Re: waste disposal on the rr

IIRC it was in Florid and one of the trespassing fishermen was somebody with clout, a Congressman I think. Which, considering the way Congress has dumped on and mucked up Amtrak over the years may be seen as poetic justice.

One of the results was that a large number of "Heritage" 10-6 sleepers, most of which had been converted to HEP and which had a least a decade of service life left in them were pulled because it was felt that fitting them with retention tanks, if it was even possible, would be far too costly. This didn't help the shortage of sleeping cars.

I've thought for years that it would be a good idea for Amtrak to bring back the old idea of set-out sleepers at several points (for ex: Spokane, Wa. Heck, they're already switching there anyway to split/combine 7/27 and 8/28!) but they just don't have the cars to do it. Seems like every time Amtrak does get new cars, they wind up with less total seating available.

Also, IIRC, a lot of the ex-Santa Fe bi-level cars bit the dust over the toilet thing.

On the subject of potty malfunctions, back when the Superliners were new they had a problem with toilets blocking if anybody put too much material down them. I heard at the time that there was a Y junction in the plumbing, where the lines from the two sides came together, that was too small on the outflow side. I remember being on 6/26/36 East from Denver in the early 80's and there being only one coach left with working toilets by the time we made Omaha.

hank