 |
Re: Hutch, if that's really you... a bar car rebuilt, and an Alco PA's to pull it...
Author: BOB2
Date: 12-13-2019 - 14:50
Hutch, if you're really the Alco Haulic... Which would make perfect sense to me...
Absolutely a bar car, from the rebuilt ATSF bi-levels is a must. And for you, I want to rebuild them Mexican Alco's, paint them in Warbonnet, and maybe we'll change the name, and call San Joaquin, the Golden Gate. And, since it's California, maybe they could restore a "smoking lounge{, too, and call it a "reefer". Tourists and the folks I see at LAUPT, mostly using Megabus, will switch to the Coast Daylight for that "amenity".
When I heard the scheme, back a few years now, to buy up the old ATSF Bi-levels, rebuild them, and lease them back to the States, I confess I though that might make good sense, and could "jump start" service on things like the forever promised Coast Daylight, or Salinas extension.
I had reason to believe that a good rebuild might be able to get another 12-15 years of service life out of the ones worth rebuilding. And, that if that could be done at a reasonable cost, it might have a good "business case". But, I also heard (possibly even here on AP???), but never recall having confirmed, that they found more "age-wear" problems with some of these cars than they had anticipated. And, these folks who bought the cars might have expected a more sensible rail passenger policy which might make use the cars, which hasn't materialized out of the vacuous void of our political wasteland, since they acqquired these cars, either.
And, yes, tourist oriented and "cruise ship: luxury train service would certainly have a market up the Coast. Even the Starlight and LOSSAN benefit now from some of that. But, I've noticed an almost complete lack of any real support at Amtrak national, or from Caltrans, in regard to additional "add on" paying cars to provide additional financial support for the proposals regarding the Coast Daylight.
One thing I will say about Mega bus (although many years with the SP, deadheading on the "Dog" cured me of long distance bus travel) is that they do seem to understand a lot of what Anderson doesn't seem to get....
Alas, while these "here and now" opportunities are ignored, we continue to spend like a "drunken sailor" (in that big "bar car" of CA politics...) on the "runaway money train"... And, at the current rate of CAHSRA progress and expenditures, we should have "spent out" the entire current projected cost, and have it completed by about 2096, by at least one cynically pessimistic estimate I've seen.
Absolutely a bar car, from the rebuilt ATSF bi-levels is a must. And for you, I want to rebuild them Mexican Alco's, paint them in Warbonnet, and maybe we'll change the name, and call San Joaquin, the Golden Gate. And, since it's California, maybe they could restore a "smoking lounge{, too, and call it a "reefer". Tourists and the folks I see at LAUPT, mostly using Megabus, will switch to the Coast Daylight for that "amenity".
When I heard the scheme, back a few years now, to buy up the old ATSF Bi-levels, rebuild them, and lease them back to the States, I confess I though that might make good sense, and could "jump start" service on things like the forever promised Coast Daylight, or Salinas extension.
I had reason to believe that a good rebuild might be able to get another 12-15 years of service life out of the ones worth rebuilding. And, that if that could be done at a reasonable cost, it might have a good "business case". But, I also heard (possibly even here on AP???), but never recall having confirmed, that they found more "age-wear" problems with some of these cars than they had anticipated. And, these folks who bought the cars might have expected a more sensible rail passenger policy which might make use the cars, which hasn't materialized out of the vacuous void of our political wasteland, since they acqquired these cars, either.
And, yes, tourist oriented and "cruise ship: luxury train service would certainly have a market up the Coast. Even the Starlight and LOSSAN benefit now from some of that. But, I've noticed an almost complete lack of any real support at Amtrak national, or from Caltrans, in regard to additional "add on" paying cars to provide additional financial support for the proposals regarding the Coast Daylight.
One thing I will say about Mega bus (although many years with the SP, deadheading on the "Dog" cured me of long distance bus travel) is that they do seem to understand a lot of what Anderson doesn't seem to get....
Alas, while these "here and now" opportunities are ignored, we continue to spend like a "drunken sailor" (in that big "bar car" of CA politics...) on the "runaway money train"... And, at the current rate of CAHSRA progress and expenditures, we should have "spent out" the entire current projected cost, and have it completed by about 2096, by at least one cynically pessimistic estimate I've seen.
