posted
It has been decided that the Parlour Cars will STAY!!! Kumant really liked the Starlight and is receptive to an upgrade if the upgrades can pay for themselves. So, the Parlour Cars will remain but will be unstaffed and unadvertised for now. They will run when one is available for service. There will be no more free non-alcoholic beverages but the morning pastries and wine tasting will remain. The main focus of the pro Parlour faction in Amtrak was to hold on to the cars because they know that once they are gone they would be sold immediately. You can always bring back the staffing but you can not bring back the car once it is gone. The idea is to preserve as much of the amenities as possible at the lowest cost. The dining car waiter will take care of the morning pastry service out of L.A. and Seattle. After that, it will be the responsibility of the sleeping car attendants to keep the car clean and do the wine tasting.
There are 4 Parlour Cars in L.A. The fifth one, 39973, was vandalized in Klamath Falls last year (not Portland like some posts have said) and was sent to Beach Grove. The powers that be at Beach Grove were under the impression that the Parlour Cars were coming off, even tho that was never official, so they stripped and cannibalized the car. It will take about $300,000 to put the car back together. No decision has been made on this.
It is pretty unanimous that the Starlight should be brought back to Premier status. One idea is to offer a Premier service 3 days a week, the other 4 days being red, white and blue service (more on this later). This way the remaining Parlour Cars would be able to cover the service. There would be 2 of the new diner lounges, one of which would be first class with china and return to first class meals (no specifics on if that means bringing back the kitchen crew). The other would be mainly take out as part of red white and blue service. Amenities for the sleeping car passengers would return. Since this would have to pay for itself, debate is now going on what to charge; everything from modest increase to sky high fares.
Amtrak is currently assigning the new service managers to the Starlight on a daily basis to improve existing service and monitor the Parlour cars.
posted
Good for Kumant. Either offer ecomomy (red, white, blue) - hopefully with lower fares, or premier service with passengers paying a premium for it. Much better than the mediocre service all the time that we now have.
Great that the parlour cars are saved - now how about getting something like it in the east!
Posts: 2397 | From: Camden, SC | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
Room Service - what is the source of your info that the parlour cars are staying? You had better be careful about making such statements on this forum -- that could get you in trouble!! If the parlour cars are staying, that is great!! I assume they will still be available for 1st class passengers only, but if they are unstaffed, how will that be enforced?
Posts: 2428 | From: Grayling, MI | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I saw that Parlor Car you were talking about when I took a tour of the Beech Grove facility last weekend in Indiana. I even got a picture of it sitting VERY LONELY outside.
www.rtabern.com (enter username/password it gives you, then click on the travel link)
I hope they keep them. I'm going on the CS in May between EMY and SEA.
Posts: 100 | From: Milwaukee, WI | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Room Service - what is the source of your info that the parlour cars are staying? You had better be careful about making such statements on this forum
RRRRRRRRRICH - a link to my source is at the bottom of my post. You had better be careful about reading posts more fully on this forum. Posts: 218 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
room service --- that source link does not work. Bad request message is all I get. --- Dee
Posts: 460 | From: North Central CT | Registered: May 2004
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posted
The link does not work for me either, but the information is from Trainorders, and was written by an Amtrak employee.
Posts: 1082 | From: Los Angeles, CA. USA | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:Originally posted by CoastStarlight99: The link does not work for me either, but the information is from Trainorders, and was written by an Amtrak employee.
It sounds like good news to me. But I'm wary of anything that comes from Amtrak employees. The employee rumor mill is chock full of partial truths and downright falsehoods. I'm not even sure the original rumor that parlour cars were going away was actually true.
Posts: 2649 | From: California's Monterey Peninsula | Registered: Dec 2000
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posted
Sorry, Room Service -- I didn't see your link originally.
How reliable a source is trainorders.com? I do not read that forum, and am not familiar with it. Again, if the parlour cars are staying, that is great news! I just don't want us to get into a situation like we were in earlier this year where a poster screamed to us up and down for weeks and weeks and weeks that half the AMTRAK trains were about to get "180-day notices" (that particular poster has not been heard from in this forum since then!!)
Nothing personal, Room Service.... I was just curious.
Posts: 2428 | From: Grayling, MI | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
While trainorders has some knowledable people, Mr. Rich, all too much of their content is dirercted towards seeing who can outinsult who.
Further they have little respect for copyright laws. There is simply too much pasting of copyrighted material - some of which is only available by subscription.
Ostensibly, the site is moderated, but you couldn't prove it by me.
And lastly, they want you to "pay up' to participate ($27yr), you can read though without subscribing.
But other than that, it's a great site.
Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Gilbert B Norman: While trainorders has some knowledable people, Mr. Rich, all too much of their content is dirercted towards seeing who can outinsult who.
Further they have little respect for copyright laws. There is simply too much pasting of copyrighted material - some of which is only available by subscription.
Ostensibly, the site is moderated, but you couldn't prove it by me.
And lastly, they want you to "pay up' to participate ($27yr), you can read though without subscribing.
But other than that, it's a great site.
I find your negative comments about trainorders.com a mite strange, GBN, as you are a very active member with well over 600 posts in the past year. Of course, TO is far from perfect, as are all of these forums. There are all manner of opinions, many well thought out, others better left uncharacterized. That is true of the information/misinformation spectrum also.
The forum IS moderated, of course, and I've seen a number of posts removed for various reasons in the short time I've been a member of TO. TO, thank goodness, isn't over-moderated such as one Amtrak forum that will go nameless here. On that particular one, the moderators seem to see it as their duty to correct(?), debate, or belittle a lot of what is posted, often in rude and condescending language. Give me the free-flowing style of TO anytime.
Should any railforum members wish to give trainorders a try, one doesn't have to plunk down $29 for a year. There are also 3-month ($9) and 6-month ($16) memberships.
Posts: 73 | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
I agree with Mr. Norman. On a recent Diner?Lounge thread at Trainorders, I posted a link to Railform regarding a thread here at RailForum. The moderator deleted my post. I PMed him, and was told that links to other Railroad forums are "not allowed". Trainorders does though have good information that sometimes misses other websites.
Anton
Posts: 1082 | From: Los Angeles, CA. USA | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Gilbert B Norman: While trainorders has some knowledable people, Mr. Rich, all too much of their content is dirercted towards seeing who can outinsult who.
Oh give me a break Norman! I don't want to see your dumb-butt bull crap again!
(...p.s. I would have loved to see Mr. P.A. say that on RR.net...or better yet, to your face )
Posts: 286 | From: Knee deep in the retention tank | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Gilbert B Norman: While trainorders has some knowledable people, Mr. Rich, all too much of their content is dirercted towards seeing who can outinsult who.
Oh give me a break Norman! I don't want to see your dumb-butt bull crap again!
(...p.s. I would have loved to see Mr. P.A. say that on RR.net...or better yet, to your face )
To quote Mr. P.A., I'm not holdin my breath on that one!
Posts: 73 | Registered: Aug 2006
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