Last April, the Antiplanner took Amtrak from Portland to Washington DC via the Coast Starlight to Sacramento, the California Zephyr to Chicago, and the Capital Limited to DC. I repeated the trip this past weekend, only taking the Empire Builder from Portland to Chicago.
I came away from last April’s trip thinking that Amtrak’s personnel were excellent, the equipment was well cared for but not spectacular, and the food was a couple of notches below Denny’s. The Empire Builder trip produced inconsistent results: the personnel were good but there were problems and the equipment was a need of a rehab (and was poorly designed in the first place). The food, however, was better and perhaps was only a very small notch below Denny’s.
Before Amtrak, railcar suppliers had made a science of developing seats that were comfortable to long-distance travelers. In 1945, a company called Heywood-Wakefield, working with the Association of American Railroads, gave Harvard University anthropologist E.A. Hooton funding to develop a comfortable seat. Hooton measured 3,867 people and proposed ideal measurements for seats that would support a wide range of people.
Based on Hooton’s recommendations, Heywood-Wakefield developed the Sleepy Hollow seat that became the standard for post-war overnight trains. The seats were so comfortable to sleep in that coach travel became more popular than sleeping cars on overnight trains, which pleased the railroads because the extra cost of operating sleeping cars was more than the premiums passengers paid for them.
Based on the principle that the railroads didn’t know what they were doing, when Amtrak was formed its first impulse was to reject much the railroads had learned. When Amtrak ordered new equipment, the seats were based on airline seats. They might be comfortable for a few hours, but not for a long day trip, and they are complete torture to sleep in. I doubt that Amtrak planned it this way, but the sleeping cars probably earn Amtrak more than the coaches as each sleeping car has half the capacity of a coach but sleeping car fares are several times more than coach fares. The sleepers also seem to have higher occupancy rates.
Now those long-distance cars, known as Superliners, are definitely showing their age, with some that I saw bearing duct tape repairs. When Amtrak rehabilitates them, it should seriously consider replacing all of the coach seats with Sleepy Hollow seats (which shouldn’t be difficult as Heywood-Wakefield is still in business) or a derivative. But I suspect it won’t do it.
I rode coach from Portland to Chicago and a sleeper from Chicago to DC. It turns out that sleeping cars aren’t that comfortable either. Where Pullman once bragged that all of its mattresses were 4-1/2 inches thick, Amtrak mattresses are barely 2 inches thick. While a great improvement over Amtrak’s coach seats, I don’t think I could sleep in them for many nights without developing back troubles.
The food served on the trains was a little better than in April, but for the fact that both trains used the same menu, so there was no variety for long-distance travelers like me. The railroads used to have different menus every night on trains that took more than one night, and there were certainly different menus on each different connecting train. At least some of the food on the trains I rode was freshly prepared and for the most part it was tasty though far less flavorful than in most restaurants.
I didn’t have any unhappy experiences with the crews but I heard of a few. In Whitefish, Montana, a man wanted to board the train and the attendant asked him to wait. He got on anyway so the attendant called the conductor who kicked him off the train. When the man protested that he hadn’t done anything wrong, the conductor said, “My crew member says you did something wrong and I believe him.” So much for “the customer is always right.”
I didn’t witness this but I talked with several people who did. They all agreed that the man was a little strange, like he had been drinking or was autistic, but that he wasn’t rude or violent and they were surprised that he was ejected from the train.
As we pulled into Havre a few stops later, I happened to be in the vestibule so I could make a phone call without bothering other passengers. Several other people were there because they wanted to get off the train to smoke a cigarette, but when the train came to a stop, there was no attendant to open the door. To allay people’s frustration, I started to open the door when the conductor showed up on the outside and opened the door, chastising me for doing so. “We will always open the doors for you,” he said. “Don’t touch the handles.”
That would be perfectly appropriate, but a couple of stops later in Wolf Point a woman went to the vestibule of her car to get off the train and no one opened the door for her. The train made a quick stop and she was unable to find an open vestibule before the train left, so she ended riding the train to the next stop. The crew knows which cars have passengers for which stops and should not have failed to open the door for a passenger in a car getting off at any stop.
This Friday I plan to return to Oregon on the Cardinal, Southwest Chief, and Coast Starlight. I should have a report on these trains next Monday or Tuesday.
Greyhound is significantly less expensive and amazingly often faster than Amtrak coast to coast. Just though I’d mention that.
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Based on Hooton’s recommendations, Heywood-Wakefield developed the Sleepy Hollow seat that became the standard for post-war overnight trains. The seats were so comfortable to sleep in that coach travel became more popular than sleeping cars on overnight trains, which pleased the railroads because the extra cost of operating sleeping cars was more than the premiums passengers paid for them.
” ~Anti-planner
TCS; Greyhound is significantly less expensive and amazingly often faster than Amtrak coast to coast. Just though I’d mention that.
THWM; Well when the interstate highway system was being built, the government didn’t include 2 railroad tracks down the middle of them :$
I remember the Sleepy Hollow seats. They were vastly superior to the seats Amtrak has in their long distance coaches. The Amtrak seats have the same pitch (distance seat center to seat center) but do not recline as far back in order to accommodate a folding tray table. Via Rail Canada’s Day-Night seats have the tray table fold out of the arm rest, like some first class airline seats. Hint when traveling alone in an Amtrak “Roomette”, take the bed cushion from the upper bunk and lay it under thew cushion on the lower bed.
Didn’t they ban the assburgers idiot from Amtrak because he kept masturbating on the seats?
The Amtrak conductors pick and chose who to harass.
A friend of mine took a cross-country train a few years back and sat in a window seat in a mostly empty car. The female conductor told him to move because a large group was coming on and they were getting the window seats. My friend said he would gladly move when the others came but meanwhile he would like to look out the window,
When he was half way cross-country and the car was still far from full and the large group never materialized, he asked the conductor where they were. The conductor became irate and had him removed at the next station in the middle of nowhere. The other passengers protested and were told they would also be thrown off if they interfered.
So the stories above hit home. I think such things happen more than are reported.
It’s not just bad Amtrak conductors, it’s people in society in general being bad :$
TCS; Greyhound is significantly less expensive and amazingly often faster than Amtrak coast to coast. Just though I’d mention that.
Greyhound is also less comfortable than coach on a budget airline, do you really want that?
There are many ways to make Amtrak profitable but people are misled due to all the misinformation and disinformation about intercity rail.
Above was my first comment on the antiplanner.
I am not against public transit, I’m against subsidized public transit.
My main question is aside from regulation and bureaucracy, WHY do rail lines cost so much these days despite major advances in planning, construction, surveying, track laying, machining technology??!!?? Light rail on undeveloped ROW costing $100 mil a mile, at that price they can they use dollar bills as dirt fill!!!
I love trains but don’t love the fact that someone else pays half of the operating costs!