#18: Amtrak's Next Generation Trains Look Awesome
A leaked RFP for Amtrak's long-distance fleet has some juicy details. These are the takeaways...
Amtrak is replacing their long-distance trains, and the plans are exciting.
In December 2023, Amtrak released an RFP (Request for Proposal) to potential manufacturers of the new equipment. Through FOIA requests, the RFP was posted a few months ago on twitter and reddit. I read the 1,000+ pages so you don’t have to 🤓.
Let’s get one thing out of the way: I’m a train nerd and Amtrak fan.
But… this RFP is broadly interesting for two reasons:
Leading-edge passenger experience - like Austria’s Nightjet (video below👇), Amtrak is taking this opportunity to update the overnight rail experience. The RFP explains what it will look like.
A real-life transportation spec - this is a window into how transportation projects happen. If you’re interested in the design of planes, trains, or ships, read on…
Nightjet introduced new sleeper trains in 2022. The sleeper compartments are a jump in passenger comfort in Europe. Unlike Amtrak, Nightjet trains don’t have public areas since they’re mostly used on ~12-hour overnight trips.
Amtrak is upgrading the first-class experience
With these new trains, Amtrak is improving sleeper compartments and public areas for premium passengers while offering a good-enough experience in coach.
Why?
Jarrett Walker puts it best: Amtrak has always faced a tension…
between ridership goals — which require focusing on its best markets — and coverage goals — which require covering the entire country.
[…]
Amtrak’s long-haul trains have two roles: they are marketed as a scenic and relaxing way to travel between cities if you’re not in a hurry, but people also use them for access to towns along the way.[…] These services do as well as they do only because they combine both markets , so each kind of user depends on the other for the total package to make sense.
If you accept Amtrak must operate long-distance routes, they’d be wise to lean into the “land cruise” experience for premium passengers. There’s clearly a willingness to pay for premium rail experiences - just look at the top prices on The Canadian or Belmond - and higher revenues can reduce the subsidies these trains require.
Higher-quality and more varied sleeping compartments
Sleepers will have several cabin categories, most of them new:
SoloSuites, a category below today’s existing “roomettes”, which allow solo passengers to travel in privacy without paying for two beds. To save space, they use footwells similar to lie-flat business class airline seats.
Roomettes, the two-passengers economy compartments, will continue to be offered. These are Amtrak’s most popular and economical sleeper accommodation today.
Club Bedrooms will replace today’s “Bedroom” category. Like the Bedrooms, they feature an en-suite bathroom/shower. Unlike today’s Bedrooms, they can accommodate up to 4 people. They feature two couches that convert to two 48”-wide beds. It will be tight for a family of four and lux for a couple.
Premium Bedrooms are the most spacious accommodation, taking advantage of the whole 10’ width of the train. They feature separate queen bed two seats, a writing desk, windows on both sides, and a separated shower and bathroom.
Accessible twin, double, and premium compartments will have larger doors and bathrooms, and they’ll match the luxury level of the roomette, club, and premium accomodations.
Layouts, materials, and lighting look great 👇
New public areas & service concepts
For the first time, sleeper passengers will have their own First Class Lounge.1 During the day, the lounge will serve coffee and snacks and passengers will be able to socialize in varied seating arrangements. In the evening, a bartender will serve wine, beer, and cocktails. Here’s an excerpt from the RFP:
The bar is the social epicenter of the train for First Class Passengers […]
The bar must convey the ambiance and aesthetics that are synonymous of a premium first-class service.
In addition to the first-class lounge, there are two other public areas:
The dining car, which serves seated meals similar to Amtrak’s current dining cars. On current trains, multi-course meals are included for sleeper passengers and extra-cost for coach passengers, if there’s space.
A cafe car, which serves snacks, drinks, and pre-made meals to all passengers. When trains are split or when Amtrak decides to cut costs on some routes, these will take the place of the full dining cars.
One thing to note: while first-class (sleeper) passengers gain a private lounge, coach passengers lose one. On today’s long-distance trains, coach and sleeper passengers share the Sightseer Lounge car (with a cafe downstairs). The lounge is very popular - just look at those windows. I often have trouble finding a seat.
With the new design, Amtrak is reallocating lounge space to sleeper passengers, an attempt (I’m guessing) to increase the value of First Class. Coach passengers will grumble, but I doubt this will reduce demand for Amtrak’s low-priced coach seats. Instead, it may incentivize more passengers to upgrade.
