A Classic REAL Trains 'n Traction FOTO site!

[siberianmo]

G’day All!

PASSENGER TRAIN NOSTALGIA #48

For your BRITISH ISLES Holiday

USE THE COMPLETE SERVICES OF BRITISH RAILWAYS

Here’s something to enjoy regarding the British Railways from a 1949 advertisement in my personal collection.

. . . . . Our trains mean pleasant, easy day or night service to every corner of Britain.

Railway-operated channel steamer services to Ireland and the Continent assure you
comfortable accommodations and convenient connections.

. . . . . 45 hotels throughout Britain associated with British Railways invite you to pause
. . . . . on your tour or business trip, for relaxation, sports and enjoyment of their
. . . . . traditional hospitality.

STAY LONGER * SEE MORE! 25% REDUCTION IN TOUR FARES

By planning ahead the many places throughout Britain you wi***o visit, you can effect a considerable saving by the individual tour fares granted by British Railways to visitors from overseas.

. . . . . Write for YOUR free copies . . . . .

”WHAT, NO ICE?” – written especially for Americans planning to visit us; as well as the full-color map folder, ”THE BRITISH ISLES” both free upon request to Dept. 25 at any of the offices shown below.

For tickets, reservations and authoritative travel information on the British Isles

CONSULT YOUR LOCAL TRAVEL AGENT or any British Railways office:

. . . . . NEW YORK 20, N. Y., 9 ROCKEFELLER Pl.
. . . . . CHICAGO 3, ILL, 39 So. Lasalle St.
. . . . . LOS ANGELES 14, CAL., 510 W. 6th St.
. . . . . TORONTO, ONT., 69 Yonge Street

. . . . . . . . . . BRITISH RAILWAYS . . . . . . . . . .


Enjoy! [tup]

Tom [4:-)][oX)]

[passengerfan]

Good Morning Tom This fits with the continuing theme.
THE STREAMLINED HEADEND CARS OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA
By Al
Introduction

