posted
On another forum it has come to my attention that movies in all Superliner lounges will no longer be shown, as well as Pacific Business Class monitors. I have now actually been able to confirm this with Amtrak, below is a copy of the email I recieved from them. I personally believe this is a bad move since now LD trains will have no entertainment, however I do think that Amtrak should focus on creating some kind of Wireless network similar to the previous Railfone technology which is now owned by Verizon.
"Thank you for contacting us. Effective with the October 30, 2006 timetable change, movies will no longer be shown on Amtrak trains, with two exceptions: 1. Cascade trains – operating in the Pacific Northwest 2. Auto Train –operating between Lorton, VA and Sanford, FL Movies will be discontinued in all Superliner lounge cars and in Pacific Surfliner business class cars. We hope this information is helpful."
Posts: 1082 | From: Los Angeles, CA. USA | Registered: Aug 2003
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Likely the reason they survive on the Cascades is that the Talgo equipment is maintained under a "turnkey coupler to coupler contract" with an outside concern (I think it is Talgo themselves), to exclude the A/V equipment at Amtrak's initiative could possibly open the door to having the maintainer choose to exclude items and the concept of "turnkey" maintenance, evidently embraced by the service's sponsoring jurisdiction, would be compromised.
Why they are to survive on Auto Train escapes me. I really think the in season Bennie-Caddy-Lex crowd has little use for such. I can recall a 2001 trip in which I was chatting with a Doctor and his Nurse wife about an array of subjects that hardly included railfanning or medicine and if I recall not even railroads. Well, "it's Showtime" and the party's over.
Quite simply, if one can't make it eighteen hours without an electronic pacifier save a cell phone, best bring your own or rent one of those TiVo devices Amtrak has offered of late.
Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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I'm sorry to see the Cascades keeping the movies. Most of the route has more entertaining scenery than any movie would provide. How about only showing movies in designated cars or only after the sun has set? I think it's just a matter of time before we'll all have our own personal movie players that we can take (or not take) where ever we go.
Posts: 78 | From: Seattle | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
I always found those movies annoying in the Sightseer cars. Usually the volume was too loud and it took away from the atmosphere in the sightseer car, and most of the time I didn t really want to see the featured movie anyway. I always disliked when they would show movies in the middle of the afternoon, especially if there was some nice scenery to watch go by.
I always bring along a DVD player with me to watch at night. With headphones nobody has to hear it except you.
I ve also noticed that there are rental kiosks at several stations where you can rent DVDs and DVD players. Maybe thats another reason the movies will no longer be shown.
posted
I'm glad to see the removal of movies from the lounge cars of LD trains. As much as I disliked them in the lounge cars for the reasons given by others, I really had no objection to their presence if I didn't have to hear them. On the Cascades the videos are shown airline style on monitors in every car, and you have to use headphones for the sound. I guess there won't be any videos in the downstairs theatre of the Pacific Parlour car either. Of course by October perhaps the Parlour cars will be discontinued as well as the videos. Now I wish that Via would discontinue the videos in the Park Car of the Canadian (although I've noticed that the attendant frequently says the devices are out of order) and the lounge cars of the Ocean as well.
Posts: 524 | From: Toronto Ont. Canada | Registered: Mar 2001
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posted
No mention of the Coast Starlight. I suppose this means that the Pacific Parlour downstairs theatre is going the way of the Bijou on Main Street?
In that setting I liked the idea of an on-board movie. It didn't impose it's sound on the main lounge car. Same for movies in Business Class on the Carolinian with headphones. So long as I didn't have to listen to someone else's movie I didn't mind it!
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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Yes, good riddance. I've always avoided the lounge car when a movie was on. The car always gets jammed, no matter what movie is on, and neither the sound system nor the TV's were ever designed for playing movies. I personally have always wanted to enjoy riding over Cajon Pass in the dark on the eastbound Southwest Chief, but a movie is always blasting at that time.
However, I think Amtrak should keep the TV in the lower level of the Superliner lounge, or at one end of the Amfleet lounge. Play cartoons on it throughout the day for kids.
Posts: 286 | From: Knee deep in the retention tank | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by CoastStarlight99: Movies will be discontinued... in Pacific Surfliner business class cars. "
One can only hope they will take out those green seats with video monitors and install those leather seats found in the Horizon Club cars.
Posts: 286 | From: Knee deep in the retention tank | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
Now if they could only connect the leftover video monitors to what I've always wanted: -a closed circuit camera on the front of the locomotive.
