Dave, are you talking about twin-unit diners?
SCL did have entertainment cars on the Florida Special, and Amtrak might have used them the one winter the Special ran as an Amtrak train.
rcdryeDave, are you talking about twin-unit diners?
Certainly fits; we had a detailed conversation about them in late 2014:
http://cs.trains.com/ctr/f/3/t/218886.aspx
Incidentally, Ozark Mountain Railcar will sell you one of the NYC fluted-side examples for $63,000.
The Florida Special was a winter-time-only all-Pullman operation of the ACL, using borrowed equipment. If a twin-unit diner was relettered for SCL, then they probably purchased it second-hand from Penn-Central. I was about to add that there were reports in the PRR days of the ACL borrowing the twin-sets from the General with winter traffic light on the PRR and heavy on the ACL. The times I rode the Florida Special were all in the ACL days, but after the FEC strike. At that time the entertainment car was separate and there were two regular diners on a very long train of sleepers, with UP yellow amd NP green represented heavily, along with a few stainless steel and tuscan red cars. On one occasion one of the diners was a rebgult pur;ple heavyweight.
By all means ask the next question.
And if someone does consult an accurate ACLK roster and finds ownership of such cars, I'll be glad to be corrected.
Yes. Twin-unit diners. I remember the entertainment car on the Floreida Special as bveing a regular loiunge car, not part of a two-car set.
so ask the next question.
ACL had five twin-unit diners acquired from the giant C&O order in 1950. Two of the kitchen cars were built as kitchen-dormitories, the other three were rebuilt to kitchen-dormitories from kitchen-lunch counters. From 1962 on, three of the dining room cars were assigned to the Florida Special during the winter season without their kitchen cars, as recreation cars.
The Monon was well known for its low-budget streamliners, rebuilt from WWII Army hospital cars. Name the other railroad that built its streamliner using hospital cars, and describe the diesels that powered it before more conventional FP7s arrived in the early 1950s.
Alaska Railroad had a fleet of converted war era hospital cars, as to the locomotive originally used, not sure but I think they were ALCo RS1's.
The AuRoRa train was built out of WWII hospital cars. 18 of ARR's ex Army RSD1s were shrouded (and re-trucked to B-B) by various contract shops and ARR's own between 1947 and 1950, with a carbody that looked like a long-nosed F-unit with various porthole arrangements on the side. Some of the units were set up as B units. FP7s came in 1952, but the shrouded RS1s lasted into the 1960s.
http://alaskarails.org/pix/former-loco/UK-1070.html
I still find it a bit hard to believe that they scrapped all the RF-1s. I suppose there was some attempt at preservation but the distance and location were too far, with no 'local' interest in having one for display.
Hey K4, where is the next question?
daveklepper Hey K4, where is the next question?
Sorry 'bout that. If anyone has a question please post, spring break had me tied down for a bit.
Ok! Here's a question ready to go.
The year is 1968. Intercity passenger service has been receding for years. Much of what is left is a shadow of it's former self. Railroads generally cannot get out from intercity fast enough. It is a bad year for those of us that can remember what we had.
One Railroad decided to buck the trend. Out of no-where, a new intercity passenger service is introduced. 25 brand new cars are built. 5 club/galley cars, 5 coach cafe cars and 15 coaches that seat 80.
6 locomotives are extensively rebuilt are assigned to this train, with an unique non standard paint scheme for the locomotives and a different look for the cars. New innovations too!...coaches had large overhead luggage racks eliminating the need for a baggage car, the cafe and club cars eliminated the need for a diner. Also newer concepts such as HEP, all electric and outside disc brakes on the cars. They looked very good with those disc brakes! 5 trips a day to one city, 1 trip to another. The train sets and service are given a new name and marketed extensively.
Fast forward 20 years and much of the equipment can be found newly arrived on a very famous train in the USA. Not the locomotives however.
Full circle another 20 years and they are back with the original owner on yet another somewhat less famous train but back in service nontheless.
What is the name of the train and the service rolled out in 1968? What 3 cities were the trains start/end points?
What were the rebuilt locomotives? What was the new colour scheme?
What was the famous train they were sold to?
Where are they now?
CN's Tempo trains with coaches from Hawker-Siddeley (Cnadian Car and Foundry), powered by HEP-equipped MLW RS18's in a modified CN Scheme of red with a gray cab. Toronto-Windsor, Toronto-Sarnia, with most trips on the Windsor leg. Some of the Tempo cars were used on the joint Amtrak/Via International before sale of some of the cars to ANSCO for Winter Park Ski Train service. CN re-acquired the CN cars for use on the former Algoma Central in 2009.
The Tempos followed GTW's more or less successful Mohawk, introduced in 1967 on a fast Chicago-Detroit schedule. By the time the Mohawk's luster had worn off, the Tempos were still fairly popular.
Correct Mr. rcdrye. Nice to mention the GTW Mohawk.
I rode the Tempo many times...I always liked the diffused lighting in the cars using metal vertically hung metallic squares. Later saw the same thing in the library at the Mining School.
Quick notes: In the middle picture we are in downtown Toronto, Union Station grounds, you can see the O'Keefe Centre. O'Keefe was a brewing company, quite popular and had been around forever but got swallowed up by Molson's.
Also notice the Montreal Trust building...huge trust company, got swallowed up by Scotiabank, then all shares of Montreal Trust purchased by Computershare, an Australian company.
NDG would remember these things. How things have changed. We have lost so much diversity and choice in these things. A person's persona and identity went along with where they banked and what beer they drank and other choices in the marketplace. I suppose micro breweries are doing somewhat ok, but is their goal to get bought up by a major? Generally society has become big box stores and everything McDonalized.