The headend cars were those cars that were used for the transportation of Mail, Express shipments, Coffins and Passenger Baggage, company mail, packages, bulk mail (magazines, 2nd and 3rd class mail) etc. Head end cars also sorted the mail in route in Railway Post Office cars. Headend cars were also those cars that carried everything necessary in the way of supplies to people, who live in the more remote regions of the country, this is especially true for those living near the Alaska Railroad and along certain remote rail lines in Canada. In many of those places the trains are the sole access to the rest of the world for those who choose this way of life.
Still other headend cars were used for the transport of Thoroughbred Race Horses and Prize Bulls, but only one railroad in North America the Canadian Pacific Railway purchased streamlined cars for this purpose. The other railroads that were involved in the transportation of Race Horses and Prize Bulls had purchased enough heavyweight cars of these types to see them to the end of that segment of rail transport. The early 1960’s saw this business disappear altogether from the rails, with the trucking industry and even air freight transporting the thoroughbreds, it was no longer necessary to transport Prize Bulls as just their frozen semen was transported usually by refrigerated truck transport or Air Freight.
Eventually the railroads operating the Railway Express Agency (REA) would even see this business disappear to companies such as Federal Express and United Parcel Service. The latter began at the end of WW II the other in the late 1950s; between these two they now operate 70% of the overnight package business with the remainder handled by the U.S. Postal service. Several railroads invested in streamlined cars to transport their REA shipments but for the most part REA shipments traveled in Express Boxcars generally in Mail and Express trains or secondary passenger trains along some routes. When all other passenger trains were deleted along a route the premier train or in some cases only passenger train remaining on this route usually added a headend car or two for the shipment of REA shipments. In many cases at major stops these cars required a great deal of loading and unloading the schedule of these trains was usually lengthened defeating the purpose of the premier train being the fastest and able to offer passengers premium service sometimes for an extra service charge. One source for REA Express cars following WW II were the Pullman Standard built troop sleepers that resembled lengthened boxcars equipped with windows and end doors with diaphragms. These cars were not convertible by the railroads to any civilian passenger use. But these former troop sleepers were easily convertible to Express cars and Baggage Cars they were operated by many railroads in the express business following their WW II troop transportation duties. They were perfectly suited for this purpose as the cars rode on high-speed trucks and were able to handle a large volume of Express in their stripped down interiors. The high-speed trucks they were equipped with permitted their operation in the fast mail and express trains. Another use for the former troop sleepers was as baggage cars and many others were converted to M of W cars for the track gangs and even wreck clearing crews, the railroads when using the cars for this purpose usually replaced the high-speed trucks with other trucks.
The railroads would have large numbers of streamlined Railway Post Office cars many operating in the finest streamliners in the country. These were the cars that sorted the mail in route and if an individual so desired they could meet the train at a station where it stopped and drop a letter directly into the Railway Post Office cars mail slot. This mail would then be sorted for delivery and would carry a Railroad Post Office cancellation stamp identifying the railroad it was mailed from. Most often the mail was sorted for smaller towns in route where the streamliners never even paused but roared right through. In those instances a door would open and a canvas sack of mail would be dropped off containing the mail for that town. At the same time a mail Crane located alongside the track held up the out going canvas mail sack to be picked up by a hook located on the side of the Railway Post Office car as the train roared through the town without even slowing. One by one the Railway Post Office routes were discontinued replaced by the post offices doing the sorting and the transportation of the mail was handled by truck and air transportation of the first class mail. The loss of the first class mail sounded the death knell for many of America’s finest streamliners. The money the Railroads had received from the post office was all that had kept many of these streamlined trains operating in the black or close to the black. With the loss of the Railway Post Office business the trains plunged into red ink the passenger revenues unable to support the train. Even much of the storage mail business disappeared to the trucking and air concerns. The railroads would be left with a large amount of the Bulk mail and magazine transport that tied up large numbers of cars but paid very little when compared to first class mail shipments. Much of this bulk mail is today handled in domestic containers or Piggyback trailers. Two railroads the Santa Fe and Burlington Northern began operating special piggyback mail trains from Chicago to the West Coast following Amtrak’s take over of the passenger trains from the railroads. The Santa Fe train was the SUPER C operating between Chicago and Los Angeles at passenger train speeds, and the Burlington Northern operated a similar train named the PACIFIC ZIP. This has mushroomed into a service comprised of high-speed trains carrying United Parcel containers and trailers. This has also led to several large trucking concerns transporting large numbers of trailers over long distances in these same type trains. Today there are container trains that now even act as a land bridge with ships transferring containers to trains on one coast for delivery to a waiting ship on the other coast for delivery to Europe or the Orient. Many of these large fast Container Ships are unable to transit the Panama Canal due to their extreme width and overall size.
The heavyweight head-end cars rode on six wheel trucks, while their lightweight streamlined counterparts for the most part rode on four-wheel trucks. One notable exception to this was the Baggage 30’ Railway Post Office Cars built by Budd for the SUNSET LIMITED trains of 1950. This was also true for the Baggage 30’ Railway Post Office cars built for the SP SHASTA DAYLIGHT and later transferred to the CASCADE after repainting. These Southern Pacific cars even though lightweights were equipped with six wheel trucks enabling them to carry greater payloads. The Union Pacific owned Baggage Cars that were converted to Baggage Train Heater cars with water tanks and train heat boilers installed at one end, it was at this end the railroad installed six wheel trucks while at the Baggage end the four-wheel trucks were retained. These cars were converted to Baggage Train Heat Boiler Cars to provide additional train heat in the winter months when the CITY streamliners were combined and their length made it necessary to have additional steam heat capacity to provide steam at the same pressure throughout lengthy consists. These train Heat Boiler cars were coupled to the rear of the so called CITY of everywhere streamliners to provide additional train heat capacity to the rear half of these long trains during the winter months.
The streamlined Baggage cars were easily recognizable generally by there lack of windows, they were generally equipped with two large sliding doors (6’ to 8’) on each side for loading and unloading, and with few exceptions were equipped with end doors and diaphragms for access to the trailing consist. For those Baggage cars traveling in a roads streamlined trains they were generally manned so the passengers checked baggage and whatever express traveling on the train could be unloaded and reloaded at station stops in the shortest length of time possible. These train baggage compartments were also used for the transportation of human remains in caskets for burial. By limiting the types of Baggage and express and other shipments to a minimum it enabled the train to operate on faster schedules with shorter length station stops. Many schedules called for a train to be in the station for only a short period of time just long enough to unload and reload passengers and the same for their checked luggage. Many of these same Baggage cars also carried Express shipments as well and they were generally assigned to secondary passenger trains or the mail and express trains. Cars that carried Express shipments were generally not manned but unlocked and opened at each station with express shipments for that town or city unloaded and shipments for cities and towns further along the train route being loaded and the doors once again locked.
