WeekendTraveler

Before my state started requiring a 2-week quarantine for people coming from out of state, I took a few trips on the Crescent, in a sleeping car.

Private rooms with doors seem to be a pretty ideal way to travel during the pandemic, and Amtrak should be able to generate a good amount of interest in sleeping car space from new customers. I used to be a 60,000+ mile/year flyer, but from now on, I'm certainly taking Amtrak in a sleeping car whenever possible (unless I just can't take Flexible Dining anymore).

So why isn't Amtrak using every single sleeping car that it has and rushing out Viewliner II sleeping cars and marketing them heavily? A Crescent with 4 or 6 sleeping cars, even at discounted rates, is surely better than a short Crescent.

By not doing so, isn't Amtrak missing an opportunity to win new business (and keep its revenues up)?

Often1

Query whether there's a market for that many given the fares (accommodation fees) which need to be charged.

WeekendTraveler

Not at the sky-high pre-Covid fares, but (1) sleeping car space has not been marketed much at all even though private rooms are surely now very desirable, so some marketing could surely increase traffic and (2) perhaps discounted space could be sold--better than no ticket sales at all.

schriste

This may be true, but it is not a slam dunk true. Just like an airplane the air is partially recirculated, but unlike an airplane the air is not run through HEPA filters. This coupled with the fact that you might be in your room for 2 days means you have a very long period of exposure. I'm not saying any of this is a problem, it may very well turn out to be one of the best options available... problem is there is no real reliable data out there to know for sure. As with all things virus related... obviously your risk tolerance will play into this... and if you are 22 and in good health (well, you probably are not an Amtrak sleeping car customer then ) any risk would be super low.

hi55us

I agree, surprised they aren't running all of the corridor trains with sleeping cars that are sitting on the sidelines. Really a mistake and huge revenue loss on Amtrak's part.

steve64

The majority of the air on today's airliners is fresh, not recirculated.
The air that is recirculated is passed thru a HEPA filter (even long before covid-19), I don't think the fresh air is filtered (nor do I think it needs to be)..
In addition, the flow of cabin air is specifically designed to be primarily from top of cabin towards the bottom.

Back to the post you were responding to, I wonder if the air in a given sleeper room is recirculated from that room only ? I don't know, but suspect it's recirculated from the entire sleeper car. Is a private room really that protected ??

downinit

In recent trips on Coast Starlight and Empire Builder, the sleepers seemed to be 100% booked up. They could easily add a few more cars to space out the passengers, but their main goal is cost cutting. The bottom line is that fewer cars = less fuel burned and lower maintenance costs.