

Dome cars on the single-level fleet.

On board wifi entertainment system. it wouldn't be that hard to set up a local wifi network you had to buy into, that would allow you access to a selection of movies & reading material that you could access on your mobile device. Being stored on board you wouldn't have to worry about an internet connection.

Digital information screens in every car - would contain a route map w/ gps tracking, current time, speed, weather, next station, etc. Basically the same flight info channel you get on some long distance flights. OeBB's RailJet has a very nice system like that installed in their cars.

While it isn't really an on-board amenity, I'd like to see different levels of train service on corridor routes. With the exception of the NEC; all other corridor trains stop at all stations, if there was say one train a day (per direction) that ran a sort of express route and only stopped at a couple of the stations, charge a bit more for it, I could see it doing pretty well.

peter

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

After thinking about all this, I think the best amenity for Amtrak to easily add would be something between Coach and Sleeper. It's very easy to just buy some airline-style lie-flat seats and stick them in the train and it would be something that I definitely want to add.

From ratings and research, I suggest the JAL SkySuite or Lufthansa's New Business Class. I'm interested in the slightly staggered config of theformer and the slight V-shape of the latter, even though I've never flown on either. Herringbone seating would be a disaster for ground transport, you can't see outside! A parallel seat would be bad if someone is sleeping and you want to visit the lounge.

In Australia, Queensland Rail has just introduced lie-flat seats on the Spirit of Queensland train running north from Brisbane on the East Coast. Here's a link to their site which give a lot of data about the seats (pitch, width, etc.)

http://www.queenslandrailtravel.com.au/RailServices/Documents/spirit-of-queensland/queensland-rail-travel_spirit-of-queensland-factsheet.pdf.

But rather than being an intermediate level of service they are actually replacing private sleeping compartments with the lie flat seats.

You've got to be kidding me! They're replacing Sleepers with lie-flat seats that have only 1080mm of pitch! That 42"! Amtrak's current LD Coach seats have 50" of pitch, to be reduced to 48" sometime soon.

If Amtrak's gonna do something like this, they better boast 60" of pitch!

 

[Swimmingcat]

I have taken every long distance train in the west and there are no showers available for coach on any of them. It would be nice.

I too understood that showers are only in the sleepers (that's one of the reasons I travel that way, only once/yr now, 1 way from Bay Area to Denver). However in 1990, on my cross-country trip by Amtrak (San Jose to Albany NY & return, for a Vermont bike tour), in Chicago there were showers in the basement of Union Station, you had to know about them, show the attendant a continuing ticket, and you could use them (I did both directions). Somehow I heard of them before my journey; don't know if they're still there!.

 

[JoeSF]

You've got to be kidding me! They're replacing Sleepers with lie-flat seats that have only 1080mm of pitch! That 42"! Amtrak's current LD Coach seats have 50" of pitch, to be reduced to 48" sometime soon.

If Amtrak's gonna do something like this, they better boast 60" of pitch!

Check again, the pitch for sleeper seats is 2065 mm (about 6'-9"), arranged 2 and 1. Premium economy seats are 1080 (3'6"). It appears that there is no standard economy.

 

[MARC Rider]

You've got to be kidding me! They're replacing Sleepers with lie-flat seats that have only 1080mm of pitch! That 42"! Amtrak's current LD Coach seats have 50" of pitch, to be reduced to 48" sometime soon.

If Amtrak's gonna do something like this, they better boast 60" of pitch!

Check again, the pitch for sleeper seats is 2065 mm (about 6'-9"), arranged 2 and 1. Premium economy seats are 1080 (3'6"). It appears that there is no standard economy.

The diagram for this train ("Spirit of Queensland") shows 19 of these railbeds per carriage (in a 2X1 configuration), and 51 seats in "premium Economy" (i.e. coach). I'm not sure how these car dimensions compare to Amtrak single levels, but an Amfleet 2 coach has about 60 seats, and a Viewliner sleeper at capacity can hold 30 people. I would think that for a railbed to be a practical "intermediate" class of sleeper service, you should be able to fit 45 of them in a single level coach (and a proportionately larger number in a Superliner car). If you can't increase the capacity, then there's no advantage to them over the regular roomettes, which do sleep 2 people in a pretty compact space. T%he real problem is there's no real option for passengers traveling by themselves who want lie-flat sleeping.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I get it, then the actual Sleeper seat is pretty good but it's still no replacement for a true Sleeper. The Premium Economy is similar to those seats on planes, which is usually offered only on international flights. I think the Queensland train is trying to mimic Qantas.

I personally think Amtrak should introduce a Parlour Class with seat pitch of about 60", the current Coach seats are already wide enough so you don't need three-a-row seating. That would allow a total of 47 seats per railcar in an Amfleet, not sure about a Superliner.

 

[jis]

How does one get 47 seats per car if each row has 4 seats? In other words what other assumptions are you making to arrive at that number? A handicapped seat space at an end row perhaps? Am I starting to sound like Andrew? Apologies!

Incidentally, even at 60" pitch, if you are going to do lie flats, you will need to do only three per row (36) to make room for the leg slot by using a herringbone pattern of layout. OTOH if you are going to do sloping slabs.... Uuugggghhhh!

 

[VentureForth]

AC 3-Tier! But India Rail does have broad gauge, so I don't know if a standard gauge coach can handle that.

Incidently, anything from Australia would be broad gauge, too, so don't expect to see in the US.

 

[jis]

AC 3-Tier! But India Rail does have broad gauge, so I don't know if a standard gauge coach can handle that.

But the loading gauge in India is more or less UIC irrespective of the Broad Gauge track underneath. For example the Schlieren based ICF coaches as well as the newer LHB coaches all fit the UIC Gauge. The suburban EMUs OTOH do not.

Incidently, anything from Australia would be broad gauge, too, so don't expect to see in the US.

Huh?
The Interstate network in Australia is Standard Gauge with some 17,700km of Standard Gauge.

The next largest network is 1.067m Cape gauge with 15,100km in Queensland and Western Australia mainly.

And finally bringing up a distant third is 1.6m (Irish) Broad Gauge at 4,100km, mainly in Victoria.

So bottom line is no, anything from Australia will not be Broad Gauge. it will most likely be Standard Gauge or Cape Gauge.

Indeed British HST clones have been used on the Sydney - Brisbane run for quite a while on the Standard Gauge line via Casino that terminates in Brisbane. That is British loading gauge on Standard Gauge track. Queensland otherwise is completely Cape Gauge.