The Railway Post Office Compartments were for the use of mail crews only to sort the mail while the train traveled from town to town and city to city. Most cars that had a Railway Post Office compartment had mail slots in the car sides where townspeople or passengers of the train could walk forward and mail a letter at longer station stops. These cars were equipped with arms on each side of the car to snatch the mail from a mail crane alongside the track at stations where the train did not stop. At the same time any mail that needed to be dropped off in that city was simply dropped off in one of the heavy canvas mailbags. Hopefully the bag wouldn’t go through a station window or strike someone such as a railfan hanging around the station. The three most common size Railway Post Office Compartments found in lightweight streamlined trains were 15’, 30’ and 60’. The 15’ was generally manned by two to four mail clerks depending on the route, the 30’ was generally assigned 4-8 mail clerks and the 60’ Railway Post Office Compartments were usually manned by 8 or more clerks depending again on route. In many cases the 60’ RPO represented the entire length of the car, while those 60’ Railway Post Office Compartments found in 85’ cars generally the remaining space was for storage mail or for other sacks of first class mail after it had been sorted. The U. S. Mail crew’s who manned the Railway Post Office cars were armed to protect the mail entrusted to their care. There was never an instance of a streamlined U.S. Mail Railway Post Office car being robbed, but the Canadians had a single robbery take place of a streamlined RPO car in the overnight train between Toronto and Kapuskasing a joint CNR-ONR train. This robbery took place before the train had even departed Toronto Union Station on its overnight journey. Canadian Railway Post Office Clerks were not armed like their American counterparts.
Other cars resembling Baggage cars were for the magazines and other bulk type mail that was loaded in one city for transportation to another city where the car was set out. These cars were called storage mail cars and they traveled locked at all times. The storage mail cars as they were called generally traveled in secondary passenger trains or in Mail - Express trains. The one exception that comes to mind is the transport of one of these Storage Mail cars in the Great Northern Railways westbound EMPIRE BUILDER between St. Paul and Spokane daily. The car originated in Chicago and traveled in the Milwaukee Roads MORNING HIAWATHA between Chicago and St. Paul. Since the Great Northern Railway did not wi***o spoil the appearance of the incomparable EMPIRE BUILDER by having a car from another railroad break up the streamliners colors, the Great Northern Railway supplied all storage mail cars used in this service between Chicago and Spokane. The mail has a slogan that it always gets through but in at least one case that was certainly true even if it took awhile. Apparently one of the large eastern railways managed to lose a couple of these storage mail cars on an unused track for several years before they were rediscovered loaded with undelivered Christmas packages and mail. But the Post Office did there part and delivered the years late Christmas bounty to their rightful owners, with very few of the packages being undeliverable for whatever reason.
Many of the Railroads in the United States and Canada were reluctant to purchase lightweight streamlined head end cars in the early years of the streamline era due to the cost involved and most of these roads still had large numbers of perfectly good heavyweight head end cars. Several roads were busy converting older heavyweight cars of different types into heavyweight head end cars. The railroads were slow in purchasing lightweight streamlined head end cars, and at first only purchased lightweight streamlined head end cars for certain all streamlined trains to match the rest of the consist. It would be several years into the streamline era before railroads would begin purchasing large numbers of lightweight streamlined head end cars for general service. After they began purchasing the large lots of lightweight streamlined head end cars it became more and more common to see these cars appear in secondary trains and even the Express and Mail trains of these roads. By the end of the Second World War many railroads were faced with a well worn and tired group of older heavyweight headend cars and many were pressed into maintenance of way service and others were simply scrapped. With these older heavyweight cars nearing the end of their useful service lives the railroads began buying large numbers of lightweight streamlined head end cars.
While the vast majority of lightweight streamlined passenger carrying cars were between 77’ to 85’ in length, lightweight streamlined head end cars varied from 60’ to 85’ in length. The initial streamlined head end cars were those of the Union Pacific and the Chicago Burlington and Quincy articulated streamlined train sets that featured Combination Control Cab Engine Room Baggage or Control Cab Engine Room Railway Post Office Baggage cars. When the single non-articulated lightweight streamlined head end cars were introduced the most common was for the use of passengers checked baggage usually in combination with other car types such as Baggage – Coach, Baggage – Crew Dormitory – Coach, or Baggage - Railway Post Office Cars. In most cases lightweight streamlined baggage cars that carried checked baggage assigned to a roads streamliners were generally manned to speed up station stops thus enabling the streamliner to maintain a faster schedule. Many streamlined head end cars were built for assignment too specific trains and spent their entire operational service careers in those trains, some were even lettered for the specific train they were assigned to such as the EMPIRE BUILDER.
As the railroads discontinued more and more of there passenger trains the remaining trains were assigned additional head end cars. In many cases a result of a road assigning more and more head end cars to a streamlined train was a slowdown in schedule to the point where a passenger could take a bus cheaper and get their faster. For many other passengers the slowdown of the streamlined train schedules forced many passengers and businessmen in particular to the friendly skies. In the late 1960’s many of the nations once proud streamlined trains had been reduced to little more than Baggage – Express – Mail trains with one or two coaches carried for passengers tacked on the rear, this became even more apparent as the birth of Amtrak approached in 1971.
Several railroads streamlined heavy-weight head end cars in their own shops, and in other cases converted lightweight streamlined sleeping cars and other car types no longer needed for the transportation of passengers into lightweight streamlined head end cars. Several railroads built their own lightweight streamlined head end cars such as the Great Northern. As the Railway Post Office routes were discontinued, the railroads needing additional cars for transporting bulk mail and express shipments rebuilt many of the former Railway Post Office compartments for the handling of Bulk mail and express shipments many times without even blanking out the RPO windows. The strangest conversion of a railroad car to a head end car has to be the Rock Islands conversion of a lightweight streamlined Coach Lounge Observation into a Coach Baggage Observation. This car will be discussed in more detail in the Rock Island Chapter of this book.
One railroad’s sole new lightweight streamlined car purchases were three Baggage Cars, that road was the Chicago Great Western.
The lightweight streamlined head end cars were much in demand by the railroads once their passenger trains were gone for use as tool cars by the maintenance of way departments for the roads track gangs they were also assigned to Wreck train service again for transporting tools and other equipment necessary for the clean-up of derailments. In still other cases the former lightweight streamlined baggage cars lost their trucks and were placed on the ground in rail yards and engine facilities for storing parts brake shoes, tools, etc.
There were no lightweight streamlined Baggage Sleeping cars unless one counts those former Canadian National Railway owned 24 Duplex Roomette sleeping cars converted by CN shops to Baggage Crew Dormitory cars using many of the former Duplex Roomettes for the crew space. But these cars Duplex Roomette space was not sold to the public.
Several railroads purchased Baggage cars in the later years of the streamline era that resembled nothing more than lengthened boxcars operating on high-speed trucks. Still several of these car types were equipped with end doors, and diaphragms that permitted access to the rest of the train, many of these cars were even manned Baggage cars and operated in the roads streamlined trains. The railroads that purchased these type cars were the Missouri Pacific, Rock Island and Southern Pacific and they will be covered in more detail in those chapters.
Amtrak originally purchased a number of Baggage cars used from the railroads, and today owns Material Handling cars (MHC) and highway trailers that operate on the rear of Amtrak trains. One all mail train complete with working RPO still remains active on Amtrak in the Northeast Corridor. The former RPO cars assigned to this service are former PRR heavyweights. Amtrak also purchased Superliner coaches with Baggage compartments occupying part of the lower level space, but most of these have now lost that baggage compartment as this is written and converted to additional coach seating space. Manned Baggage cars are found on few of Amtrak’s present trains. Amtrak who for years operated the EMD F40 locomotives as the mainstay of their passenger train power in the non-electrified districts, has retired all of these from service now. Several of these former 3,000 hp diesels have been converted to Baggage –Cabs operating at the opposite end of the train from the power but being used as the engineers cab when the train is operating in the reverse direction. The prime mover is removed and the space is changed to a Baggage compartment with large sliding side doors installed in the engine sides and concrete poured for the baggage floor. This gives Amtrak a versatile unit for push-pull operations of trains operating in the Midwestern and Northeastern states the only regions where these units have been assigned so far.
Amtrak has recently purchased additional trailers on rail for operation on the rear of passenger trains where speeds up to 90 mph are often the norm. These trailers will be operated on the rear of SOUTHWEST CHIEF and CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR initially.
AMTRAK and VIA RAIL CANADA both will continue to operate different types of head end cars and will be listed in those chapters of the book.