Posts: 1572 | From: St. Paul, MN | Registered: Dec 2002
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Mr. TwinStar, believe it or not, that is actually a "been there done that" and on YOUR road to boot!
When the Rock Island operated Talgo equipment circa 1955 on the Peoria Rocket, there was TV camera gear in the nost of the EMD Aerotrain locomotive. The TV monitor was located in the Parlor Car.
Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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Finally !!! A Superliner Lounge sans movies is a joyful thing. The sound level of those televisions could not be controlled (turned down) even in cases where no one in the upstairs of the lounge car wished to watch the movie. I for one applaud the decision. (Whatever the reason.) Now if we could just do something about those horrible cell phones with their musical(?) ringtones. (Along with the owners who seem to think their conversations should be shared with everyone within earshot.)
Dee -
Posts: 460 | From: North Central CT | Registered: May 2004
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Amen to getting rid of cell phones.It's easy enough to go between cars if you must talk. As to movies it never fails to amaze me that some people are totally at a loss when it comes to entertaining themselves. Don't they know about books, newspapers, cards, walkman, and as Mr. Norman said conversation? Dee, you're right. It's nothin short of madning to try to have a converaion in the lounge when no one is watching the movie and it's blaring.
Posts: 1577 | From: virginia | Registered: Jun 2005
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Good riddance to the movies. I couldn't believe when they started them on the western trains when it was still light out. The pictures I wanted to see were out the window!!!
I believe they are going to have those private rentals in more places, for people who must have them. I could see viewing one after dark on a 3-day trip esp. The rentals were $26 for a lot of movie options. . . .
Posts: 2642 | From: upstate New York | Registered: Mar 2004
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The movies I wanted to see were also outside the window! Who needs more than that??!!
Posts: 35 | From: Palatka, FL | Registered: Aug 2005
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Yippee!!! Yeah!! Hooray!!!! No more deafeningly-loud movies in Sightseer Lounge cars! I for one TOTALLY AGREE with that decision -- every time I want to take video out the windows and look at the scenery from the lounge car, there has usually been a loud blaring movie going on, and in most cases during the day, nobody is watching it anyway. I agree with the other posters on this topic!!!
Posts: 2428 | From: Grayling, MI | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Eliminating them from the sightseer lounges is welcome news. But like notelvis I'm wondering about the Parlour car theaters. Maybe they can be converted to a jazz club or something.
Posts: 2649 | From: California's Monterey Peninsula | Registered: Dec 2000
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Mr. Norman, in the 50's my father worked for an Ad company headquartered in Peoria. When I was a kid he once took me with him down there from Minneapolis on the train.
We rode a Rock Island train from CHI that had articulated cars. Where the cars joined together it was very wide open without doors, so you could see all the way down the train inside it when not on a curve. I think it was called the Jet Rocket and was designed by GM. It had a futuristic looking engine that looked much like a giant 50's car with a high jet-like grill/air-intake.
The most vivid memory I have was the loud noise of the china (mostly sugar and cream dispensers) rattling in the dining car from the train's vibration. Since this was a new design, I assume this an unanticipated consequence of lightweight construction.
Could this be the same train with the video from the locomotive that you mentioned? As a kid I may have been overwhelmed by trains in general and not remembered that part.
Posts: 1572 | From: St. Paul, MN | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
I think everyone should write or phone Amtrak to praise the demise of the lounge movies. People call up to complain, and I do too, but when someone does something good, they often don't hear about it--so I now make it a policy to call up with a little praise too!
Posts: 2642 | From: upstate New York | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Suffice to say, this topic is being actively discussed at all three "majors" (here, Trainorders, Railroad Net). There is really only ONE posting anywhere I have reviewed (@TO) that has set forth with maturity and respect a case in favor of the moview.
Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Without drawing us too far off-topic, Mr. Twin Star, Rock Island had two lightweight trains. One was a General Motors non-articulated Aerotrain and the other was the articulated Talgo. Both were pulled by the same "futuristic" locomotive.
But you noted the excessive vibration; so did many others and let's admit it the Rock's track was never the best - anywhere. Also that is a safe reason why the two trains ended up in Chi-Joliet commuter service.
I never got to ride a Talgo or Aerotrain in the US; only a Talgo in Spain from Bilbao to Madrid with which I was not overly impressed.
quote:Originally posted by Mr. Toy: ...I'm wondering about the Parlour car theaters. Maybe they can be converted to a jazz club or something...
