During 1976 and 1977, while delivery of the Amfleet I cars was in progress, Amt rak regularly operated ex PRR/PC P70 coaches between New York and Philadelphia, both in "Clocker" Serice, and for overflow service on certain through trains running between New England and DC. Also during this timeframe, Amtrak leased Heavyweight coaches from the Southern Rwy, which were used throughout the NEC on steam heated trains.
The P70s may have been conveyed to Amtrak by the Penn Central, or may have belonged to NJ DOT, but most were painted in the Tuscan Red Keystone Scheme.
BTW, the RPOs and other head end cars used on the Conrail Mail Trains #3 and #4, ended up in Amtrak ownership, after the RPO service ended. They were stored at the Amtrak MW yard at Adams, NJ.
The bulk of the Conrail Mail Trains, were actually Trail Van Trains carrying trailers of Mail and UPS express shipments. These trains continued through to the end of Conrail.
Boris
NHTX Although not Amtrak owned or in Amtrak service, Southern Pacific had at least two heavyweight business cars painted silver with Amtrak window bands. They were number 106, "Oregon", and 117, "Tucson". Since business cars were low mileage vehicles, expensive to outfit, usually riding on six wheel trucks, and had open rear platforms, they lasted well past the inauguration of Amtrak.
Although not Amtrak owned or in Amtrak service, Southern Pacific had at least two heavyweight business cars painted silver with Amtrak window bands. They were number 106, "Oregon", and 117, "Tucson". Since business cars were low mileage vehicles, expensive to outfit, usually riding on six wheel trucks, and had open rear platforms, they lasted well past the inauguration of Amtrak.
Amtrak America, 1971-Present.
Re heavyweight cars, many railroads had programs to update heavyweight cars to better match their streamlined cars. Sometimes you have to look twice for a tell-tale sign, like six-wheel trucks or two vestibules instead of one. There could have been a few of these cars that made it into the Amtrak era; but keep in mind passenger train patronage declined from the late 1940's on, and railroads would have been retiring their older heavyweight cars when they needed to cut back, not their newer streamlined cars.
Re mail trains, for a lot of railroads their top train was actually a mail train (or trains), as it made the most money (from USPO contracts) but only if it ran on time. The top engineer job for many years on Great Northern was the Fast Mail, not the Builder.
7j43kI am putting together a semi-fantasy Burlington mail train:
YES! I'm with 'ya on that. I loaded up on the Flexi-Vans in NYC along with a bunch of the ex-troop sleeper express cars and at least two-dozen various baggage cars.
I have some 8mm film of the mail trains coming through Cleveland. I'll have to get them edited and "Youtubed". It is something to behold seeing six E 7 & 8s barrel through at seventy with about fifty cars in tow.
Regards, Ed
As much as I think the name trains were glorious (Empire Builder, North Coast Limited, City of Portland), I ALSO like the "interesting" ones.
I am putting together a semi-fantasy Burlington mail train:
3 Burlington E8's
1 Burlington Budd RPO
1 Burlington Budd coach
LOTS of "baggage" cars: Burlington (of course). And Great Northern, PRR, NYC, E-L.
And trailing is one of those Burlington Flexi-van cars: Chinese red with aluminum boxes.
Yeah!
Ed
7j43k And it's kind of hard imagining an RPO on a "freight".
Both Pennsy and New York Central ran M&E trains in the east (Mail & Express) I remember watching No. 5 and No. 6 come through Cleveland, sometimes with four and five E units on the head end followed by maybe 20 or 30 Flexi-Vans, baggage cars and old REA express cars, then a rider coach. No. 3 and 4 were "working" Railway Mail Service trains, thus the RPOs and mail storage cars. 3 and 4 were Washington, NYC then some cars on to Boston. 5 & 6 were NY and Boston to Chicago. Of course, these were the last ones of many from the post-War era.
http://560.com/penn_central_7.htm
The mail contract was with Penn Central and conveyed to Conrail. The NEC trackage had not been sold to Amtrak as yet and the operating crews at that time were still employed by the "host" railroads. I believe the NEC trackage was sold to Amtrak toward the end of May, 1976.