[passengerfan]

Tom Watch Tomorrows Passengerfan Al's Streamliner Corner for the NP you were expecting.

[siberianmo]

Hey Al

I think you may want to begin numbering these "monster Posts" - I believe this last was Posted on the previous page. Nevertheless, it is chock full of good stuff and ALWAYS aprpeciated.

No comment on the NP[?]

Good to see both of you, BK and Lars - thanx for stopping by! Nice work, Lars!

Later!

Tom[4:-)] [oX)]

[passengerfan]

Here Lars hope this satifies your dome craving for a day or two

Streamlined Dome Cars
Of The
United States & Canada

by Al
The following trains began demonstrating or entered service on the dates listed as dome equipped trains. The number of domes listed in parenthesis represents per consist. And the two terminals are shown for each of the dome operated trains.

TRAIN OF TOMORROW May 28, 1947 (4) Demonstrator See UP 457-458 for service.

VISTA DOME TWIN ZEPHYRS CB&Q December 19, 1947 (5) Chicago – Twin Cities twice daily round trips.

COLORADO EAGLE MP- D&RGW June 1948 (1) St. Louis – Denver daily each direction

CHESSIE C&O August 1, 1948 (2) Cincinnati – Washington daily each direction never entered scheduled service.

PERE MARQUETTE C&O October 1948 (1) Chicago – Detroit daily each direction

VISTA DOME CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR CB&Q – D&RGW - WP
March 21, 1949 (4) Chicago – Oakland daily each direction.

COLUMBIAN B&O May 5, 1949 (1) Washington – Chicago Overnight each direction

ROYAL GORGE D&RGW September 1949 (1) Denver – Salt Lake City daily each direction via Pueblo.

BLUE BIRD WAB February 26, 1950 (4) St. Louis – Chicago round trip daily

457-458 UP June 18, 1950 (4) Portland – Seattle round trip daily

SHENANDOAH B&O January 8, 1951 (1) Washington – Chicago every other day

CAPITOL LIMITED B&O January 8, 1951 (1) Washington – Chicago overnight each direction

SUPER CHIEF AT&SF December 1951 (1) Chicago – Los Angeles daily each direction

TEXAS EAGLES MP – T&P 1-2 July 1952 (1) St. Louis – Fort Worth overnight each direction

TEXAS EAGLES MP 21-22 July 1952 (1) St. Louis – San Antonio overnight each direction

MISSOURI RIVER EAGLE MP July 1952 (1) St. Louis –Omaha/Lincoln via Kansas City daily each direction

CITY OF KANSAS CITY WAB August 1952 (1) St. Louis – Kansas City round trip daily

MORNING HIAWATHA CMSTP&P December 1952 (1) Chicago – Twin Cities daily each direction

AFTERNOON HIAWATHA CMSTP&P December 1952 (1) Chicago – Twin Cities daily each direction

OLYMPIAN HIAWATHA CMSTP&P December 1952 (1) Chicago – Seattle/Tacoma daily each direction

VISTA DOME AK-SAR-BEN ZEPHYR CB&Q December 1952 (1) Chicago – Omaha/Lincoln Overnight each direction

VISTA DOME KANSAS CITY ZEPHYR CB&Q February 1, 1953 (2) Chicago – Kansas City daily each direction

VISTA DOME AMERICAN ROYAL ZEPHYR CB&Q February 1, 1953 (2) Chicago – Kansas City Overnight each direction

SAN JOAQUIN DAYLIGHT SP June 24, 1954 (1) Oakland – Los Angeles via San Joaquin Valley daily each direction

CHICAGOAN – KANSAS CITYAN AT&SF 1954 (1) Chicago – Oklahoma City daily each way

SAN FRANCISCO CHIEF AT&SF 1954 (1) Chicago – Oakland daily each direction

EL CAPITAN AT&SF 1954 (1) Chicago – Los Angeles daily each direction

NORTH COAST LIMITED CB&Q – NP August 16, 1954 Coaches (2) October 1954 Sleepers (2) total (4) Chicago – Portland/Seattle daily each direction

CITY OF PORTLAND C&NW - UP 1955 (3) Chicago – Portland daily each direction)

CITY OF LOS ANGELES C&NW - UP 1955 (2) Chicago – Los Angeles daily each direction

CHALLENGER C&NW - UP 1955 (1) Chicago – Los Angeles daily each direction

SAN FRANCISCO OVERLAND SP April 1955 (1) Oakland – Ogden daily each direction

SHASTA DAYLIGHT SP May 1955 (1) Oakland – Portland daily each direction

CANADIAN CPR April 24, 1955 (2) Montreal/Toronto – Vancouver daily each direction

DOMINION CPR April 24, 1955 (2) Montreal/Toronto – Vancouver daily each direction

ATLANTIC LIMITED CPR April 24, 1955 (1) Montreal – St. John Overnight each direction

CITY OF ST. LOUIS WAB - UP (1) St. Louis – Los Angeles daily each direction

EMPIRE BUILDER CB&Q - GN Coaches (3) May 29, 1955 Lounges (1) October 1955 Chicago – Portland/Seattle daily each direction

CHIEF AT&SF July 1956 (1) Chicago – Los Angeles daily each direction

VISTA DOME DENVER ZEPHYRS CB&Q October 28, 1956 (3) Chicago – Denver/Colorado Springs Overnight each direction

CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO (SP) 1956 (1) Ogden – Oakland daily each direction

CITY OF DENVER CMSTP&P - UP January 1958 (1) Chicago – Denver Overnight Each direction

TEXAS CHIEF AT&SF 1958 (1) Chicago – Houston daily each direction

WESTERN STAR GN (1) winter only St. Paul – Seattle daily each direction

YAMPA VALLEY MAIL D&RGW (1) Denver – Craig round trip daily

POCAHONTAS N&W 1969 (1) Cincinnati – Norfolk daily each direction

VIGER CPR 1969 (1) Montreal – Quebec City round trip daily

FRONTENAC CPR 1969 (1) Montreal – Quebec City round trip daily

RIDEAU CPR 1969 (1) Montreal – Ottawa round trip daily

RIO GRANDE ZEPHYR D&RGW (5) Denver – Salt Lake City every other day

SUPER CONTINENTAL CNR (1) Edmonton – Vancouver daily each direction

PANORAMA CNR (1) Winnipeg – Vancouver daily each direction

COAST DAYLIGHT SP (1) San Francisco – Los Angeles daily each direction

AURORA ARR (1) Anchorage – Fairbanks summers daily

POWHATAN ARROW N&W (1) Cincinnati – Newport News daily each direction

CITY OF MIAMI IC - CofG – ACL – FEC (1) Chicago – Miami winters only every other day

SOUTH WIND PRR – L&N – ACL – FEC (1) Chicago – Miami winters only every other day

LE CHATEAU CHAMPLAIN CPR (1) Montreal – Quebec City round trip daily

LOUISIANA EAGLE T&P (1) New Orleans – Fort Worth Overnight each direction

TURBO TRAINS CNR (2) Toronto – Montreal twice daily round trips

PANAMA LIMITED IC (1) Chicago – New Orleans winter only one season only overnight each direction

