Happening Now
Hotline #665-A
April 23, 1991
Bombardier and Amtrak, at long last yesterday, announced an order for 140 Superliners. For $350 million -- or about $2.5 million apiece -- Amtrak will get six deluxe sleepers for the Auto Train, 49 standard sleepers, 38 coaches, 20 diners, 15 lounges, and 12 transition dorms, plus an option to purchase 39 more cars at the same unit price. The cars are patterned after the original Pullman Standard Superliners delivered between 1979 and 1981, for which Bombardier holds all patents. Amtrak still has 282 of them. The new cars will all have full-retention toilets, as required by law. They will be delivered between July 1993 and January 1996 for the Auto Train, Capitol Limited, and City of New Orleans, and for increasing capacity on western trains.
Earlier, Amtrak had indicated that any new service, such as to Oklahoma, would have to wait for cars from the contract option. Amtrak has not said whether the Cardinal and Sunset Limited can be made daily on this order. Amtrak does plan to order single-level Viewliners in 1992.
"The National Association of Railroad Passengers has done yeoman work over the years and in fact if it weren’t for NARP, I'd be surprised if Amtrak were still in possession of as a large a network as they have. So they've done good work, they're very good on the factual case."
Robert Gallamore, Director of Transportation Center at Northwestern University and former Federal Railroad Administration official, Director of Transportation Center at Northwestern University
November 17, 2005, on The Leonard Lopate Show (with guest host Chris Bannon), WNYC New York.
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