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Classic Train Questions Part Deux (50 Years or Older)

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Posted by Miningman on Thursday, February 9, 2017 9:11 PM

Rcdrye- Thats an amazing observation, statement and fact and is sobering indeed. Well good for Amtrak. Rode the CZ 3 times now, all under Amtrak, last time in '05. 

 

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Posted by daveklepper on Friday, February 10, 2017 2:03 AM

Diggesty has the answer, but did not give the full sotry.  Should he or someone else give the full story?  Or I?

What happened to D&RGW service imeediate upon the mudslide?

What town was almost totally buried?

What did Amtrak do on take-over-of-service day?

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Posted by daveklepper on Sunday, February 12, 2017 9:33 AM

Doesn't anyone want topull up the relevant Trains articles, or timetabvles or new reports?     Should be easy.  Thanks

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Posted by rcdrye on Sunday, February 12, 2017 2:37 PM

daveklepper
What happened to D&RGW service imeediate upon the mudslide?

Cut back to Denver/Grand Junction CO.  The RGZ had to return to Denver via a UP detour, since it was in Ogden at the time.

daveklepper
What town was almost totally buried?

Thistle UT

daveklepper
What did Amtrak do on take-over-of-service day?

Amtrak published a new timetable indicating operation over the D&RGW, but continued service via the UP until the line reopened in July.

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Posted by daveklepper on Monday, February 13, 2017 3:59 AM

The last sentence needs to be ended with a semicolan instread of a period, and something else must be added.  Please add it.

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Posted by rcdrye on Monday, February 13, 2017 7:14 AM

; The train was rerouted back to the original WP route west out of Salt Lake City as far as the joint (with SP) line after Amtrak.  Amtrak operated a motorcoach between Denver, Glenwood Springs and Grand Junction between April and July 1983.

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Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, February 14, 2017 2:34 AM

Correct, the train did run between Ogden and Salt Lake City and west to and from Salt Lake City.

But I believe the Amtrak bus did run through from Grand Junction to Salt Lake City and connected with the train at both Danver and Salt Lake City.  Even if not shown in a timetable!

 

your question

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Posted by Deggesty on Tuesday, February 14, 2017 8:13 AM

rcdrye

; The train was rerouted back to the original WP route west out of Salt Lake City as far as the joint (with SP) line after Amtrak.  Amtrak operated a motorcoach between Denver, Glenwood Springs and Grand Junction between April and July 1983.

 

The Aug-Sept 1983 Guide shows it as running from SLC to Ogden westbound, thus not using the WP until it reached the paired track in Nevada.

Johnny

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Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, February 14, 2017 9:52 AM

Correct:   That was (and is?) after it began rnnng via the Moffet.  After the tunnel was open.

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Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, February 14, 2017 11:31 AM

Amtrak CZ route changes 1983

Apr 25 1983 - renamed CZ (had been SFZ), continued operation to Ogden via Borie(Cheyenne).

Jul 16 1983 - began D&RGW operation to Ogden

Oct 30 1983 - rerouted over former WP Salt Lake City to Alazon (beginning of SP paired track) due to rising Great Salt Lake.

Desert Wind and Pioneer through cars were switched at Ogden before July 16,  at Salt Lake City after July 16.

http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/507/t/44882.aspx

 

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Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, February 14, 2017 12:36 PM

No contradictions in any of this material.

 

Waiting for your question, rc.

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Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, February 14, 2017 4:12 PM

The locomotives initially assigned to this streamliner, the last one its owners fielded before WWII stopped such things, had the logos of two railroads on the nose, even though all of the equipment was owned by one railroad.  Need the owning railroad, the train and the "other railroad" whose logo was on the nose.

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Posted by Deggesty on Tuesday, February 14, 2017 4:51 PM

rcdrye

The locomotives initially assigned to this streamliner, the last one its owners fielded before WWII stopped such things, had the logos of two railroads on the nose, even though all of the equipment was owned by one railroad.  Need the owning railroad, the train and the "other railroad" whose logo was on the nose.