Beyond these three food service areas - the diner, the cafe, and the first-class lounge - Amtrak will also add in-room and at-seat dining. Meals will be loaded into airline-style carts for distribution throughout the train, and the dining car will be fitted with a lift to bring the carts down to the kitchen.
Skylight Windows
One of the best design features of Amtrak’s Superliners are the skylight windows in Sightseer Lounges. In the RFP, Amtrak asks for the option to put these skylight windows in almost every part of the train. The upper level of coaches, dining cars, lounges, and solo suites would get these skylight windows, if Amtrak exercises the option. Aside from solo suites, sleeper compartments would not get skylights since they’d be covered by upper berths. I hope Amtrak exercises this option, at least in all the public areas.
If you’re wondering how you’d sleep with those skylight windows at your seat, Amtrak has specified two layers of electronically-controlled window shades - a sun shade and blackout blinds.
Two Tiers of Coach
With these new trains, Amtrak is introducing a distinction between standard coach, with 2x2 seating and 43” of seat pitch, and premium coach, with 48” of seat pitch and 2x1 seating. Standard coach will certainly be a downgrade from today’s Superliner coach cars, which have a riculously-generous 50” seat pitch. Premium coach could be better than today if the seats are better designed for sleeping.
Digital Improvements
I’m impressed with this part of the RFP. Amtrak’s done their best to request a modern, future-proof system. A few highlights:
Public areas will have plentiful digital signage that helps passengers navigate. Signs will detect the train’s arrangement and update automatically.
Every seat row and every compartment will have a screen connected to the reservation system. The screen will automatically display if a place is reserved and to which cities (no more paper slips 🎫).
Sleeper compartments will have RFID locks, similar to modern hotel rooms.
Capability to show live location, next stop, and information about the passing scenery.
No in-seat or in-compartment entertainment, aside from the Premium Bedrooms, which will have a larger 43” screen. I assume that’s supposed to be a TV.
Amtrak is sticking with 2-level cars
Among train nerds, there was speculation that Amtrak would replace Superliners (2-level trains) with single-level cars. Taller trains can’t operate in parts of the east coast due to clearance issues, so there is an argument for standardizing around equioment that can travel throughout North America. Single-level trains also have an advantage around accessibility - there’s no need for on-train elevators, which add complexity and take up space.
Amtrak seems to have decided that they’ll keep the divided (single-level) Eastern Fleet and (bi-level) Western Fleet. There are four reasons to continue with bi-level trains:
Higher capacity: bi-level cars have ~50% more floor space than single-level cars.
Better views: windows on the upper-level sit a few feet higher. This is beneficial on scenic long-distance routes in the American West.
Low-floor boarding: most western train stations have low platforms or no platforms at all. Two-level cars have lower doors.
Interoperability with Superliners: the RFP doesn’t specify this, but I’d guess that it will be possible to couple Superliners to the ends of these new trains (though not in the middle, due to the semi-permanent coupling. More on that below…).
Accessibility is a major driver of this design
The current Superliners were designed in the late 1970s, and they reflect accessibility requirements of that era. Wheelchair users are confined to the lower level of their coach or sleeper car. They can’t move through the train, so food must be delivered to their seat or compartment.
The new trains allows wheelchair users to access the upper level on a lift. Once they’re on the upper deck, they can access all public areas via 32-inch aisles and 40-inch open gangways between cars.
Trains will have an accessible core made up of 5 cars: a priority coach (with lift), cafe, dining car, first-class lounge, and priority sleeper (with lift). Wheelchair users will board the train at the priority sleeper or priority coach, take the lift upstairs, and then navigate the core of the train on the upper level. Non-accessible coaches and sleepers can be added to each end of the train.
These wide walkways and open gangways will make the core more spacious, appealing, and easier to navigate for all passengers (hello universal design).
Universal accessibility does require lower density in the core. Check out this comparison of three different coach types. While the “end coaches,” which are outside the accessible core, seat 98 passengers, accessible cars seat between 46 and 75, depending on the arrangement. The additional space is needed for wider walkways, larger bathrooms, wheelchair turning circles, and re-arranged electrical & storage space.
A few technical details caught my attention
Range - Amtrak specifies 72 hours of continuous use. Most critical systems can do more. Water is extremely heavy, but these trains will carry enough for 6 days of continuous use, aside from the food-service cars, which will be topped up en route. Toilets can go 5 days between service cycles.
Gray water - used water from showers, sinks, and food service will be retained and re-used to flush toilets. This part of the spec is a bit vague, so I assume that overflow will still be dumped on the tracks. I’m curious how much gray water will be retained. Black water (toilet waste) is always stored and removed at stations.
