While reading the latest "Trains of the 1950s" special, I was interested to read that ACL had 5 two-unit articulated diners (How to Run Streamliners, pg 113). I had always admired the articulated diners run by UP and SP on their western trains, especially the triple-unit diners SP used on their Daylights.
So help me fill in my ignorance of eastern railroading -- how many other railroads had articulated food service cars?
In one of the two "Classic Railroad Quiz - at least 50 years ago" forums we had a lengthy chain about twin-unit diners. Just off the top of my head at least the following operated or at least owned (C&O) twin unit diners:
C&O (mostly disposed of quickly to other carriers)
PRR
NYC
B&O
ACL
IC
UP
SP (three unit articulated)
Amtrak had a few mostly ex-PRR pairs until HEP wiped them out. Most had couplers like normal equipment but SP's were articulated and UP's had drawbars. Most common configuration was dormitory kitchen in one car, dining room in the other, but there were several Lounge-Kitchen/Dining room pairs. PRR was the only carrier to use them on day trains (NYC-WAS) all other carriers used them on flagship overnight trains.
The New York Central had both Budd and Pullman Standard versions, used on the 20th Century Limited, the New England States, and the Empire State Express.
The PRR had Budd 2-unit diners painted Tuscan red, used on the Broadway Limited and the General.
I ate in them. Also on the ACL on the Florida Special and the East Coast Champion
Penn Central sand-blasted the PRR 2-unit diners to make them stainless steel in looks.
Like PRR, SP used its tavern-kitchen-dining room three unit articulateds on day trains, specifically the Morning Daylight and Shasta Daylight.
The Traverse City (Michigan) dinner train operation had a couple of (SP?) articulated units. The entire units were used for dining, and the kitchen was in a converted baggage car. The operation ended several years ago, and I can't remember where the equipment went.
Just a side note and FYI; The Midwest Railway Preservation Society in Cleveland OH is currently restoring ex PRR twin diners 4610 and 4611. They are being rebuilt to Amtrak standards as Amtrak has expressed interest in using them once complete. Amtrak officials have inspected the units which are not in bad condition. Amtrak has made available all the requirements needed for usable restoration. The interiors will be restored to closely resemble their as built PRR look to include the individual table lamps.
SP subsquently rebuilt several to two unit configuration in the early sixties by scrapping the center unit.
Dave
daveklepper The New York Central had both Budd and Pullman Standard versions, used on the 20th Century Limited, the New England States, and the Empire State Express. The PRR had Budd 2-unit diners painted Tuscan red, used on the Broadway Limited and the General. I ate in them. Also on the ACL on the Florida Special and the East Coast Champion Penn Central sand-blasted the PRR 2-unit diners to make them stainless steel in looks.
At least some of the NYC's Pullman-Standard units were purchased from the C&O, used for a number of years and then sold to the B&O.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
rcdrye PRR was the only carrier to use them on day trains (NYC-WAS) all other carriers used them on flagship overnight trains.
PRR was the only carrier to use them on day trains (NYC-WAS) all other carriers used them on flagship overnight trains.
The IC ran multi-unit diners on the overnight Panama Limited and I think also on the daytime City of New Orleans. I may be wrong but I don't remember these cars being articulated. There were times when the City of Miami carried two diners but I don't think they were multi-units and IIRC were conventional diners placed in different locations in the train's consist.
Mark
SP had the only aticulated diners. The only one that was converted but not scrapped was a three-unit that was converted to a two unit coach in the early 1960s. It was the only articulated coach SP had with a 6-wheel center truck. UP's were all drawbar connected, even the 1953 cars for the City of Denver. As far as I know all of the other twin unit cars had conventional couplers. ACL and later SCL often ran a dining room car without a kitchen as an entertainment car on the Florida Special, a practice that continued into the early Amtrak era.
Yup! The PRR and NYC cars were either drawvar or coupler connected. I rode one of the loose dining rooms on the ACL once on the Florida Special but did not get involved in the bingo game that was organised by the enterntainment man on the car. In that service they were also equipped first with a 16mm movie projector and screen, later replaced by a TV set.
