From Old To New

[OlympianHiawatha]

Suppose Amtrak took blueprints and designs for the more successful Heritage type cars, updated them to modern materials and technologies as well as FRA standards and used them for the new fleet. If these great cars worked so well in the 40s, 50s and 60s, why could they not work again?

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Because nobody knows how to build them. The concept of building something well is alien to large corporations here in the 21st century.

 

[Larry H.]

Because nobody knows how to build them. The concept of building something well is alien to large corporations here in the 21st century.

Your exactly right, I think most of us that remember the great old well designed cars would love to see them back.. However several things have changed. The wonderful lounges with overstuffed furniture and bookcases and lots of moveable chairs and tables would go the way of the "lawyers".. Everything has to be bolted in place in case of a mishap. Which is not a bad thing in its self. Another issue that arose was that as times changed so did the customer. At one time a great looking lounge or diner was filled with people dressed like they were going to a wedding.. Now every one is in shorts and jeans. I personally like that freedom too. I can recall though in the transition how some of the old time crew members would complain about how the "new" passengers would put muddy shoes on the seats and had no respect for the way they treated the upholstery.. Thus we got the easy to clean, and totally ugly plastic seats.. At one time even they swiveled for convenience, but over time those also disappeared. Perhaps they took up too much space..

The diners used to be full of etched glass, and fancy roof line trims with moveable chair and real china and flowers. Well real food too for that matter.. Again back to the safety issues most likely. So were stuck with card tables and bench seats. Not too romantic but functional. I am always amazed however at how little thought goes into improving the appearance. It wouldn't take much or rocket science to make a car more appealing looking. Some thoughtfully choosen pictures, or a fake buffet effect in a diner with some lamps and accessories could be done at not that much cost. Some lamps with shades on the tables for more pleasing lightly could be also added, even if they were wall lamps. common in older designs. Too much emphasis on cost and not enough on attractive surroundings for the customer.

Bottom line is that even though a rail car could look like any fine hotel, the powers that be no longer have the slightest interest in running trains like that. So the simplest, to clean, and take care of is all your probably ever going to see again.. But it is nice to dream!

 

[PRR 60]

Suppose Amtrak took blueprints and designs for the more successful Heritage type cars, updated them to modern materials and technologies as well as FRA standards and used them for the new fleet. If these great cars worked so well in the 40s, 50s and 60s, why could they not work again?

Great idea. I've often thought the same thing. Why is it always necessary to reinvent the wheel? Consider how popular the sleepers are on the Canadian: old 1950's designs. I do like the upper window in the Viewliner, but in my opinion, limiting the car to two bedrooms and one accessible room was a mistake. Put in the modern bells and whistles, add the steel necessary to meet crash standards, and roll out new versions of the California Zephyr and Super Chief sleeping cars. Doesn't seem that hard to me. And, while we're at it, lets get some actual lounge cars on the single level trains.

Amtrak loves to design things. Sometimes leaving well enough alone is the best move.

 

[wayman]

Suppose Amtrak took blueprints and designs for the more successful Heritage type cars, updated them to modern materials and technologies as well as FRA standards and used them for the new fleet. If these great cars worked so well in the 40s, 50s and 60s, why could they not work again?

Great idea. I've often thought the same thing. Why is it always necessary to reinvent the wheel? Consider how popular the sleepers are on the Canadian: old 1950's designs. I do like the upper window in the Viewliner, but in my opinion, limiting the car to two bedrooms and one accessible room was a mistake. Put in the modern bells and whistles, add the steel necessary to meet crash standards, and roll out new versions of the California Zephyr and Super Chief sleeping cars. Doesn't seem that hard to me. And, while we're at it, lets get some actual lounge cars on the single level trains.

Amtrak loves to design things. Sometimes leaving well enough alone is the best move.

Wasn't the excuse for retiring the 10/6 sleepers the dump toilets? Hasn't this problem been solved (basically, replace them with modified RV toilets)? Is there really, truly no space for a waste tank underneath the car? Taking the blueprints and doing the modifications necessary (including reconfiguring the toilets) just doesn't sound technically difficult. Given the money, why isn't it a good solution?

 

[AlanB]

Wasn't the excuse for retiring the 10/6 sleepers the dump toilets? Hasn't this problem been solved (basically, replace them with modified RV toilets)? Is there really, truly no space for a waste tank underneath the car? Taking the blueprints and doing the modifications necessary (including reconfiguring the toilets) just doesn't sound technically difficult. Given the money, why isn't it a good solution?

