Late connecting trains at Chicago: Amtrak hotels

[Just-Thinking-51]

I think the disconnect here is that some are thinking that these are DEDICATED sleepers where all they're doing is sitting at CHI plugged in and waiting for late trains 24/7.

The concept is, the sleepers that came in on that day's train, aren't leaving until tomorrow anyway. Unless the car needs shopping for some *ahem* "work" in the Chicago yard, that car is going to spend the night dark, cold, and empty in the yard anyway. Why not use it?

If there pulling equipment off a train set to use as a hotel, that would be a plan. However nobody has gotten the numbers off the sleeper, so everyone is make a assuming how it happens. I am assuming there using spare equipment, other are assuming there use equipment off a inbound trainset.

One is a plan the other is a waste of equipment. A better use of equipment would be the a drop sleeper in Denver. Which of course requires three sleepers, not the two that I was thinking of.

So someone need to hang on in Chicago and get some numbers and track equipment, to see what is fact.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Do you really think they pull sleepers off a inbound trainset for late connection bed and breakfast.

One thinks there using spares sitting in the yard.

But yes I did forget the drop sleeper for Denver would require three sleepers. Past my bedtime....

Do you have any definitive information to support your claim? Or do you just find that your claim serves your argument better, and therefore that is the way it is?
What the heck does a Denver drop Sleeper that has not existed for the last several years have to do with any of this?

There are about ten or eleven Sleepers that sit around in Chicago every night even not counting spares, and there is no way for them to earn any revenue. if a few are repurposed to save some cost, that seems to be quite logical, except apparently to a few here.

Your question works both ways. Do you have any definitive information to support your statement. I do not. Do you?

 

[jis]

No. But your point about drop Sleepers in Denver is just bogus. The Sleeper that was dropped there is from Chicago, and not one from Oakland. What the heck does dropping a Sleeper in Denver have to do with using unused and unusable Sleepers in Chicago for saving some hotel cost? Irrespective of whether it is dropped in Denver or goes all the way to Oakland, when it is in Chicago it overnights in Chicago and cannot possibly earn additional revenues while sitting there.

 

[JoeBas]

If someone would like to buy me Seattle to New York round trips until I'm finally late, misconnect and can verify for everyone, that would be fine with me...

 

[Tennessee Traveler]

Just a guess, but it is possible that those two sleepers in photo may have arrived from West Coast at a unreasonably late hour like 2 to 3 AM so Amtrak allowed the passengers already on the cars to stay in their accommodations until 7 or 8 AM. That happened to me on the Canadian several years ago. We were held in Hornpayne for over 7 hour because of a freight derailment so when we continued our journey to Toronto we were informed since we would be arriving after 2 AM in Toronto we could remain in our sleeping accommodations until the next morning. Since I woke up and we were sitting in the station at Toronto, I decided to go ahead and leave(for as I could tell, I was the lone passenger disembarking that early around 3 AM) to my hotel less that a half mile from the station along the waterfront so that I could get in a nice comfortable bed and sleep until mid morning or whenever I woke up without an alarm.

 

[calwatch]

I think that's more likely - let them stay in the existing sleepers they have already occupied and leave in the morning, rather than bus them to some suburban hotel and back. Room rates are high enough in Chicago that putting them up in downtown is not going to be cheaper than sending a bus load to the suburbs and back. So either get on a bus to the suburbs, or stay near the station and leave at a reasonable hour.

 

[Phil S]

I'd like to see a sleeper on #2 made available for spending the night in NOL, #2 often gets in around midnight, occasionally later. Getting to a hotel at that hour, then getting back to the station by 0700 the next day to catch #20 means you get 5 hr sleep, if lucky. If we get dinner at the regular time on #2, and breakfast as we leave on #20 bright and early, what's to not like about it? Easily saves the rider $300 and gets him/her a full 8 hours sleep.

 

[Bob Dylan]

I'd like to see a sleeper on #2 made available for spending the night in NOL, #2 often gets in around midnight, occasionally later. Getting to a hotel at that hour, then getting back to the station by 0700 the next day to catch #20 means you get 5 hr sleep, if lucky. If we get dinner at the regular time on #2, and breakfast as we leave on #20 bright and early, what's to not like about it? Easily saves the rider $300 and gets him/her a full 8 hours sleep.

Excellent idea since the Sunset only runs 3 days a week and the Equipment and the Crew layover in NOL. There's room @ the Station to park the cars overnight too!

 

[Tennessee Traveler]

The only hitch is that although the #2 lays over, that equipment is #1 departing the next day. Possibly one of the arrivals lays over an extra day but only one would do that.

 

[glomor]

I was on a late SWC in June and missed my connection to the Pere Marquette. The conductor met with us on the train and I was told I would be put up in a hotel that night. Nothing was ever said about a sleeper at the station. As it turned out there were several of us and we were provided van transportation to Grand Rapids. Guess that was a more economical solution for Amtrak.