While we are on the subject of diners. Here is a 1938 train talk pamphlet put out by the PRR.
http://www.multimodalways.org/docs/railroads/companies/PRR/Train%20Talks/PRR%20Train%20Talks%201-1938.pdf
Pete
I pray every day I break even, Cause I can really use the money!
I started with nothing and still have most of it left!
daveklepper Yup! The PRR and NYC cars were either drawvar or coupler connected. I rode one of the loose dining rooms on the ACL once on the Florida Special but did not get involved in the bingo game that was organised by the enterntainment man on the car. In that service they were also equipped first with a 16mm movie projector and screen, later replaced by a TV set.
I believe the IC, ACL and B&O twin-unit diners were all ex-C&O.
Bought for the stillborn Chessie streamliner?
daveklepper Bought for the stillborn Chessie streamliner?
Not quite. They were part of the massive order placed by C&O to re-equip the rest of their passenger trains after the Chessie was ordered. The order was placed much later than most other major passenger carriers and was considered to be larger than needed. Some of this order was cancelled and C&O was able to find other railroads who were willing to take delivery of a fair number of the remaining cars.
CSSHEGEWISCH daveklepper Bought for the stillborn Chessie streamliner? Not quite. They were part of the massive order placed by C&O to re-equip the rest of their passenger trains after the Chessie was ordered. The order was placed much later than most other major passenger carriers and was considered to be larger than needed. Some of this order was cancelled and C&O was able to find other railroads who were willing to take delivery of a fair number of the remaining cars.
The Chessie cars which were built by Budd Co. was never tabbed for the twin unit diners. Instead they had twin unit lunch counter-diner-theatre cars.
The twin unit diners that the C&O ordered were built by Pullman-Standard and all were sold before being used in C&O revenue service. C&O #1950/1973 & 1951/1974 to the IC; 1952/1975, 1953/1976, 1956/1979 & 1957/1980 to the NYC; 1954/1977 & 1955/1978 to the ACL and would later run on the original Auto-train. #1956/1976 & 1957/1975 were sold by the NYC to the B&O in 1957. The remainder of the NYC cars were sold to the IC in 1956.
I'm sure you know that the Pennsy and the New York Central both used twin unit diners. I'm happy to say it seems that few are still around, mostly in museums.
I caught the Broadway Limited from NYC Penn Station to Pittsburgh in September 1977. A friend and i were only travelling coach (partly because we detrained very early in the morning). I was amazed to see that the Budd twin unit diners were still in use, so we took as long as we could over the meal and really enjoyed that part of the trip.
Much later (in 1982) I was visiting Seattle on a work trip and found three pairs of these twin unit dining cars in storage, and was able to take external photos of the cars. Again I was surprised that they were still around.
These cars had special flat panels on the sides below the windows, rather than the usual Budd fluting, and the car surface was etched to take the Tuscan Red paint. When stripped, they matched Amtrak's other stainless steel cars quite well.
M636C
Perhaps what you saw in Seattle were built by ACF and not Budd? ACF built five pair for the PRR.
Johnny
I recall the PRR two-unit diners and rode them both in Tuscan red and in PC stainless steel. They did not have the usual Budd fluting below the belt rail Instead they had three or four thin horizontal ribs or "flutes" witih flat panels a little over one foot in height between them. This was different than any other car construction that I remember, but Budd possibly used it elsewhere.
No, they were Budd cars. Dave's description was better than mine. There were three flat panels below the windows. The roof, however still had the normal Budd narrow corrugations as seen on unpainted cars with fluted sides.
The "normal" Budd fluting consists of ribs stiffening the lower side panels and the concave curved flutes are just clipped into place, being decorative but not structural.
A story is told of one of the first sleeping cars on the Trans Australian Railway built by a Budd licencee in 1968-69. On a hot afternoon in the desert, the clipped in flutes (which had been made slightly undersize through a misunderstanding) separated and seventy feet long strips of stainless steel speared off into the fortunately empty landscape.