BANNER BLUE WAB (1) Chicago – St. Louis round trip daily

NEBRASKA ZEPHYR CB&Q (1) Chicago – Omaha – Lincoln round trip daily

NANCY HANKS II CofG (1) Atlanta- Savannah round trip daily

CITY OF NEW ORLEANS IC (1) Chicago – New Orleans daily each direction

SOUTHERN CRESCENT SOU – L&N (1) Atlanta – New Orleans daily each direction

The lightweight streamlined Dome car was a new type car that entered the North American rail scene following WW II.
The modern Dome car made its first appearance in June 1945. The railroad that built the first modern dome car CB&Q was also the railroad that introduced the first streamlined diesel powered streamlined train the Pioneer Zephyr in 1934. Later they would introduce the Gallery car to Chicago commuters, and the Slumbercoach first appeared in the CB&Q 1956 version of the VISTA-DOME DENVER ZEPHYR.
The idea for the modern dome originated with General Motors vice president and Electro-Motive Division general manager Mr. Cyrus R. Osborn. On a trip aboard an A-B-B-A set of the companies new EMD FT diesel units leading a freight train through Glenwood Canyon on the D&RGW.
Sitting in the fireman’s seat he was awe struck by the spectacular view from the sloping windows of the lead diesel unit and the idea for the dome was born. When he returned east Mr. Osborn discussed a dome car with leaders of other railroads. The one railroad leader Mr. Osborn inspired with the idea of a dome car was Mr. Ralph Budd president of the CB&Q. The two men close friends talked for many hours about the feasibility of the yet to be named dome car.
It was from this meeting that 4714 SILVER DOME became reality. Along with Burlington’s Chief Mechanical Officer Mr. H.H. Ulrich, and Budd Companies Colonel E.J. Ragsdale SILVER DOME became the world’s first modern Vista-Dome car.
The first Dome was reconstructed from the flat top 52-revenue seat Budd built coach 4714 SILVER ALCHEMY. This modern lightweight streamlined stainless steel car built new in June 1940 would emerge from the Aurora, Illinois shops of the CB&Q in June 1945 as the world’s first Vista Dome car. The number 4714 would remain but the name was changed to SILVER DOME. The CB&Q and Budd people referred to the completed car as a Vista-Dome. The conversion of the car was accomplished with the help of Budd engineers; the car underwent transformation from an ordinary streamlined coach in less than two weeks to the most talked about coach in postwar history. How was the 4714 SILVER ALCHEMY selected? Believe it or not it was by chance the 4714 SILVER ALCHEMY was in the shop undergoing routine maintenance and inspection, it was simply a case of being in the right place at the right time. Atop the center of the car after shopping was a greenhouse looking affair called the dome. This part raised above the roofline featured windows on the sides, top, front and rear. The standard height of this car when it entered the shops was 13’ 6”. Height to top of dome after reconstruction was 16’ 1-1/2”. This would be the highest short dome car built along with a twin out shopped by the CB&Q in 1949 4709 SILVER CASTLE to the same plan as the earlier 4714 SILVER DOME. Those domes built by the three major car builders never exceeded 15’ 10-1/2” in height.
Here was the passenger car feature that could not only provide passenger’s nearly unobstructed viewing to the sides but forward over the top of other cars or one could turn around and see to the rear over the roofs of the trailing cars. Not to mention the view skyward especially worthwhile in mountainous country or along the banks of the Mississippi with the bluffs rising alongside the tracks or across the river. The dome seated 24 passengers arranged in two rows of paired seats 12 on either side of the center aisle facing forward. Above the dome aisle was a panel with heating and air conditioning vents with lights down the center for night use at stations. At other times in the night these lights were extinguished leaving only the small aisle lights lining the floor similar to those used in darkened theaters, these lights did not interfere with night visibility but were visible enough to see ones way to a seat in the dome, and one could see the headlight of the locomotive cutting a swath through the countryside ahead of the speeding train. Those nights of the full moon the dome seats provided an almost eerie view of the passing countryside.
All future standard or short dome cars from Budd, Pullman Standard, and American Car & Foundry would be constructed with a depressed section below the dome and an aisle running along one side of the car beneath the dome.
In the case of CB&Q 4709 SILVER CASTLE and 4714 SILVER DOME there were two aisles down either side beneath the dome and main floor seating beneath the dome was arranged back to back facing outward to the windows. This arrangement cut the revenue seating capacity of these two dome cars to 34 on the main level from the original 52. The 24 seats in the dome were considered non-revenue and this space was not sold, it was open to any passenger who wished to enjoy the passing scenery.
After completion the CB&Q sent the 4714 SILVER DOME on a system wide tour to test passenger reaction to the Vista-Dome.
The dome seemed to provide something for everyone to see and enjoy. For the railfan he was virtually able to look over the shoulder of the engineer as the train raced through the countryside and witness the trackside signals turn from green too red as the train broke the track circuit. On certain railroads where semaphore signals were the order of the day not only did one see the light turn from red to green but watched the semaphore arm drop from the upright position to the stop position. Or one could watch crossing gates drop as the train approached then turn and see them raise once again and the vehicular traffic start across after the train had passed. Every train meet was witnessed first hand by the railfan sitting in the dome. And what railfan cannot remember riding in a dome when a slower scheduled passenger train or freight was overtaken in double track, or triple track territory.
For most passengers the attraction of the dome was viewing the passing scenery as never seen before from a train. Not even the rounded end observations offered the view provided by the new Vista-Dome. In fact no other type car has appeared on the railway scene to offer the view provided by the Vista-Dome. The short domes from Budd, American Car & Foundry and those UP coach domes built by Pullman Standard in 1958 for the CITY OF ST. LOUIS provided the best overall dome viewing.
The 4714 SILVER DOME did more to influence CB&Q postwar new car purchases than any other car. From this singe homemade conversion the CB&Q would become the largest owner of dome cars in the world. This was prior to the merger with the GN, NP, and SP&S that created Burlington Northern. Only Amtrak would own more domes than the Burlington Northern.
On July 23, 1945 4714 SILVER DOME made its debut, operating to Minneapolis in CB&Q train #45 from Chicago.
