The Railway is a 855 mile (1,376 km) rail service scheduled for passengers and their Amtrak-operated cars between Lorton, Virginia (near Washington, DC), and Sanford, Florida (near Orlando). Although there are similar services around the world, the Railway is the only one of its kind in the United States. The Auto Train is the only north-south Amtrak train in the east to use Superliner cars.
Passengers ride either in coach seats or private car bedrooms while their vehicles (cars, vans, sport utensils, motorcycles, small trailers, or private boats) are carried in cargo cars carrying closed cars, called autoracks. The train has a maximum capacity of 320 vehicles. Trains also include a lounge car and a dining car. The Auto Train service allows passengers to avoid driving Interstate 95 in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, while carrying their own vehicles with them.
The service operates as train 53 to the south and 52 to the north. The train does not stop between its terminals in Lorton, Virginia, and Sanford, Florida. Amtrak's Auto Train is the successor of a previously named service previously operated by a privately owned Railway Company in the 1970s.
During fiscal 2016, Automatic Train carried 238,448 passengers, a 12.2% decrease over FY2015. The train had a total revenue of US $ 75,169,554 on FY2016, a decrease of 7.9% compared to FY2015. The Auto Train has the highest revenue from any long-distance trains in the Amtrak system.
Video Auto Train
History
Automatic Railway Company
The original Auto-Train is operated on Seaboard Coast Line Railroad and Richmond, Fredericksburg & amp; Trek potomak. It is operated by Auto-Train Corporation, a private company founded by Eugene K. Garfield. Garfield had worked in the US Department of Transportation. The department has funded the study of the practicality of the train-car service. Garfield resigned and used the research as a blueprint for his company. The company uses its own rolling stock to provide a unique rail transportation service for passengers and their cars in the United States, operating scheduled services between Lorton, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., and Sanford, Florida, near Orlando, Florida.
Passengers ride either in wide coach seats or private first-class sleeping compartments while their vehicles are brought in closed autorack. The train includes a meal car and meals are served. Railway Corporation Equipment is painted in red, white, and purple. The typical trains are equipped with two or three General Electric U36B electric-diesel locomotives, twin-deck 75-foot (22.86 m) automotive, slender passenger cars, including trainers, dining cars, sleeping cars and 85 feet (25.91 m). full-dome cars, and caboose cars, and unusual sights on most of the passenger trains. The first automotive carrier Auto-Train acquired was used, and began life in the 1950s as an innovation of the Canadian National (CN) Railroad. Autorack's bi-level CN ​​cars have doors. They are large by time standards; each 75-footer (23.86 m) can carry 8 vehicles.
The new Auto-Train Corporation service began operations on December 6, 1971. The Auto-Train was immediately popular among the traveling public and initially enjoyed financial success as well. In FY 1974 the company made a profit of $ 1.6 million with revenues of $ 20 million. In May 1974 the service began via a second route between Florida and Louisville, Kentucky, and the company was considering additional services between Chicago and Denver. The Louisville extension proved to be a corporate failure. The rotting Louisville and Nashville Railroad lines between Louisville and Florida (which also hampered Amtrak's Floridian operations) are inhibiting, and a pair of derailments stretches the company's finances to its peak. The service stopped in April 1981.
Amtrak
After a period of 22 months without service, this service is revived by Amtrak, which operates inter-city passenger trains in the United States. Amtrak acquires terminals in Lorton and Sanford as well as some Auto-Train equipment. On October 30, 1983, it introduced a new version of its service (with a slightly modified name " Train Automatically ") on a tri-weekly basis. Daily service was introduced a year later.
Amtrak continues to use the three-level bi-level and autorack used by Auto-Train. For passenger equipment, originally used a mixture of Auto-Train railways and medieval long-range trains from Amtrak's common fleet, all rebuilt to Amtrak's "Heritage Fleet" standard. In the mid-1990s, Amtrak replaced all of these passenger trains, which are a conventional one-stage type, with newer Superliner I and II bi-level equipment. In 2006, two-level, three-level autorack, and "van" were removed and replaced with 80 new autoracks. Unlike the old shelves, the new racks have a uniform height, and are most similar to the "vans" of the previous fleet. In 2018, an Automatic Train consists usually of two General Electric P40 locomotives (and sometimes a third machine) and up to 50 railcars (for passengers and autorack), for a total length of 3 / 4 -mile (1.2 km) or more. The regular train has one sleep sleeper (for flight crew), six people (including one with all the bedrooms on the upper level), one restaurant and one lounge for sleeping passengers, four coach cars, two visitors and one passenger trainer room; 20-30 autorack. The Auto Train is often said to have the longest passenger train in the world, though (as mentioned earlier) may be best regarded as a mixed train, not as a pure passenger train.
There are two Automatic Trains operating simultaneously every day. At 4:00, the train departs from their terminal in Lorton and Sanford. They made a scheduled stopover each for serving only (passengers unable to go up or down) at the approximate midpoint of the 855 mi (1,376 km) route in Florence, South Carolina, where the engines were refilled and a new aircraft crew board (engineers and conductors). Southbound # 53 arrived the next day at Sanford at 08:58, and northward # 52 at Lorton at 08:59, for an average speed between the terminals of about 50 mph (80 km/h).