 

Was this the ninth Overland Route streamliner, which ran as the City of Los Angeles? It could have had a C&NW Emblem (there were no logos back then) on the nose.

Johnny

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Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, February 14, 2017 7:21 PM

I wasn't looking for a UP train, but it almost matched by question!

While UP's Streamliners did have UP's and C&NW's emblems, the ninth train wasn't the last of the prewar "Cities" (the tenth train was, two months after the ninth, along with the eighth train making City of SF service bi-weekly) The tenth train was all new, the eighth train was equipped with cars from the 1939-wrecked City of San Francisco along with some new ones.  The tenth train got E6's SF-4, SF-5 and SF-6, all owned by UP. SF-4 got C&NW, UP And SP emblems, like the eighth train's E2 set.  UP later swapped the lead units, giving a 5800HP set (SF-1, SF-5, SF-6) and a 5600HP set (SF-4, SF-2 and SF-3)

If it's any help the dual-emblemed power of the train I'm looking for was also led by an E6.

Since the tenth train saved me from embarassment I'll add my proviso that the train I'm looking for was the only prewar one if its fleet (or, in modern-speak "brand") that involved a "foreign" road, though postwar trains of the fleet did involve subsidiaries and interline cars.

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Wednesday, February 15, 2017 10:19 AM

I'm going to say that the road in question is Kansas City Southern, the train is the "Southern Belle", and the other road is Louisiana & Arkansas.

FYI, the prewar Cities Streamliners were jointly owned, both power and cars, on a percentage basis by the two or three roads involved.  It wasn't until after WW2 that power and cars were individually allocated to the various roads.

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Posted by ZephyrOverland on Wednesday, February 15, 2017 10:44 AM

rcdrye

The locomotives initially assigned to this streamliner, the last one its owners fielded before WWII stopped such things, had the logos of two railroads on the nose, even though all of the equipment was owned by one railroad.  Need the owning railroad, the train and the "other railroad" whose logo was on the nose.

 

Would this be the Colorado Eagle?  When the train was new the lead engine sported the MP eagle wing design, but had the train name in the center of the decor instead of the MP logo.  On each side of the eagle the operating railroad (MP, DRGW) names were shown in their unique typefaces.

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Posted by rcdrye on Wednesday, February 15, 2017 11:09 AM

ZephyrOverland
Would this be the Colorado Eagle?

It would!  Although the Eagle's equipment was all MP-owned, the train was still a joint operation with D&RGW handling the train north of Pueblo.  The E6's were among the last delivered before defense orders stopped their production.

Postwar MP Eagles involved the T&P and the Texas subsidiaries, along with interline cars on the PRR, B&O, C&A/GM&O and SP.

The UP "City" trains were jointly owned by UP and the other participants on an undivided partial ownership basis, including some of the locomotives.  When the joint ownership was given up, some of the prewar "City" cars ended up as C&NW- or SP-owned.

Look forward to your question!

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, February 15, 2017 2:29 PM

Late winter 1960, rode a sleeper that left Wichita on an MP mixed, was switched to the Colorado Eagle in Herendon, KC.  Was suppoised to get off in Colorado Springs, but the porter forgot to wake me up in time, and the D&RGW conductor had the train stop in Palmer Lake where the towerman ooing off duty drove me back to the Broadmore in Colorado Springs.

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Posted by ZephyrOverland on Thursday, February 16, 2017 6:00 PM

rcdrye

 Look forward to your question!

 

The name of a fictional character that was applied to an Amtrak run was also used on a pre-WW1 seasonal train that operated in the same region of the U.S., but not on the same route as the Amtrak train. 

 

Train name(s) and routes, please.

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Posted by ZephyrOverland on Monday, February 20, 2017 11:01 AM

(sounds of chirping crickets.....)

Hmm....I think its time for a clue....

 

The Amtrak run was not a long-distance train.  Think of the good old days when Amtrak provided unique names for most of their medium and short runs.

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Posted by Miningman on Monday, February 20, 2017 12:42 PM

Not having any luck searching for this answer...my eyes are going to fall out of my head, however, I have learned more about Amtrak than I ever knew so not a waste of time. 