At the same time CB&Q train #45 was departing Chicago that morning a press conference was being held by GM Vice-President Mr. Cyrus Osborn in Chicago announcing that GM and Pullman Standard had teamed up and were going to build the TRAIN OF TOMORROW as a demonstration train for the country to see.
General Motors itself was impressed enough with the dome idea it was turned over to there design & styling department and Mr. Harley Earl vice-president (famous for the Buick portholes) of styling turned to his staff and turned the idea into three ten foot models complete with clay passengers and crew members to fill them. Thus was born the GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW. These models went on display in 1945 and were exhibited to many railroad presidents and the reaction of these top Railroad executives led to GM awarding a contract to Pullman Standard for four Astra-Dome cars to be pulled by a new matching General Motors EMD E7A unit. The order called for Pullman Standard to build one each Astra-Dome Cars of four car types.
First was an Astra-Dome Coach with seating for 48 on the main car level with bathrooms located beneath the dome, the dome itself seated 24, this car was named STAR DUST.
The second car in the GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW consist was an Astra-Dome dining car with seating at tables for eighteen in the dome arranged three tables for four on one side and three tables for two on the other. The main floor dining room of SKY VIEW as the Astra-Dome dining car was named seated 24 on the main level. The seating in the main dining room on the main level of the car to the rear of the dome dining room was arranged with four triangular tables for four on one side and four triangular tables for two on the other side. The Kitchen was located at the other end of the cars main floor. Food prepared in the Kitchen located in the cars forward main level area traveled by an electric Dumbwaiter at the front of the dome to the smart waiter (the one who received the tips) in the dome. Beneath the dome in the depressed area of SKY VIEW was located a private dining room for ten passengers. Total dining accommodation was provided for 52.
The third Astra-Dome was a sleeping car, providing 24 seats in the dome, the same as the coach. The sleeping accommodation of DREAM CLOUD as the car was named was unusual providing two three berth Drawing Rooms forward of the dome on the main level, beneath the dome was three compartments. On the main level to the rear of the dome was the location for eight duplex roomettes. Thus as a sleeping car Astra-Dome DREAM CLOUD was built with a maximum sleeping car capacity of twenty. The DREAM CLOUD never operated in revenue service as a sleeping car instead after sale to the Union Pacific along with the other three Astra-Dome cars that comprised the TRAIN OF TOMORROW it served as a parlor car. All space was sold at parlor car rates in DREAM CLOUD on its daily Portland-Seattle round trips.
The fourth Astra-Dome in the GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW was a Lounge Observation, again with 24 seats in the dome. This car MOON GLOW featured 44 lounge seats in singles and sofas on the main level and beneath the dome and two bars served the cocktail lounges ahead of and beneath the dome. The area of the main level to the rear of the dome in the beautifully rounded Observation end was strictly a lounge area.
Honors for the first factory built dome coach, dome diner, dome sleeping car, and dome lounge observation went to Pullman Standard. For it was Pullman Standard who designed and built the entire GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW Astra-Dome ASTRA-LINER and proved the concept of the depressed main level section beneath the dome was feasible and had the necessary strength and robustness for railroad use. Ironically Pullman Standard would never build another dome sleeping car or dome dining car, at least not one with kitchen facilities anyway.
The beautiful blue and stainless steel ASTRA-LINER TRAIN OF TOMORROW was first displayed outside Chicago’s Soldier Field May 28, 1947. Two days prior to its public debut at Soldier Field May 26-27, 1947, the TRAIN OF TOMORROW made its first test sortie operating a 560 mile round trip over the Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville (Monon) to their famous French Lick resort in Indiana from Chicago and return. Ironically the Monon that hosted the GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW on this test run would never own a dome.
After a week in Chicago on public display the GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW departed on a 65,000-mile exhibition tour of the country visiting every major city in the United States that had the necessary clearances for the extended height cars. The exhibition tour was completed in December 1949 and the train sat outside Pullman Standard in Chicago until March 1950.
In April 1950 the GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW complete with EMD E7A 765 was sold to the Union Pacific. After being repainted into UP Streamliner colors of yellow, gray and red in Omaha the train was prepared for another exhibition tour. This time the tour traveled to Los Angeles as part of a CITY OF LOS ANGELES consist out of Omaha. After display in Los Angeles the former GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW consist departed Los Angeles in another CITY OF LOS ANGELES consist for its new home of Portland, Oregon operating in that train as far as Salt Lake City. From Salt Lake City to Pocatello the cars traveled in the BUTTE SPECIAL. From Pocatello via Boise and La Grande the cars traveled in one of the CITY OF PORTLAND consists before arrival in its new Oregon home base.
On June 18, 1950 the cars of the former TRAIN OF TOMORROW were integrated with the other cars of UP pool train 457 and departed Portland for Seattle becoming the first dome equipped train to enter scheduled service in the Pacific Northwest. Train 457 and 458 would be the shortest scheduled dome route in the United States. Leading 457 that day was UP EMD E7A unit 988 the former TRAIN OF TOMORROW 765. Unfortunately the UP charged a premium to ride in any of the dome cars operated in trains 457-458.
But even before the former GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW entered UP service the CB&Q and three other railroads the MP, D&RGW and WP had debuted new Vista-Dome streamliners of there own to the rail traveling public.
First of the new Vista-Dome streamliners to enter scheduled service was the pair of VISTA-DOME TWIN ZEPHYRS inaugurated December 12, 1947. Each seven car consist featured no less than five Vista-Domes. This was the largest number of dome cars regularly assigned to any day streamliner. The VISTA-DOME TWIN ZEPHYR offered passengers 120 non-revenue seats in the domes and only 244 revenue seats as originally built. Each new VISTA-DOME TWIN ZEPHYR operated a complete daily round trip between Chicago – Minneapolis. In one direction the trains were the VISTA-DOME MORNING TWIN ZEPHYRS and after turning and servicing the trains returned to their respective home terminals operating as the VISTA-DOME AFTERNOON TWIN ZEPHYRS. The route selected for the new trains was the best choice for the CB&Q as the trains paralleled the Mississippi River for the greater part of their journey. The scenery alongside the mighty river with the bluffs on either side was magnificent. The CB&Q would operate Vista-Domes on this route through the BN merger until Amtrak took over the nation’s passenger service in 1971.The two homebuilt domes of the CB&Q often operated in these trains increasing dome seating to 144. The route selected by Amtrak between Chicago and the Twin Cities uses the opposite bank of the Mississippi River for the greater part of its journey.
