Classic Train Questions Part Deux (50 Years or Older)

[daveklepper]

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

[Deggesty]

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.

[daveklepper]

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

[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.

[daveklepper]

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

[rcdrye]

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.

[daveklepper]

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

[daveklepper]

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?

[Miningman]

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. 

 

[rcdrye]

If you want a sobering thought... The CZ ran for 21 years, from 1949 to 1971(-ish, including BN/D&RGW only tri-weekly operation).  The RGZ ran from 1971 to 1983.  In August of this year the Amtrak CZ will have operated longer than the CZ and RGZ put together.

[Deggesty]

daveklepper

I'll admit to have ridden in one of the cars, around 1969.  Walked into the dcar from the adjacent sleeper, where I had a regular roomette, wth a copy of TRAINS in my hand, intending to read it over dinner.  As I sat don across from a well dressed gentleman, he said:  "Hi!  I took that cover picture."  My immediate reply:  "You must be Phil Hastings!  And he had a cabiride pass from Croookston to Grand Forks, which he said coiuld include me.   And it did.   Same trip when I met Golda Maer in Milwaukee, but that story can wait.

Yes, the Reo Grande Zephyr was the last non-Amtrak intercitiy USA passenger train.   But the traqnsition was not smooth.  For a time there was no passenger service on the D&RGW.   Why?   The full story , please.

 

A landslide at Thistle, which caused the Rio Grande to bore two tunnels through Billy's Mountain.

[RME]

daveklepper

But the traqnsition was not smooth. For a time there was no passenger service on the D&RGW. Why? The full story , please.

I don't have the full story, but the gist as I remember it was that the D&RGW had far more limited physical capacity than UP, and was far more inconvenienced by having to run Amtrak trains than UP at the time.  So understandably to contemporary Rio Grande management (I don't remember whether this was before Anschutz involvement, but I do think he was in the picture then) keeping Amtrak off their line was important, both 'absolutely' and in terms of competitive advantage.

[daveklepper]

I'll admit to have ridden in one of the cars, around 1969.  Walked into the car from the adjacent sleeper, where I had a regular roomette, wth a copy of TRAINS in my hand, intending to read it over dinner.  As I sat down across from a well dressed gentleman, he said:  "Hi!  I took that cover picture."  My immediate reply:  "You must be Phil Hastings!  And he had a cab-ride pass from Croookston to Grand Forks, which he said coiuld include me.   And it did.   Same trip when I met Golda Maer in Milwaukee, but that story can wait.

Yes, the Reo Grande Zephyr was the last non-Amtrak intercitiy USA passenger train.   But the traqnsition was not smooth.  For a time there was no passenger service on the D&RGW.   Why?   The full story, please.

[rcdrye]

Dave is correct.  GN rebuilt two Glacier-type 16 dupRmt4DBR cars into sleeper-buffet-lounges (8 dupRmt2DBR) as "Winnipeg Club" and "Manitoba Club".  They were used on the Winnipeg Limited.  "Manitoba Club" even got Big Sky Blue paint.  The train was truncated to a St. Cloud-Winnipeg connection with the Western Star around 1970.

UP did a similar, though less drastic, rebuild for the Butte Special, taking two sections of 6sec6Rmt4DBR cars and making a small buffet, but without the lounge area of the GN cars.

The Soo Line's Winnipeger carried rebuilt heavyweights, with an occasional borrowed CP coach for most of its later life.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Union Pacific, Butte Special, Salt Lake City-Butte

[daveklepper]

Great Northern, St. Paul - Winnapeg

[rcdrye]

To control costs on an overnight train that carried a diner-lounge, two fairly new sleeping cars were rebuilt in 1956 into buffet-sleepers, the only ones with duplex roomettes and bedrooms.  Both cars were given new names for non-U.S. locations.  Railroad (only one involved), train name and endpoints. 

[daveklepper]

RC- Waiting for you!    But Fum Fact:   Brooklyn has only the one Broadway, but Manhattan has two.  The first is what is known as Broadway, running the length of the island and across "Kings Bridge" to run through The Bronx and then into Yonkers.  Much longer than Broadway-Brooklyn.   But shorter than either is Manhattan's East Broadway, confined to that part of lower Manhattan that justs out into the EAst River.   It too once had an elevated structure; part of the 2nd Avenue Elevated used it.  The big Broadway has the No.  1 line on el-stucture 122-130 Streets and 200-242. 

[rcdrye]

daveklepper

The J/Z line is correct, withthe sectioni from Marcy Avenue Statioin to Crescent Street being an original 19th-Century, originally steam-operated elevated lione.

But it is not Myrtle Avenue, although M-Myrtle trains do use part of the line.

Look at the map again, name the street under the elevated structure from Marcy to East-New-York, and then ask the next question.

Note that on the L 14th Street-Canarsie Lined, at ENY, where is crosses the J/Z, the statioin name reflects the street name.

 

 

 

The street name is Broadway.  I'll post a new question later today.

[daveklepper]

The J/Z line is correct, withthe section from Marcy Avenue Station to Crescent Street being an original 19th-Century, originally steam-operated elevated line.

But it is not Myrtle Avenue, although M-Myrtle trains do use part of the line.

Look at the map again, name the street under the elevated structure from Marcy to East-New-York, and then ask the next question.

Note that on the L 14th Street-Canarsie Line, at ENY, where is crosses the J/Z, the statioin name reflects the street name.

