Amtrak's Silver Star Permanently Loses it's Diner

[SightseerLounge]

"The official if cryptic notice originated in an email from Mark Murphy, Amtrak's General Manager for Long Distance Services: "We are extending the Diner less Silver Star on an indefinite basis effective immediately." That's pretty clear, the missing hyphen notwithstanding."

http://www.trainsandtravel.com/the-stars-diner-gone-but-not-forgotten/

With this act, Amtrak is trying to cut even more services to the State of Florida!

There will be no trains left to come to Jacksonville Union Terminal if Amtrak keeps on slicing and dicing services! They'll cut the whole Silver Star train at this rate!

[spuwho]

There is more to this story. Amtrak is dealing with a severe shortage of diner cars and is being forced to compromise until their new diners from CAF arrive.

From Trains:

CHICAGO — Amtrak is removing heritage dining cars from the daily Chicago to New York Lake Shore Limited to help it deal with a shortage of the classic passenger cars. The passenger railroad began withdrawing dining cars in June because of structural issues.

Amtrak managers are temporarily replacing the cars with Amfleet II diner lounges until diners on order from CAF USA arrive on the property. Managers expect six of the new cars to complete testing on the Northeast Corridor in the coming months.

Amtrak managers tell the National Association of Railroad Passengers that they chose the Chicago-New York overnight train to take the temporary service downgrade because the westbound train only serves dinner and breakfast, and the eastbound Lake Shore just offers breakfast and lunch.

This leaves the New York-Miami Silver Meteor and the New York-New Orleans Crescent as the last Amtrak trains with heritage dining cars. Both of those trains serve up to four meals on each trip and require four trainsets.

The hand-me-down heritage dining cars were all built between 1948 and 1957 and are expensive to rebuild.

Because Amfleet II cars only have microwave and convection ovens instead of a full kitchen with a grill and steam tables, the Lake Shore menu now mirrors what passengers get on the tri-weekly Cardinal, which has been without a dining car for more than a decade.

Amtrak officials tell Trains News Wire that full service dining cars will return to the Lake Shore and other single-level long-distance trains — some which currently don't have them — but the type of service provided is likely to vary by train.

[spuwho]

The new diners (once they come off the assembly) will look like this:

[SightseerLounge]

There is more to this story. Amtrak is dealing with a severe shortage of diner cars and is being forced to compromise until their new diners from CAF arrive.

From Trains:

CHICAGO — Amtrak is removing heritage dining cars from the daily Chicago to New York Lake Shore Limited to help it deal with a shortage of the classic passenger cars. The passenger railroad began withdrawing dining cars in June because of structural issues.

Amtrak managers are temporarily replacing the cars with Amfleet II diner lounges until diners on order from CAF USA arrive on the property. Managers expect six of the new cars to complete testing on the Northeast Corridor in the coming months.

Amtrak managers tell the National Association of Railroad Passengers that they chose the Chicago-New York overnight train to take the temporary service downgrade because the westbound train only serves dinner and breakfast, and the eastbound Lake Shore just offers breakfast and lunch.

This leaves the New York-Miami Silver Meteor and the New York-New Orleans Crescent as the last Amtrak trains with heritage dining cars. Both of those trains serve up to four meals on each trip and require four trainsets.

The hand-me-down heritage dining cars were all built between 1948 and 1957 and are expensive to rebuild.

Because Amfleet II cars only have microwave and convection ovens instead of a full kitchen with a grill and steam tables, the Lake Shore menu now mirrors what passengers get on the tri-weekly Cardinal, which has been without a dining car for more than a decade.

Amtrak officials tell Trains News Wire that full service dining cars will return to the Lake Shore and other single-level long-distance trains — some which currently don't have them — but the type of service provided is likely to vary by train.

I don't trust Amtrak. Look how long it took for the Lake Shore Limited to get the sleeper back on the (I think) Boston section.

Sunset Limited East? Pioneer? Desert Wind?

I think they only have 10 Heritage Diners left. They used to run with 24 diners. The Viewliner II Diners are still not on the Amtrak Roster! Only the #8400 Viewliner I Diner exists. Amtrak is in serious trouble on the East Coast. They are going to run these new Viewliner II's in the ground just like the Viewliner I Sleepers.

There are supposed to be 25 new Viewliner II diners. How are they going to add diner service to trains that don't have Diners when they couldn't do that with the 24 Heritage Diners they had in the past?

The Silver Star losing the Diner saves Amtrak money. Its a foolish decision if they keep this permanent!

[SightseerLounge]

The new diners (once they come off the assembly) will look like this:

That's great except for the paint scheme! There is no point going backwards. A true Phase V for the rolling stock would have been a good change.

Now, 40 more of these would be great!

[SightseerLounge]