Mr. Toy, Mr. Toy. What are we going to do with you?
Jazz is so-oo yesterday. Ancient history. Ain't cool no more. Today--the here and now and so "in"--it's bagpipes. Yes, pipe and drum bands.
Close your eyes. Put your feet up. Imagine this. The Los Angeles Scots Pipe & Drum Band run through their entire repertoire from LAX to SEA in the Parlour Theater. No breaks (it's a large band, so they can swap in players as needed). Maybe put a small ensemble of bagpipers upstairs where the Parlour attendants used to be. Give it that stereo effect--10 or so downstairs in harmony with 4 or 5 upstairs.
Wow--can you just imagine how great that would be. Only those "cool" passengers "in to" pipe and drum music would stay long in the Parlour. The old fogies and uncultured young would scurry back to their rooms. You would be assured those remaining in the Parlour were cool and cultured, and worthy of sharing your presence. Those comfy lounge chairs in the Parlour would become more available (jeez, dear, there's hardly anyone here! Ain't it great. Uh? Uh? I SAID, JEEZ DEAR, THERE'S HARDLY ANYONE....). The cheese, the wine--hey, help yourself (no waiting for that low-life time-consuming jerk who plods through his personal IQ-challenging system of assembling his cracker and cheese sandwich). Don't want to set with strangers in the diner?--no problem (only those people in the Parlour who know sign language will "hear" their reservation called).
Wow--so cool, and so "in." Sure, sure--there may be some complaints and legal filings from some whiney passengers claiming permanent hearing losses. But Amtrak could require waivers be signed by all first class passengers. And Amtrak could have Audiologists available to test and counsel passengers at every "smoke" stop to show they "care" (usually works as a defense in the Ninth Circuit of the Federal Court system).
Yeh, Mr. Toy, think B-a-g-p-i-p-e. Pipes in the Parlour. So very cool.
Posts: 445 | Registered: May 2002
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Yes I am all for that. I hated the loud old movies. For one the movies did not interest me as I could rent it anytime but I could not see the scenery everyday. For another reason I did not dish out $200 dollars just to have my trip wrecked with kids making noise during the films. I want to enjoy the scenery in peace not with a movie. If I want a movie I can buy a portable DVD player and get Netflix. On the airplanes movies are fine since you plug into the system thus not bothering those who don't want to see it.
So all in all good job Amtrak for making the train my #1 choice of travel.
Posts: 259 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Zephyr, I once went down to NYC for a police function of some kind on the Circle Line, the boat that goes around Manhattan. The entertainment was a fine bagpipe band. I learned that a group of bagpipes can only be appreciated by the eardrums when outdoors. TRUST ME, you do not want it on the train.
I think jazz is fine, as long as it is instrumental. Or a sound system where different CDs could be played at different times would be nice. After dark, it would be fun sometimes to have singalongs where people could bring their own instruments and join in--singing TRAIN SONGS, for example, or songs about the areas the train are passing through. They could even have handouts of the words. . . .
Posts: 2642 | From: upstate New York | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Zephyr has surely offered a 'tongue-in-cheek' suggestion. Surely he knows that bagpipes played well are a wondrous thing. I have enjoyed them as part of the ensemble with Canadian and British Military bands as well as on parade in a number of cities.
Being an instrumentalist and one-time US Army Bandsman (in younger and skinnier days), I have even performed combined concerts with bagpipe units. These were wildly popular events going back twenty-five years and more. Wildly popular outdoors, in large concert halls, and once even in a large basketball arena.
Having said that, I think the idea of having a bagpiper or two performing aboard the Coast Starlight from Los Angeles to Seattle would, after the novelty wears off ten minutes into the trip, be something to remember about as fondly as I think of a recent root canal!!!!!
I like the after-hours train song sing along idea myself!
Oh.....and Mr. Norman - I am trying my best to be absolutely serious and mature when I say that I did enjoy having movies in the afternoon aboard the business class car on the Carolinian. Due to train congestion, the forward progress at that time of day between Rocky Mount and Richmond was usually so painfully slow that the movies were a welcome diversion to looking at that same shed outside your window while you sat waitng for freight trains (and other late Amtrak trains) for 20-30 minutes (or more) at a time.
OK......that's the best I can do. I'm sorry that it's more of another anti-CSX salvo than a defense of on-board movies. Fact is, I won't really miss them much at all.