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Posted by ZephyrOverland on Thursday, February 23, 2017 11:35 AM

OK....time for another clue...

Look to the northeast for the answer....

 

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Posted by Deggesty on Thursday, February 23, 2017 11:53 AM

I do not remember the NYC as chasing Rip Van Winkle down the road, but Amtrak did run him between New York City and Rensselaer.

Also, Amtrak ran the New England Zip up from Washington to Boston, but I cannot image any road as using such an imaginary name.

The New Haven may well have let the Connecticut Yankee on its track.

After going back to the question, I realized that I was altogether on the wrong tracks.

Johnny

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Posted by ZephyrOverland on Thursday, February 23, 2017 12:57 PM

Deggesty

I do not remember the NYC as chasing Rip Van Winkle down the road, but Amtrak did run him between New York City and Rensselaer.

Well Johnny, you actually tripped over the answer.  True, NYC did not have a Rip Van Winkle, but NYC's West Shore subsidiary did, running from Jersey City-Weehawkeen to Kingston, where the Ulster & Delaware took the train to Oneonta and Kaaterskill.  Service began in the summer of 1896, where ads of the time even mention the train having through cars from Philadelphia and PRR.  The original name was Rip Van Winkle Flyer and operated on a summer-only basis through summer of 1917.  The train was a Flyer until summer of 1913; between 1914 and 1917 the train was called Rip Van Winkle Express.  An alternative advertised trip was to take a Hudson River Day Line steamer to Kingston Point, where a transfer was made to a connecting train to meet the Flyer/Express at Kingston.

The Amtrak version used the former NYC line between New York and Albany/Rensselaer and existed around 1983.  

The ad below is from the New York Sun of May 17, 1914.

 

 

Johnny, you get the next question.

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Posted by Deggesty on Thursday, February 23, 2017 9:25 PM

In 1920, there was an interesting overnight Pullman line between two cities in one state. In one direction, you traveled intrastate on one railroad--in the other direction, you traveled on two other roads--and the junction was in another state.

Name the endpoints, the roads, and the location of the junction.

Johnny

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Posted by Deggesty on Friday, February 24, 2017 10:19 AM

Deggesty

In 1920, there was an interesting overnight Pullman line between two cities in one state. In one direction, you traveled intrastate on one railroad--in the other direction, you traveled on two other roads--and the junction was in another state.

Name the endpoints, the roads, and the location of the junction.

 

I'll narrow it down a bit: this operation was in the South.

Johnny

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Posted by daveklepper on Saturday, February 25, 2017 1:11 PM

I think the end-points are Wilmington, NC and Raleigh, NC, and the railroads involved are the ACL, Southern, and SAL.   More details will require some research with what is available on-line to me with a server with greater bandwidth tomorrow morning.

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Posted by Deggesty on Saturday, February 25, 2017 1:38 PM

daveklepper

I think the end-points are Wilmington, NC and Raleigh, NC, and the railroads involved are the ACL, Southern, and SAL.   More details will require some research with what is available on-line to me with a server with greater bandwidth tomorrow morning.

 

Wilmington-Raleigh going through another state would have added many more miles than the most direct route in North Carolina took. The two-road route was only about 11 miles longer than the single road route.

 

Johnny

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Posted by daveklepper on Sunday, February 26, 2017 4:33 AM

Two other citiy pairs suggest themselves:

 

Savannah - Athens, GA;  Birmingham - Montgomery AL

The first would be ACL all ther way, and CofG and one other to be determined.

The secinbd would involve the Southern and the SAL and one other, but sgsin more work would be required.

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Posted by Deggesty on Sunday, February 26, 2017 7:56 AM

It is only 98 miles from Birmingham to Montgomery; even an in-state alternate route would add more than 11 miles, and a routing that swung into another state would add many, many,more miles.

Savannah-Athens would have been possible, with CoG carrying the car one way--but an alternate route that swung into S. C. and back would have involved at least three roads (SAL, C&WC, & ACL)--and would have added many,many miles.

Johnny

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