Amtrak dropped the 10-6's in part because of the retention toilet thing. They also dropped it because the trucks on those cars needed replacing. Between ths expenses for replacing the trucks, as well as the reconfiguration to retention toilets, they spealed doem for the 10-6's.

 

[wayman]

Wasn't the excuse for retiring the 10/6 sleepers the dump toilets? Hasn't this problem been solved (basically, replace them with modified RV toilets)? Is there really, truly no space for a waste tank underneath the car? Taking the blueprints and doing the modifications necessary (including reconfiguring the toilets) just doesn't sound technically difficult. Given the money, why isn't it a good solution?

Amtrak dropped the 10-6's in part because of the retention toilet thing. They also dropped it because the trucks on those cars needed replacing. Between ths expenses for replacing the trucks, as well as the reconfiguration to retention toilets, they spealed doem for the 10-6's.

Given the money to build fifty new single-level sleepers, would Amtrak be better served building fifty Viewliners or fifty 10-6's (with modern trucks, toilets, etc)? Yes, with 10-6's, they'd have two different car types and the attendant problems with that which we talked about in that recent thread... but would 10-6's produce more revenue per car because the bedrooms sell for a lot more, assuming the demand is there to fill the bedrooms?

 

[Green Maned Lion]

No, because their capacity is lower. The Viewliner holds 32 while the the 10-6 holds 22, originally, and as the Heritage Sleeper, it held 20.

 

[WhoozOn1st]

Y'know, it's all well and good to imagine the what ifs, what might have beens, and speculate on those things. Part of the fun of being an Amtrak affcionado and a railfan.

However, I prefer to focus on the here and now and look to the future.

As a lover of history I recognize that those old cars are just that: History.

Wonderful as they were, nobody's gonna build 'em again, and they're not coming back.

Sorry to be harsh, but I think it's pointless to comiserate over old blueprints and production procedures, at least here. Perhaps people seriously concerned with such issues should locate a railroad museum preservation program.

 

[wayman]

As a lover of history I recognize that those old cars are just that: History.
Wonderful as they were, nobody's gonna build 'em again, and they're not coming back.

I'm not sure why something is inherently inferior just because it's an older design. Newer isn't always better.

As for revenue, replying to GML, it's not as cut-and-dry as "number of beds". Out of curiosity, I plugged in some numbers, just to see what came up. In the end, with my numbers, yes, the Viewliner did generate 28% more revenue. We could argue numbers forever, but I'm comfortable at this point conceding that the Viewliner definitely generates more revenue per car. Assuming construction and maintenance costs of the cars are equivalent, the Viewliner is the better investment for revenue purposes.

But I still don't concede that newer is better as a general rule, even as I concede that the Viewliner is a more sensible single-level sleeper for Amtrak than the Heritage.

Boring math with lots of crude estimates we could argue about forever, but let's not, ok?:

The Viewliner has H, A, B, and 13 double-capacity revenue roomettes. The Heritage 10-6 had H, A, B, C, D, E, and 9 single-capacity roomettes.

 

Assume on average five Viewliner roomettes are single-occupancy in practice, and that all Viewliner bedrooms are double-occupancy in practice; assume 2 Heritage bedrooms go single-occupancy, and the other four go double-occupancy; assume H always goes double-occupancy.

 

And assume the upgrade cost of a bedroom is the same on a Viewliner and a Heritage, but the upgrade cost of a roomette is 2/3 the cost on a Heritage as on a Viewliner. Possible revenue, then:

 

Heritage and Viewliner H bedroom cancel out (same price, only bucket; say, $400).

Heritage and Viewliner A bedroom cancel out (same price, low bucket bedroom; say, $300).

Heritage B bedroom, second bucket, say, $400.

Heritage C bedroom and Viewliner B bedroom cancel out (same price, "third" bucket bedroom; say $500).

Heritage D bedroom, also third bucket, $500.

Heritage E bedroom, fourth bucket, $600.

Viewliner roomettes 1-2, low bucket, $150.

Viewliner roomettes 3-7, second bucket, $225.

Viewliner roomettes 8-10, third bucket, $300.

Viewliner roomettes 11-13, fourth bucket, $375.

Heritage roomettes 1-2, low bucket, $100.

Heritage roomettes 3-5, second bucket, $150.