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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Sojourner, your idea made me remember a trip on the Capital in , I think , the '80s, Our roomette had been made up for night but it was early and we weren't ready for bed. So we wandered down to the lounge. There was a small piano which may have been a keyboard. A young man was playing along with a guitarist. A bunch of college student were gathered around and every one was singing. Some of the people joined in others like us sat back and enjoyed. I didn't get roudy. It was just fun. We stayed a long time and when we finally left it was still going strong. What a great way to spend an evening!!!
Posts: 1577 | From: virginia | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
When Notelvis mentioned enjoying movies while the train was standing still, it gave me an idea. Only show movies when the trains are not moving and late. Then show films like Titanic or Speed or Airplane that will make everyone remember it could be worse on other modes.
As for bagpipes, I agree they are best enjoyed outdoors. Perhaps on an open flatcar with a seating area accessable from inside the train. I would be willing to pay extra for this service and it would certainly give Amtrak needed positive publicity. However, goggles or even a helmet might be required. Just picture it.
Thank you Mr. Norman for the link to the Jet Rocket. That is indeed the locomotive I remember. I think I might even go to Green Bay to see it.
Posts: 1572 | From: St. Paul, MN | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
Yes! Why didn't I think of it myself? Bagpipes would be IDEAL. But I also think they should be on a flatcar, so that people stopped at rail crossings could enjoy the sound, too. Think how the doppler effect would enhance the listening enjoyment of those on the ground. People would come for miles around just to hear the "Number 5 Pipers" pass through town. This in turn would increase popular suppport for Amtrak and our problems would be solved.
Posts: 2649 | From: California's Monterey Peninsula | Registered: Dec 2000
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quote:Originally posted by TwinStarRocket: Now if they could only connect the leftover video monitors to what I've always wanted: -a closed circuit camera on the front of the locomotive.
One just over each door as you go car to car and in the cafe area would be nice. I'd love to get a peek at what's just ahead on the tracks.
Posts: 218 | Registered: Apr 2003
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........or we could make the lower level of the Pacific Parlour Car into a.....DISCO CLUB!!!!!!
Posts: 2428 | From: Grayling, MI | Registered: Mar 2002
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Mr. Rocket. Mr. Toy. You want to put those bagpipers on an open flatcar? Are you serious? Think winter. Think snow. Think a bunch of guys in skirts on a flatcar. So very, very cruel.
And as for you, Mr. Rich...Disco? Disco!...Oh, my, when will the cruelty end?
Posts: 445 | Registered: May 2002
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Just to clarify the setting of the trip described in your September 23 post, I'm assuming you're talking about the old single-level Amtrak Capitol Limited, since that train was not converted to the double-deck Superliner equipment until 1994, and in any case the built-in electric pianos that originally existed on the lower level of the Superliner lounge cars had all been eliminated by, if I recall correctly, the mid eighties. (Or could it be that you're thinking of an early-eighties trip on some other train, one that was Superliner-equipped at the time?)
If you're in fact remembering a trip on the Capitol Limited, I wonder if perhaps on that trip they were using one of the piano-equipped "Le Pub" lounge cars normally used (along with the services of a professional pianist) on the Montrealer? The Montrealer ran from Washington to Montreal, so it would have been normal for Amtrak to have one or more "Le Pub" cars readily available to substitute on the Capitol.
When you say "[o]ur roomette had been made up for the night", I think what you really mean is "[o]ur bedroom had been made up for the night". During its single-level period (1981-1994), the Amtrak Capitol Limited used "10-6" sleeping cars, a type of car manufactured in the early postwar period that contained ten roomettes (i.e., "roomettes" in the original, correct sense of the term) and six bedrooms. Those true roomettes were one-person accommodations containing a wide armchair, a big window, a wide (but not two-person) bed that folded down from the wall, and a sink, toilet, and mirror. The bed had to be folded up into the wall in order to use the toilet. The bedrooms in the 10-6 sleepers, on the other hand, were two-person accommodations that were largely similar to the bedrooms in Superliner or Viewliner sleeping cars today. So when you say "[o]ur roomette [sic] had been made up", you're almost certainly referring to a bedroom (unless you had somehow contrived to sneak a second person into a roomette--not a comfortable exercise, if you could get away with it at all).