In any case the Tempo was a pretty brave and brazen move...CN sure gave passenger service one heck of a try throughout the sixties across the board, however, ultimately to no avail.
So here's some more late 1960s passenger stuff. About the same time the last E9s were built, several railroads bought modified freight units for passenger service, with the idea that they could just join the freight pools after train-offs came through. One railroad bought 10 such units in 1967 to replace one of the last large groups of Alco PAs. These 10 not only remained in passenger service until 1985, they also replaced another group of non-EMD locomotives during their service lives. All of this on a railroad not known for being particularly passenger-friendly.
CN bought a lot of premium US cars in the mid-to-late 1960s, including some for the GTW. Among the cars assigned to the Mohawk were some ex-UP Pullman-Standard coaches similar to the ones PC later bought for Broadway Limited service. Even in the east it took B&M's refusal to continue after the loss of the mail contracts to shut down the Montrealer/Washingtonian and Ambassador.
I thin you may be referring to the SP, and they also replaced the FM Trainmasters in SF Suburban service.
SP 3200-3209 were SDP45's that worked in general passenger service out of Oakland. They usually operated singly in that service. As mentioned above, they later replaced Train Masters in the Peninsula commute pool.
That's them. Several other railroads bought SD-based passenger-equipped locomotives before SP, but most of those had moved into freight service by the early 1970s.
SP's SDP45s were delivered in early 1967 to replace the last of the PAs on SP's remaining passenger trains. The few remaining E-Units were retired after the Lark and Golden State went in 1968. The SDP45s often operated singly or in consists with SP's FP7s and F7Bs. SP continued to lease them to Amtrak after May 1, 1971, usually in pairs on the quad-weekly Daylight "short train" from Oakland to LA (OK, for a while, San Diego, but the SDP45's didn't run through), and on the tri-weekly Cascade/Daylight "long train" from Seattle to LA(San Diego). The tri-weekly Sunset and "San Francisco Zephyr" got FP7s most of the time. Since SP still owned the units, they were occasionally used as part of the Oakland freight pool, but their 60:17 passenger gearing was a mismatch for the 62:15 freight standard found on SP's SD45s and other power.
The first two that went into the commute pool were 3200 and 3205 in 1973. As Amtrak cut in their own SDP40Fs more of the SDP45s followed. The last of the Trainmasters was retired when brand-new GP40P-2s 3197-3199 joined the pool in 1975. The rest of the pool were the 11 dual-control GP9s (3000-3010, later 3186-3196) and a pair of freshly rebuilt SD9Es 4450 and 4451, carrying numbers once worn by Daylight 4-8-4s. With minor upgrading of traction motor blowers, an SDP45 could accelerate faster than a Train Master. CalTrain used them until its own equipment arrived in the mid-1980s.
The SDP45s were very reliable and a pair of them could just about launch a train out of a station. The SDP40Fs that replaced them suffered from above-the-frame water tanks, resulting in "Surf's up" conditions on curves when the tanks were partially empty, and several derailments and severe speed restrictions. Amtrak resorted to ex-SP FP7s mixed with ex-UP E9s until the F40PHs took over.
Would like to defer to our Souith Shore friend, since he had more detailed information.
still missing the edit button, so forgive misspellings please.
if CSSSBH doesn't want to pose a question, I'll come up with one.
Sorry for the delay. Hard to believe that this comes under the 50-year rule. In the N&W merger of October 16, 1964, which was the only railroad whose separate corporate existence ended with the merger on that date?
The NYC&StL (Nickel Plate) was merged into the N&W, with the N&W's corporate structure surviving. The N&W also leased the Wabash, the Akron Canton & Youngstown (which continued to operate semi-independantly) and the Pittsburgh & West Virginia. Also purchased was the Sandusky Line of the PRR, (which was actually owned by a PRR subsidiary) to tie the pieces together.
N&W operated passenger trains into LaSalle St. station in Chicago until the ex-NKP trains were discontinued. Ex-Wabash trains ran to Dearborn St. station.
We have a winner! rrdrye, your question.
The modern Soo Line emerged from the 1961 Merger of the Minneapolis St. Paul & Sault Ste Marie Railroad, the Wisconsin Central Railroad, and the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic Railway, all of which were partially owned by Canadian Pacific. The MStP&SSM and WC were operated as one railroad, but were separate corporations with different boards. DSS&A shared some facilities with each of them. Which company actually survived the merger?
If I remember correctly, the WC continued to exist as a corporate entity to be formally merged later.
WC didn't survive. The name was re-used by Ed Ellis when he bought the lines that became the new WC in the 1990s.
WC did contribute the most up-to-date shop in the system, at North Fond Du Lac.
Since there has to be a surviving company, I will say that the surviving entity is MStP&SSM, formally renamed Soo Line.
Actually, the DSS&A's corporate structure survived. According to the late Wallace W. Abbey, the DSS&A's post-bankruptcy structure gave the new company some tax advantages. So I'll drop a DSS&A question: DSS&A's early road-switchers from Baldwin and Alco had one feature that no Soo/WC road switchers had until the GP9s were delivered in 1954. Soo/WC road locomotives all had it, but not on the cab end. Soo later retrofitted the GP7s, and WC the SD9, but not the Baldwins or Alcos.
Snow plows?
Think operation. The Soo's GP7s, as well as their Baldwins and Alcos had to be handled dead-in-train to and from Shoreham.
Here are before and after pictures (and it's not paint) of SD9 2381.
http://www.canadianrailwayobservations.com/mar2021.jpg
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