Heritage roomettes 6-7, third bucket, $200.

Heritage roomettes 8-9, fourth bucket, $250.

Viewliner fares: 2xH, 2xA, 2xB, 1x(5R), 2x(8R) = 27 coach fares (all low-bucket, say $150)

Heritage fares: 2xH, 2x(A-C), 1x(D-E), 1x(9R) = 15 coach fares (all low-bucket, say $150)

Lots of addition happens. Bottom line with these estimates:

Viewliner revenue: $8,375

Heritage revenue: $6,500

I expect most estimated buckets, etc, would yield similar bottom lines, at least as far as the comparison between Viewliner and Heritage 10-6.

 

[George Harris]

Amtrak dropped the 10-6's in part because of the retention toilet thing. They also dropped it because the trucks on those cars needed replacing. Between ths expenses for replacing the trucks, as well as the reconfiguration to retention toilets, they spelled doom for the 10-6's.

However, when you consider that there are quite a few 10-6's still roaming around in private use - for example, when the NASA booster rocket train collapsed a trestle, there was an ex-Southern 10-6 in the consist for the escorts, these problems obviously got solved by several other people/companies. Sounds like another example of Amtrak using an excuse to masquerade as a reason.

 

[wayman]

Amtrak dropped the 10-6's in part because of the retention toilet thing. They also dropped it because the trucks on those cars needed replacing. Between ths expenses for replacing the trucks, as well as the reconfiguration to retention toilets, they spelled doom for the 10-6's.

However, when you consider that there are quite a few 10-6's still roaming around in private use - for example, when the NASA booster rocket train collapsed a trestle, there was an ex-Southern 10-6 in the consist for the escorts, these problems obviously got solved by several other people/companies. Sounds like another example of Amtrak using an excuse to masquerade as a reason.

Well, private owners have the money to spend on new trucks, which are presumably more expensive than new toilets. Maybe Amtrak actually did/does have the money for rehabilitating these cars (assuming that they will pay off the investment in only a couple years) and isn't doing it for some other unstated reason.

But if it's just a money thing (shortsighted as Amtrak's, or Congress's, budgeting may be), and not an "is it possible" thing, that makes a big (and unfortunate) difference between Amtrak's situation and private owners'.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Amtrak dropped the 10-6's in part because of the retention toilet thing. They also dropped it because the trucks on those cars needed replacing. Between ths expenses for replacing the trucks, as well as the reconfiguration to retention toilets, they spelled doom for the 10-6's.

However, when you consider that there are quite a few 10-6's still roaming around in private use - for example, when the NASA booster rocket train collapsed a trestle, there was an ex-Southern 10-6 in the consist for the escorts, these problems obviously got solved by several other people/companies. Sounds like another example of Amtrak using an excuse to masquerade as a reason.

I would assume that the cost of rennovating 50 10-6 sleepers is probably basically 50 times the cost of rennovating one.

Building 50 brand new sleepers of a new design probably does not cost 50 times the cost of building a custom designed sleeper from scratch with a one-off design.

So if the economics on rennovating vs building new were somewhat close, it's possible that the economies of scale may have made this the right decision for Amtrak to build something new, and the operators that only wanted one or two cars to adapt something that had been built long ago (if we assume that they wouldn't have been able to piggyback on Amtrak's Viewliner Sleeper order because of the timing of when they needed their car or whatever).

On the other hand, the Viewliners meant that Amtrak bought almost as many new trucks as they would have bought for a 10-6 rennovation project (though the Viewliners do bring better economy of scale in terms of passengers per pair of trucks, but probably not by enough to cover the cost of complete new cars sitting on top of those trucks). And if the cost of toilets was prohibitive, why does every single Viewliner Roomette have one?

 

[MStrain]

I recommend a great book called "Travel by Pullman", got mine onlinefor around $13. Those days are long gone, but its still neat to read about them and the photos are great. The layout of the old cars made much more sense. The F7 engines pulling 15 or so smoothside cars all painted to match must have been a sight!

 

[PetalumaLoco]

I recommend a great book called "Travel by Pullman", got mine onlinefor around $13. Those days are long gone, but its still neat to read about them and the photos are great. The layout of the old cars made much more sense. The F7 engines pulling 15 or so smoothside cars all painted to match must have been a sight!

Nice cover illustration.