There are numerous photos of these Budd cars in Arthur Dubin's "Some Classic Trains" which would also be in the Trains DVDs since the book was combined from a series of magazine articles.
On pages 92-93 there is a broadside photo of the cars in question (PRR 4620-4621) showing the flat panels below the windows and the corrugated roof.
At the top of page 94 a shot of the Broadway Limited shows an "Inn" class 21 Roomette sleeper with the flat lower sides.
These smooth side Budd cars were also used by Great Northern and Northern Pacific, usually dome cars. The "Empire Builder" section on pages 312 and 313 illustrates Budd dome coach 1322 and Great Dome "Glacier View", both with flat stainless sides. I recall riding the Amtrak "Empire Builder" with such a Great Dome, which was, ironically, painted silver.
A particularly clear view of an NP Dome Coach on page 328 shows the flat panels clipped into the structural ribs. On pages 330 and 331 NP Dome Coach 559, Dome Sleeper 310 and Diner 463 are illustrated.
Dubin's book is short on detail but the photo collection is second to none...
The PRR did have a few sleepers with the standard Budd construction, and regular fluting below the belt rail. But these were built specifically to match other equipment on the two ACL Champions, the SAL Silver... trains, and the Crescent. Ditto the coaches, diners, parolor-obs, and parlors specifically for the Morning and Afternoon Congressionals and the Senator. I do not remember whether two-unit diners were used on these last three trains, all of which were stainless with Tuscan Red letterboards and gold lettering on them. The coaches did have the New Haven style smoking section at the vestibule end of each car, with leather seats facing the aisles.
Let's add a note of correction regards those SP triple unit articulated diners. The Daylight sets were arranged as coffee shop-kitchen-dining room, a full tavern-lounge operated as a separate car on the Daylights. There were 6 sets built for the Daylights, in, I think, 1939, 1941 for the Morning and Noon Daylights., and 1949 for the Shasta Daylight. In addition, there was the elegant Lark and Cascade Clubs. These were kitchen/dining car/lounge, requiring 2 sets for each train. The grandest feature of the Club sets was the continuous room...something like 121 feet...encompassing the dining and lounge areas. SP had the distinction of operating the largest (longest) room in railroading, as well as the tallest, in the downstairs bar area of their homebuilt domes...a ceilng either 11 or 212 feet high. It was fascinating to sit in the dining or lounge area in the Club and watch the thing go through curves....something akin to watching an articulated steam locomotive do the same thing. As an SP brat it gives me great pleasure to take pride in this wonderful rolling stock. AA
too bad none of those long rooms survived
Dave, I believe one "long room" still exists.....a Cascade Club triple unit dorm/kitchen/diner/lounge sits in the yard at the Niles Canyon Railroad in California. Also, it has been reported that a Daylight triple unit diner exists in Texas...I'm less sure about that one, it may have been scrapped. AA
I was also fortunate to dine in the Pennsy Twins when they were still in Amtrak's Broadway service back in '73 and '74. The 4610-4611 have been moved to Cleveland where, hopefully, the Midwest Railway Preservation Society will make them operable once more.
http://www.midwestrailway.org/pennsylvania-dinner---kitchen.html
I have photos of a pair (8802-8803) that I saw being moved to a siding in Fort Wayne, IN (may be the same cars?) I do not know the disposition of these Ft. Wayne cars.
Thanks, Ed
KCSfan rcdrye PRR was the only carrier to use them on day trains (NYC-WAS) all other carriers used them on flagship overnight trains. The IC ran multi-unit diners on the overnight Panama Limited and I think also on the daytime City of New Orleans. I may be wrong but I don't remember these cars being articulated. There were times when the City of Miami carried two diners but I don't think they were multi-units and IIRC were conventional diners placed in different locations in the train's consist. Mark
OK, Ill try again: The IC had four sets of the ex-C&O twin-units. Two were used on the City of Miami and two were used on the Panama Limited. The Panama Limited set could feed the entire train in less than three seatings, assuming extra cars and Parlor passengers. Usually it was two seatings--especially useful during breakfast Northbound into Chicago. NEVER saw them on 1&2 (City of New Orleans).
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