Chicago Union Station - Extant Equipment, Signage, etc..

[Anonymous]

I travel to and from Chicago Union Station very often on Metra trains. They approach from the south and when it's a busy day for Amtrak and the yard is clear I can sometimes spot older baggage cars and now and then an old coach (sometimes even a heavyweight) sitting around. Sometimes they're in non-Amtrak colors as well. But they look far too tattered and run-down to be private cars.

Does anybody have any information on the older equipment that may still be lying around Chicago Union Station? Where did it come from? What former railroads are represented?

Also I'm wondering if anybody knows of any locations in, on, or around Union Station where any pre-Amtrak signage might still exist. Like perhaps a PRR or Milwaukee, or anything else logo, or something. That would be pretty interesting to see.

Somwhere in that complex there must still be some old stuff to see. Anybody have ay info? Thanks in advance...

[underworld]

From what I know, at least some of the cars there are private cars. There could be several reasons for their poor condition. They may be in storage awaiting resale, the owners may be slow going, or the owners may have gone broke or run low or out of money during the restoration process
( it is quite expensive ). About a year ago I was talking to a man that had some recently retired Amtrak MHCs for sale. He originally had them stored
in Chicago before moving them to a yard in Iowa. It might be a situation like we have here in Toledo ( probably the same in other parts of the country ).
There are some private cars at Central Union Terminal that are stranded due to a dispute between several railroads as to who has trackage rights at different points. This was last summer, I don't know if anything has changed since then. When I found out about this, that's what made me decide to not buy one of the MHCs. I couldn't find a trucking firm that could transport as cheap as the railroad. Too bad since the MHCs still had some time to go on their Amtrak certifications.

underworld

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