The Missouri Pacific COLORADO EAGLE added domes to its streamlined consist in June 1948 when Budd delivered three 46-seat leg-rest dome cars with the standard 24 seats in the domes. The MP named them Planetarium Dome cars. The overnight trains between St. Louis and Denver these dome cars were assigned to the COLORADO EAGLE were identical to those built for the VISTA-DOME CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR and were delivered at the same time. The MP cars were painted blue and gray to match the earlier cars and were lettered COLORADO EAGLE. It was originally intended that the COLORADO EAGLE would offer through car service to San Francisco via the VISTA-DOME CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR beyond Denver. This explains the odd number of Planetarium dome cars delivered (three) to the MP for COLORADO EAGLE service.
The other lightweight streamlined Vista-Dome cars that entered service in 1948 were built for the C&O, six cars from Budd all for that roads stillborn CHESSIE. The CHESSIE was to have entered service in late August or early September 1948 but the cars were not actually delivered until October 1948, for service between Washington and Cincinnati with a section of the trains operating from Phoebus (Newport News) to Charlottesville where it would have connected with the Washington –Cincinnati section of the train. The CHESSIE cars originating in Phoebus would have been coupled to the rear of the Washington CHESSIE section and continued to Cincinnati. Eastbound the Phoebus CHESSIE section would have been dropped at Charlottesville and continued as a separate train to Phoebus. Three of the Vista-Dome cars were private room dome cars with the standard 24 seats in the dome and on the main level of these cars at one end was three cabins two doubles and one single beneath the dome was a communications center a car attendants berth and conductor’s office. At the other end of the cars on the main level were six roomettes for train crew. The space in these cars would have been sold at parlor car rates, as the CHESSIE was to have operated on a daytime schedule. These private room dome cars would have operated between Washington and Cincinnati. The other three Vista-Dome cars were carried on the rear from Phoebus to Cincinnati. These three had a coach section forward of the dome that seated twenty. Beneath the dome was a newsstand and pair of restrooms, in the rounded observation end on the cars main level was a spacious 16-seat lounge, once again the dome seated 24. These six cars were built as reduced clearance domes due to the height restrictions in the east with a maximum height of 15’ 5-3/4”. These domes had a forward slant to their penthouses that was never repeated by Budd in any other domes. Even so it is doubtful if they could have operated into Washington Union Station because of the tunnel height at that time
The three Vista-Dome Coach Observations were assigned to the Detroit-Grand Rapids PERE MARQUETTES until sold to the D&RGW September 20, 1949.
The three Vista-Dome sleeping cars were to be assigned to the SPORTSMAN but never entered service in that train instead they were stored from November 1949 until being shopped in Kent, Ohio in October 1950 for conversion to overnight sleeping cars. Before they entered SPORTSMAN service they were sold to the B&O on December 4, 1950 for assignment to their CAPITAL LIMITED one per consist and the extra car was assigned to one of the two SHENANDOAH train sets. The B&O route out of Washington Union Station posed no clearance problems for the domes.
The second Vista-Dome train to enter scheduled service probably became the most famous of all the dome trains the VISTA-DOME CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR operated by the CB&Q between Chicago and Denver, D&RGW between Denver and Salt Lake City and WP between Salt Lake City and Oakland Pier. Here was America’s first lightweight streamlined cruise train. The schedule of the VISTA-DOME CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR was slower than the C&NW-UP-SP CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO. But the VISTA-DOME CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR was scheduled through both the Colorado Rockies and Feather River Canyon in daylight hours in both directions. Again each eleven car consist provided five domes, six sets of equipment were necessary for daily operation. The CB&Q owned 27 cars, D&RGW owned 15, WP owned 24 and the PRR owned a single 10-6 sleeping car for through service to New York. During the years the VISTA-DOME CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR operated it was probably the most talked about train in America. The VISTA-DOME CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR was inaugurated on March 20, 1949. With five domes seating 120 it matched the earlier VISTA-DOME TWIN ZEPHYRS in seats under glass. The three Vista Dome coaches in each consist seated 46 on the main level in leg-rest seats. These three Vista-Domes were for the use of the trains Coach passengers. The fourth dome in each VISTA-DOME CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR featured a 19-seat Coffee shop forward on the main level. Beneath the dome was a lounge seating seven with a service bar and Kitchen. Aft of the depressed center on the main level was Crew Dormitory space for 17 including private rooms for the Zephyrette and dining car steward. Space in this dome was reserved for sleeping car passengers from the trailing cars.
The last dome in the train was also reserved for sleeping car passengers. This Vista Dome featured 3-double bedrooms, 1-drawing room on the main level forward of the dome. Beneath the dome was a bar with lounge seating for 12-passengers. To the rear of the cars depressed center on the main level was an observation lounge seating seventeen and a desk with chair. These Vista-Dome sleeper Lounge Observations with their beautiful rounded end many railroad historians believe were the finest ever built, they were duplicated in 1955 when Canadian Pacific purchased eighteen for operation on the rear of there new transcontinental CANADIAN and secondary transcontinental DOMINION.