The last runs of 3 & 4 had GG1 and the RPOs in fresh Penn Central Paint. They each carried one Amtrak snack bar coach for press and dignitaries to ride the last run.
The mail and express trains operated at passenger speeds. Amtrak did continue to haul some storage mail but those contracts eventually dried up, too. Amtrak even had their own "Package Express" in the late '80s and maybe into the 1990s but it was rather limited.
Fun stuff, Ed
There was a time when Amtrak required private (business) cars to be painted in Amtrak schemes if they were to be run in Amtrak trains. THAT went over like a zinc zeppelin for many folks, some of which had some clout. And that rule was rescinded. I can't recall any details, though.
I am sure that explains SP's "desire" to paint their equipment in Amtrak.
Ed. I can't find hard evidence on whether the RPO's were operated by Amtrak or PC. I lean towards Amtrak because they DID have those RPO's. And I also think they might have been feeling not-sharing about operating passenger trains. And it's kind of hard imagining an RPO on a "freight".
Like I said, no hard evidence.
It would seem that the final RPO run would have featured a good bit of photography. And we might see just what the car used was. Plus any surrounding equipment. Perhaps even something in Trains magazine. Anyone??
Now you have me curious, was the last of the mail trains No. 3 & 4, run by Amtrak or Penn-Central? I remember seeing them passing through Delaware. The couple times I saw 3 & 4 they had two working RPOs.
RPO_NY-Wash, 1977 by Edmund, on Flickr
I thought they were operated by Penn Central (and Conrail for the last year). Of course, after most of the railway mail service ended in 1967 there was lots of head-end equipment to be had, cheap.
Many of the Pennsy RPOs wound up like this:
RPO_PRR_Cresson (2016_09_04 19_23_36 UTC) by Edmund, on Flickr
Good Luck, Ed
The 17xxx series I'm looking at has a listed usage as "material storage". This roster only goes up to 17032, which can get a person wondering about 17039. I would guess one of the 1800's was renumbered to that number after my roster was compiled.
I think that Amtrak was expecting RPO service to cease. And desist. Which it did, after a few years.
They probably felt it was a waste of money buying anything more than the bare minimum.
And. These cars were already in service on the route, anyway. All the various folks were used to them and their maintenance quirks.
The roster shows the three heavyweights (1800-1802) and also 1803-1807, also ex-PC, as the only RPO's Amtrak had.
7j43kThe book I mentioned does show a picture of one of the cars, but it is not in a train.
I found a photo of one of the ex-PRR > Penn Central RPOs conveyed to Amtrak as No. 17039:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2457727
http://pc.smellycat.com/pics/equip/pc_rpo.jpg
Note the little Amtrak sticker on it. At this time Amtrak didn't own any right-of-way so use in M-of-W service wasn't anticipated and steam heat was still the norm so converting it to a HEP power car wasn't in the cards either. Whatever they used the car for it was still on the roster on 2000 so they seem to have gotten their return on the investment.
Interesting. There were many lightweight baggage cars available at the time, if they were looking for storage/work cars, why Amtrak would want these RPOs at the time is anybody's guess.
There probably are pictures of Amtrak trains with the 3 cars I mentioned earlier. After all, they existed. And there are people who take pictures of trains. The problem is finding them.
The book I mentioned does show a picture of one of the cars, but it is not in a train.
I imagine that, if you put the energy in, you could find those pictures.
But it must be becoming clear by now that heavyweight cars in Amtrak service were very rare. So, if you're trying to recreate anywhere near a typical Amtrak train of the early '70's, it's best to leave out heavyweight cars entirely.
During the first months of Amtrak I recall riding the former GM&O's Abraham Lincoln and the diner was certainly a rebuilt heavyweight. From what I can gather the car was dropped from Amtrak service within the first year. I'll have to check some of my Wayner books to be sure.
As the replies in your other thread indicate, Amtrak didn't operate heavyweight cars, thus you won't find very many photos of them in service. Even the GM&O diner was probably leased with an option to buy which was an agreement that Amtrak had with railroads when purchasing equipment.
Hope that helps, Ed
I have not seen any photos of heavyweight cars included in trains of the rainbow era. I don't know (I might like to think) this was programmatical, but I've not read anything to suggest that. Are they out there?