Automatic Train operates on the same route and its predecessor is always in use, with the majority of routes owned by CSX Transportation and 16 miles of tracks owned by SunRail. Trains are known for their route numbers (53 to south and 52 north) internally by Amtrak. When communicating on the CSX road channel, they are known as their CSX: P053xx and P052xx, where xx is the 2 digit date when the train departs from its original station. For example, the train heading south that departs on the 23rd of the month will be known as CSX P05323 in the funnel. This allows a unique identification if two trains on the same route operate simultaneously.
In the January 2011 edition of the January 2011 edition of the Railway , this route is listed as one of five routes that Amtrak should see in FY 2012, like the others ( Sunset , Eagle , Zephyr , Capitol , and Cardinal ) are in FY 2010.
The Auto Train is the last Amtrak service to allow smoking on board. Amtrak stops the exercise on June 1, 2013.
Maps Auto Train
Operation
Trains operate daily. At 11:30, the station gate is opened to allow the vehicle to enter the vehicle staging area. Here, each vehicle is assigned a unique number, which is attached to the driver's door magnetically. These vehicles are usually surveyed videos to document any pre-existing dents and other damage, in case of a claim of damage then filed. Passengers leave their vehicles here and carry their tote bags to the station to wait for boarding. The vehicle is then staged near an auto ratch of size and length for optimal loading sequence, and then loaded into autorack. In the case of a motorcycle, the owners help by tying their bikes to a special motorcycle carrier which is then loaded onto the autorack. Passengers have no access to their vehicles during the trip. In April 2013, Amtrak began offering Priority Vehicle Offloading, a time-saving option that ensures that when the train reaches Lorton or Sanford, their vehicle will be one of the first 30 vehicles derived from autorack. This service costs $ 60.
At 14:00, the combination of motorbike and the last vehicle/trailer is accepted.
Boarding passengers started at 2:30 pm. The last vehicle and passenger are accepted until 2:30 pm, when the autorack is closed and coupled together, the passenger car is combined together in the case of Sanford's departure, and the autorack is merged backwards. At 4 pm, the train departs from the station to begin its journey.
There are two, three, or even four seating dinners, depending on how full the train is. Dinner places are limited to each sitting time and dinner tickets are provided from the ticket office based on the order of arrival. Each seat is announced through an intercom in every car, and in every sleep compartment. Around midnight, the train briefly stopped in Florence, South Carolina to refuel and recharge. New train and engine crew also took over in Florence.
At 8:58 am, 53 southward arrives at Sanford, and at 08:59, north 52 arrives at Lorton. Passengers can not immediately stop at this point, because the autorack is first separated from that, and in the case of Sanford station, passenger cars are split into two halves to fit on the shorter Sanford platform. At this point the passengers are then weighed down and moved into the automatic claim area. The cleaning crew moved to the train after all the passengers were not operating and the return trains were supplied with food and water that day. The back rear of passenger cars are all allowed to allow everyone in the coach to ride facing forward. The train engine was turned back, using a train turntable at Lorton and wye at Sanford.
Autorack is subdivided into four to six sections and each section is lined with a loading path (see figure). The doors between each opened, and connect the ramps are lowered to allow the vehicle to move between the cars. At this point the vehicle starts rolling from the autorack and around to the claim area, where they are identified and announced by the vehicle number attached to the vehicle at the station of origin. The vehicle is not unloaded in the same order as it was loaded on the previous day. It usually takes two hours to unload all the vehicles from the full train.
Lorton Terminal
Lorton, Virginia, about half an hour south of Washington, D.C., just off Interstate 95 in Northern Virginia. Amtrak's new Lorton terminal opened in early 2000 as a replacement for the original station built during the 1970s, and has a large modern waiting room with high glass walls. The station was designed by architect Hanny Hassan. The statue suspended in the lobby was designed by Patrick Sheridan. The platform is 1,480 ft (451 m) long.
Lorton was chosen as the northern terminal site because the 20-foot-2-inch (6.15 m) autorak was too high to pass through First Street Tunnel to Washington, D.C.
Sanford Terminal
Sanford, Florida, is the southern end and about a half hour drive north of Orlando. The original facility is an older facility and smaller than the terminal at Lorton. Currently, Auto Train loads its passengers on two lanes at Sanford, as there is not a single track long enough to accommodate all the passenger trains. Sanford's operation is also unique because of a rail crossing across the center of the tracks. This complicated some switching procedures and also resulted in the need for crews of three-conductor conductors, assistant conductors, and footwear - as opposed to the operation of two Lortons, with only conductors and assistant conductors. Both yards operate with one engineer. Sanford serves as the premier mechanical and maintenance site for Automated Trains , with diesel stores and cars to serve the fleet. The city of Sanford provides a shuttle bus to the seaside district which leaves every 20 minutes between noon and 2:40 at no charge.
See also
- Car shuttle shuttle
- Motorail
- Eurotunnel Shuttle (for cars and trucks)
- Rail terminology
References
External links
- Amtrak - Automatic Train
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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