Unfortunately, the train-ignorant slobs at Amtrak recently decided to rename the Superliner and Viewliner Economy Bedrooms "Roomettes", even though those are two-person accommodations with no particular resemblance to an actual roomette. This is rather as if some car manufacturer were to decide to start calling four-door sedans "coupes", simply because they liked the sound of the name "coupe". Yes, I recognize that some new name conveying the smallness of the accommodation might have been needed; but not "roomette"--that name was already taken. When I first heard Amtrak's announcement of its fiat of terminological change, my first reaction was that the change would give rise to endless, needless confusion, and your posting--which I don't mean to be giving you a hard time about, trainlady; it's Amtrak I want to give a hard time--is evidence that I was right.
Posts: 86 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
You are right about the train. It was the old single level. It is possible that it was one of the lounges of which you speak. But my recollection is tht it was anordinary lounge car. As to the roomette the confusion is easily explained. I simply left off the s. In other words we each had a roomette (across the hall from each other)There are times when my brain gets ahead of my typing.
Posts: 1577 | From: virginia | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by train lady: There are times when my brain gets ahead of my typing.
So that is what is happening to me !! To think I had been blaming senior fingers guided by a senior mind. Your explanation train lady sounds much better.
Unfortunate for me -- I have never run into any impromptu music/musicians in the lounge car. I am sure it must have added to the trip.
Dee
Posts: 460 | From: North Central CT | Registered: May 2004
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posted
And you never know if some amateur musician on the train might become a star. Pop musician Jewel wrote her first hit "Who Will Save Your Soul" on the Southwest Chief after graduating from High School in the mid-90's. It went on to become the longest running hit ever in the top 100 and led to a multi-platinum selling album. And now you can pay $70-100 to hear her sing it outside the Amtrak lounge car.
Posts: 1572 | From: St. Paul, MN | Registered: Dec 2002
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quote:Originally posted by RRRICH: ........or we could make the lower level of the Pacific Parlour Car into a.....DISCO CLUB!!!!!!
Well, if it were a Superliner I, then at least you wouldn't need to change the decor... just put up a mirrorball, put some coloured plastic over the windows, and hey presto! the passing towns provide the lights!
Showing movies while stopped seems a good idea. I guess one solution to the loud music would be to have at-seat headphone sockets (like on planes) but that would obviously cost a lot to wire the things up.
The City of New Orleans had (appropriately) a jazz band on it for a period of time. My experience would have been in late summer 1997 I think. Nice, but they did play late - and the coach car was right behind, so there was no chance of sleep until they packed up at around 11pm I believe. In fact, that was my best Amtrak trip ever - excellent food, a local guide with some wildlife (some dead, some crawling), and even some games in the lounge car, organised by the crew.
Geoff M.
-------------------- Geoff M. Posts: 2426 | From: Apple Valley, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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If you want to see a glimpse of life in one of those Superliner I lounge cars before the electric pianos were removed, rent the 1982 film Best Friends, starring Burt Reynolds and Goldie Hawn. In the film, the main characters Richard and Paula (played by Reynolds and Hawn) begin their honeymoon with an Amtrak trip; in one scene, while the couple are relaxing on the lower level of the lounge car, Richard mock-strangles a young boy who's been banging clumsily and lengthily on the electric piano.
Posts: 86 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Dee, it was super. You are fine. You see the older we get the smarter until it gets to the point where our minds are zooming ahead of fingers and sometimes mouth. That's my theory and I am sticking with it. Many of my friends agree. TL
Posts: 1577 | From: virginia | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
I thought, a while back, that a number of trains were thinking about a Wi-Fi system, aboard, which could potentially have TV and radio available for passengers. The Capital Corridors, from what I can remember, along with some of the Eastern Corridor trains were supposedly interested. I haven't heard anything, recently.
On travelling with the Cascades, this summer, I do agree that no movie will not be much of a loss. The one thing I did like, however, were the messages which flashed on the screen whenever we came to a town or interesting landmark. It had a tracer to show the complete route and how far along we were. Kind of neat.
Posts: 1909 | From: Santa Rosa | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
This whole thread reminds me of a train trip I took many years ago, where I was sitting in a lounge car (I believe it was a Superliner, but I don't remember what train it was), and a little girl was asking her mother if she could swim in the swimming pool. The mother told the little one that there was no swimming pool on the train, but the little girl replied, with all the sincerity you could expect from a child her age, that the conductor or a crew person had told her that there was a swimming pool on the upper level of the train!! The little girl was, needless to say, quite disappointed!!
Posts: 2428 | From: Grayling, MI | Registered: Mar 2002
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