[rcdrye]

The only line I can find that meets that description is the Myrtle Avenue J/Z running from the Williamsburg Bridge to 121st st., then ducking into a new Subway section. Subway end in Manhattan is at Broad Street, just a few blocks away from the ferries.

[daveklepper]

With the hints I have given, this shoujld be easy as pie.   You don't even neeed a 19th Century map.  Just look at the current map,see which line:

Is primarily on an elevated structure

couild easily have run to a ferry terminal instead of its present route into Manhattan

Obvioiusliy  must be in a subway in Manhattan

Also has a subway at its outer end

Not the 20th Century's Flushing Line

[daveklepper]

Further hints:   One extension was partly in a subway, with open-platform gate cars serving a subway station that still exsists and then extended two more stations before replacerment by steel cars standard for the system displaced by newer cars of a somewhat radical departure from the strandard design.   Another extension was by standard "City-built" elevated, and this was partially replaced by a subway, much later, so the pressent route, omitting the ferry terminal, sees subway operation at both ends, and the original elevated line with some extension in the middle.

[daveklepper]

 Hint:   The abandoned station was also a ferry terminal.  Aftyer electrification and extensions added, it was seved by a one-car shuttle until abandonjment.  Often, the shuttle used the first steel car of the system, which was not a prototype for subsequent cars and could only mu with wood gate cars.

 

[daveklepper]

elevated structure in place, rebuit, but stillthere.

 

Not so in NYCity, where nearly allremaining el structures are 20th Century extensions of subway lines and replacement of ground-level tracks that became streetcar tracks.

Thjere is one exception, a 19th Century elevated line that is entirely in place except for only one station and its track to the next station.

 

Of course for years it has been operated onlyu with steel subway equipment.

 

It did see extensions in the 20th Century, not all, of course, elevated.  And parts have been rebuilt.

[ZephyrOverland]

rcdrye

 

ZO - you and Dave Klepper flip a coin to see who goes next.

 

 

Dave, go ahead and give the next question.

[rcdrye]

ZephyrOverland

Would the other pool service you are looking for is Minneapolis/St. Paul - Duluth/Superior operated by GN, NP and Soo?

That's the one.  NP ran one each day and night trains, with a 10sec, 2Cpt, 1DR sleeper on the night train.  GN ran the Gopher and Badger using two identical train sets including a rebuilt heavyweight parlor-solarium.  Soo Line's offering was coach only with a news butcher.  NP's night train was the first withdrawal (1959) with Soo's next, after a brief withdrawal from the pool, and dropping Duluth.  GN's was the last one standing, with a single Gopher/Badger pair operating on April 30, 1971 (by BN).

All three roads used SPUD, NP and GN used GN's Minneapolis station, Soo Line used Milwaukee's.  NP And GN used Superior and Duluth Union Stations, Soo used its own in both cities.  NP trains ran St. Paul-Minneapolis-Superior-Duluth, Soo and GN ran Minneapolis-St. Paul-Superior-Duluth.

ZO - you and Dave Klepper flip a coin to see who goes next.

[ZephyrOverland]

rcdrye

Of the railroads you named, two of them were active in the other pool.

In the Seattle-Portland pool in 1957, NP ran two round-trip trains, one day and one night (10-2-1 sleeper).  UP ran the "Train of Tommorow" cars in day service, and GN ran a daytime round trip with a GN Parlor. The sleepers off the UP (6-6-4) and SP (10-6, 12 DBR) went north on UP's pool contribution (with "Train of Tomorrow" cars) and south on NP's day train.  Two of the "Cascade" 10-6 sleepers were owned by NP.  GN and UP used King Street Station in Seattle, UP used Union (with CMStP&P) next door.  All three used Portland Union Station.

The other pool, as previously noted, involved four cities and three railroads.  No pooling of equipment was involved, unlike the CN-CP Toronto-Montreal-Quebec pools.

 

Would the other pool service you are looking for is Minneapolis/St. Paul - Duluth/Superior operated by GN, NP and Soo?

[rcdrye]

Of the railroads you named, two of them were active in the other pool.

In the Seattle-Portland pool in 1957, NP ran two round-trip trains, one day and one night (10-2-1 sleeper).  UP ran the "Train of Tommorow" cars in day service, and GN ran a daytime round trip with a GN Parlor. The sleepers off the UP (6-6-4) and SP (10-6, 12 DBR) went north on UP's pool contribution (with "Train of Tomorrow" cars) and south on NP's day train.  Two of the "Cascade" 10-6 sleepers were owned by NP.  GN and UP used King Street Station in Seattle, UP used Union (with CMStP&P) next door.  All three used Portland Union Station.

The other pool, as previously noted, involved four cities and three railroads.  No pooling of equipment was involved, unlike the CN-CP Toronto-Montreal-Quebec pools.

[daveklepper]

The only pools I know of  are  Portland - Seattle and Montreal - Toronto.  In the first, GN, NP, and UP all ran one train each way.  The only sleeping car(s?) was the through SP sleeper to Oakland.  I do not know which railroads handled it, but it is likely that it went on different railroad in each direction.

For Toronto - Montreal, CP handled all the sleepers, which were through to Chicago via Detroit and the Michigan Central - New York Central System.  Of course, earlier, CN also had through sleepers to and from Chicago, via St. Clair, Durand, and GTW.

But I am unsure if you want either of these.  And NP had through sleepers with CN, Chicago - Winnapeg, a whole thorough train.