Open Gangways - these trains will be semi-permanently coupled, allowing them to have open gangways! That will make passing between cars much more pleasant.
Semi-permanent coupling - most Amtrak trains have independent train cars, which are easily separated. The downside: passing between cars is clunky (and not accessible). Permanent coupling allows much more comfortable and accessible connections. Downside: if something breaks on a single car, the whole train is taken out of service. Amtrak is asking for a compromise - the RFP requires trains to be reconfigurable within 60 minutes without special equipment.
They thought of everything - a lactation room, bike racks, and a gun locker (🇺🇸🫡) are specified.
The RFP is extremely prescriptive
This is a great example of overly-detailed American transit RFPs, which Alon Levy (Transit Costs Project) has written about.
European operators write looser 50-70 page RFPs, asking manufacturers to fill in the details to meet high-level requirements. American operators basically design the trains for themselves, forcing manufacturers to build more expensive, custom trains to meet their requirements.
The most glaring problem is that those designs are not at all what the rest of the world does. A few of the changes are modular, including the platform height and the loading gauge. The others are not; the consultants who write the design specs do so without trying to fit themselves to common products made by the multinational vendors.
Then, those specs are extremely detailed; there’s little room for a vendor to try to pawn off a standard Coradia or FLIRT and make that fit with little modification. The RFPs run into the deep hundreds of pages; SEPTA had one with more than 500 pages, and Amtrak’s most recent one ran to, I believe, 1,000. They define even what a train is, as opposed to the looser RFPs common in Europe – Spanish RFPs are 50-70 pages and have single-digit summaries, detailing just how many cars are needed, what the loading gauge is, what electrification is required, and what the expected performance level is.
Final thoughts
As an Amtrak rider, I’m very excited about what this RFP signals for the future of long-distance trains in the US. I’m looking forward to my first ride in a Club Bedroom, eating in the diner with skylight windows, and sipping on a real cocktail in the first-class lounge.
Last month, the Canadian government announced they had allocated funds for VIA Rail to replace their long-distance fleet, which is even older than Amtrak’s. I wonder if these Amtrak designs, or some variant, will operate in Canada as well. Time will tell 👀
It will be interesting to see if they go the route of granting lounge access to Guest Rewards elites (e.g. Select Plus gets access if in premium and Select Executive gets access even in regular coach): stable cash inflow from the credit cards is valuable (and helped fund Amtrak during the pandemic; I did my part!) but there's not much benefit beyond the AGR points themselves from the credit cards in most cities served by the long-distance network (the current elite benefits aren't worth anything on the LD network beyond lounge access in Boston/NYC/Philly/Washington/Chicago).
The gun locker isn't surprising: it's not generally admitted by either the 2nd amendment crowd or transit folks (since there's a very small Venn diagram there), but the absence of TSA makes Amtrak the conveyance of choice if traveling with a gun.
Its bad. They must replace dumb coach by open space sleeping cars, like platscart in former USSR, or by 3d class sleepers like in EU. All passengers on overnight trains must have a normal sleeping place, but cheap class may be open space like coach and first class keep private. Cost if 1 class is prohibitive, and coach is unacceptable for the ling trips. Compare to RU:
- all classes are sleeping. No exceptions.
- cheap open space sleeping class hold 54 passengers in 1 level car, better rooms for 4 - no need to buy the whole room (you can do it but most people dont) keep 36 places in 1 level cars and 72 in 2 levels.
-trains are cheaper vs plane for 3d (open space sleepers) and 2d (4 people rooms) classes.
- food is extra but you can order delivery like uber eat, and it works great, or you can prepay dinner car, or use it as necessary. Cars has hot boiling water 24x7, too.
Longe cars should be available for all passengers. First class is good by itself but is way too expensive, for an obvious reason. Normal train in RU carry 500 - 1200 passengers (all sleepers, ALL!), amtrack carry only 90 such passengers, not a surprise it cost 5x more vs airplane (with a few exceptions ). Make it to carry 400 sleeping passengers in 3 classes and prices will be way more competitive.
Good idea is to expand bedroom to 4 people. Todays bedrooms can easily accomodate 2 adults + 2 kids, but its not allowed. How to travel jn family in 2 + 2 or 2 + 3 ? In RU people just buyb5 slerping berths in 2 rooms (and 3 3xtra are used as rooms are shared except if you decide to pay extra). Just now my friends travelled in group of 11, 3 nights, they just bought 3 x 4 rooms, approx $120 / person, not $1200 as in USA.