Originally Posted by
bitburgr
Interesting that they only went half way with this.
Alas, I'm not really surprised at all. It is actually more the norm for Amtrak to do that; no doubt at least in part driven by the ever constant battle for funding from the Fed.
As an example, several years ago Amtrak refurbished almost the entire Superliner ! sleeper fleet. Except that some cars got more in the way of cosmetic refurbishment than did other cars. The first cars through the program didn't get as much work done as the latter cars going through the program. Even worse is the fact that everything Amtrak did was strictly cosmetic. That which we the passenger see.
Yet everything that helps to keep us comfortable is still original and prone to failure. Which is to say that they didn't update the electrical systems in the cars, didn't update the AC/heating systems in the cars, didn't update the vacuum system that allows the toilets to flush; and so on.