Amazon has it, I may order it.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

On the subjcct of the older pre-Amtrak sleepers, remember that there were many, many designs of sleeping cars.

Not just the 10-6.

Not by any means.

Some very few examples: 4 double bedroom 4 Compt 2 Drawing Room

13 bedrooms

22 roomettes

10-5

6 sections, 6 roomettes, 4 double bedrooms (yes,some lightweight streamlined cars did have sections)

4 sections, 4 roomette, 5 double bedrooms 1 compt

6 doublebedroom-bar lounge

etc,etc,etc,I have a book at home which purports to list all the sleeping cars ever designed, both heavy weight and lightwegiht(i.e. streamlined) and there are about F-O-U-R -H-U-N-D-R-E-D.(don't ask me to name them or tyipe them even if I could)

If you really want to day dream and get into comparing costs, capacities,etc you are by no means limited to 10-6's. They just sort of happened to evolve into the most common type in the last years just before Amtrak . And Amtrak bought almost entirely that type, though I think they bought some 6 double bedrooms 5 compartments sleepers. (kind of a secret, llike the all bedrooms cars on the Auto train). They sold the compartrments(a large room) as bedroms. It is said that a few saavy passengers knew how to get them.

The imagination was by no means limited to 10-6's on the pre-Amtrak streamlined lightweight cars

 

[JAChooChoo]

Because nobody knows how to build them. The concept of building something well is alien to large corporations here in the 21st century.

............Bottom line is that even though a rail car could look like any fine hotel, the powers that be no longer have the slightest interest in running trains like that. So the simplest, to clean, and take care of is all your probably ever going to see again.. But it is nice to dream!

The reality is that it is not 1956 anymore - with no intersates or jet airplanes, when the average person rode trains as a normal course.

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

The reality is that it is not 1956 anymore - with no intersates or jet airplanes, when the average person rode trains as a normal course.

But if fuel keeps going up like it is, for many there may not be any more Interstates or jet planes

 

[Larry H.]

Because nobody knows how to build them. The concept of building something well is alien to large corporations here in the 21st century.

............Bottom line is that even though a rail car could look like any fine hotel, the powers that be no longer have the slightest interest in running trains like that. So the simplest, to clean, and take care of is all your probably ever going to see again.. But it is nice to dream!

The reality is that it is not 1956 anymore - with no intersates or jet airplanes, when the average person rode trains as a normal course.

Your mostly correct on the dates! Beyond that it still takes the same amount of time, (well actually more), to travel the same routes. So the public still needs a diner, a decent set of sleepers and coachs, and some place comfortable to relax and enjoy the scenery and fellow passengers.. None of that has changed a bit. The concept developed in 1956 was to attract passengers with a good reason to purchase a rail ticket rather than the fast growing air system. Yes the air won, but the pendulum may be swinging once again and the same attractions make rail a possible alternative.

You can run bare bones trains as Amtrak does now, and it will have riders who have choosen not to fly. But if your going to get people to spend two to three days on a train then the consist that makes the trip exciting becomes more of a good business idea.

That is the one place that competition did for at least a while play a part. When your running the only route to california from chicago you have no need to try and offer a better product to attract passengers.

 

[frj1983]

Because nobody knows how to build them. The concept of building something well is alien to large corporations here in the 21st century.

............Bottom line is that even though a rail car could look like any fine hotel, the powers that be no longer have the slightest interest in running trains like that. So the simplest, to clean, and take care of is all your probably ever going to see again.. But it is nice to dream!

The reality is that it is not 1956 anymore - with no intersates or jet airplanes, when the average person rode trains as a normal course.

Your mostly correct on the dates! Beyond that it still takes the same amount of time, (well actually more), to travel the same routes. So the public still needs a diner, a decent set of sleepers and coachs, and some place comfortable to relax and enjoy the scenery and fellow passengers.. None of that has changed a bit. The concept developed in 1956 was to attract passengers with a good reason to purchase a rail ticket rather than the fast growing air system. Yes the air won, but the pendulum may be swinging once again and the same attractions make rail a possible alternative.

You can run bare bones trains as Amtrak does now, and it will have riders who have choosen not to fly. But if your going to get people to spend two to three days on a train then the consist that makes the trip exciting becomes more of a good business idea.

That is the one place that competition did for at least a while play a part. When your running the only route to california from chicago you have no need to try and offer a better product to attract passengers.

It's hard to offer a better product when you barely have enough money to keep everything going!