The B&O received two reduced clearance Strata-Dome coaches as part of the new postwar COLUMBIAN train sets from Pullman Standard. These two eight car train sets were strikingly beautiful in their matched blue and gray paint scheme. The COLUMBIANS were overnight coach Baltimore – Chicago trains. These domes featured 18- coach seats on the main level forward and 24- coach seats aft of the dome on the main level. There were two lounge areas located beneath the dome, one seating eleven the other six. The height of the COLUMBIANS Pullman Standard built domes for the B&O was only 15’3” lower than any other standard short domes constructed. The new trains entered service in May 1949.
One month later in June 1949 the CB&Q Aurora shops rebuilt 1940 flat top Budd built coach 2709 SILVER CASTLE into a dome coach identical to the 1945 rebuild 4714 SILVER DOME. After completion the two homebuilt domes were often assigned as extra cars to the VISTA-DOME TWIN ZEPHYRS either replacing one of the train’s regular domes for shopping or as an extra car during peak travel periods.
In September 1949 the 3-Vista-Dome coach lounge observations originally built for the C&O CHESSIE and operated in the Detroit-Grand Rapids PERE MARQUETTES were sold to the D&RGW. Before entering D&RGW service the three cars were fitted with an adapter at the observation end complete with diaphragm making them suitable for use mid-train. These three Vista-Domes were assigned to the ROYAL GORGE operating as dome coach lounge observations between Denver and Grand Junction, Colorado via Colorado Springs and Pueblo. Upon arrival in Grand Junction the PROSPECTOR was coupled to the rear of the ROYAL GORGE and the combined train continued to Salt Lake City. Eastbound the PROSPECTOR-ROYAL GORGE split at Grand Junction and continued by their separate routes to Denver. The PROSPECTOR traveling via the more direct Dotsero cutoff via the Moffat tunnel route would arrive in Denver many hours before the ROYAL GORGE operating via the longer route over Tennessee Pass to Pueblo before turning north to Colorado Springs and Denver.
On February 26, 1950 a new Wabash Domeliner entered service between St. Louis and Chicago operating a single round trip daily. This Budd built six-car diesel powered beauty in gleaming stainless steel and Wabash blue featured no less than four Vista-Domes. Three of these were Vista-Dome coaches the fourth was a Vista-Dome parlor observation. The Vista-Dome cars in the Wabash BLUE BIRD were nearly identical to those built for the CB&Q VISTA-DOME TWIN ZEPHYRS. The two flat-topped cars were the first car in the BLUE BIRD consist a baggage-lunch counter-lounge and the fifth car a dining-lounge car.
As previously mentioned in September 1950 UP 457-458 the Portland – Seattle pool trains became that railroads first Domeliner. Unofficially the train was the CITY OF SEATTLE to those who rode the first Astra-Dome equipped train in the Pacific Northwest. In reality it was the former GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW equipment operating with other streamlined and heavyweight cars all painted in the UP colors. This was the only dome train operated by a class one railroad in America that required a surcharge to ride in the train’s domes. This was also the shortest scheduled dome route operated in America by a class one railroad.
In December 1950 the B&O purchased the three Vista-Dome sleeping cars built for the C&O CHESSIE and shipped them to Pullman for upgrading for sleeping car service. The cars entered sleeping car service January 8, 1951 with 3-drawing rooms 1-single bedroom and 5-roomettes. Two of the Strata-Dome sleepers were assigned to operation in the Baltimore & Ohio’ finest the all Pullman CAPITOL LIMITED. One operated in each of this trains two consists. On the same date the third Strata-Dome sleeping car was assigned to one of the two SHENANDOAH consists for service between Washington and Chicago. The dome equipped SHENANDOAH consist operated one day eastbound and the next day westbound.
In December 1950 the Santa Fe’s finest the SUPER CHIEF received new dining cars and Pleasure-Domes. These Pleasure-Domes trainlined immediately behind the diners provided only sixteen seats in the dome of the Pullman Standard built domes. They were arranged with one pair facing forward on either side of the center aisle followed by four single swiveling parlor type seats then two more pairs of seats facing the rear. This provided dome seating for only sixteen in an arrangement that was never repeated in any other dome cars ever built. Ahead of the dome was a private dining room for up to twelve named the Turquoise Room. The room was served from the dining car ahead. When not reserved for a movie star or starlet or private party or group it was used as an overflow dining area for the regular 36-seat dining car ahead. Beneath the dome was a cocktail lounge and in the area to the rear of the dome was a large lounge area.
The year 1951 was quiet for production of new dome cars with not a single example being delivered to the railroads.
Early in 1952 the B&O installed four 250-watt locomotive headlights on the roofs of their five Strata-Dome cars ahead of the dome on the right side only. These lights were angled at 60, 70, 80,and 85 degrees to offer the best lighting of the passing scenery. The lights were extinguished when passing through major cities enroute. The B&O was the only railroad to light the countryside for passengers traveling on the COLUMBIAN, CAPITAL LIMITED and SHENANDOAH on their nocturnal journeys.
In July 1952 Pullman Standard delivered a single Vista-Dome parlor car to the Wabash for assignment to the BLUE BIRD. This car was painted Wabash blue with white and stood out in the otherwise all Budd stainless steel and Wabash blue consist. The car featured parlor seating ahead of and behind the dome on the main floor level. Beneath the dome was located the BLUE BIRD room that could be arranged for dining or as a lounge for eleven, the BLUE BIRD room was served by the Dining –Lounge Car trainlined directly ahead. The new Pullman Standard built car was the sixth in the 7-car consist just ahead of the Vista-Dome parlor observation. The addition of this car to the BLUE BIRD gave the Waba***rain the same number of domes as the TWIN ZEPHYRS, except when the latter operated with the pattern domes in their consists.
In July 1952 the Missouri Pacific and its two subsidiaries International Great Northern and Texas & Pacific received five Pullman Standard built Planetarium-Dome coaches. Three of the new Planetarium-Dome coaches were MP owned and one each was lettered for the subsidiaries International Great Northern and Texas & Pacific. These dome coaches seated 42 in reserved seats ahead of and to the rear of the dome on the main level; the dome seated 24 and beneath the dome was lounge seating for 17. The MP assigned four of them to the TEXAS EAGLES the other was at first held as a spare. The WEST TEXAS EAGLE operated Planetarium-Domes between St. Louis and Fort Worth. The SOUTH TEXAS EAGLE operated domes between St. Louis and San Antonio. The fifth Pullman Standard dome or spare was eventually assigned to one of the MISSOURI RIVER EAGLES operating between St. Louis and Omaha via Kansas City. The other odd Budd built dome from 1948 was assigned to the other MISSOURI RIVER EAGLE.
In November-December 1952 Pullman Standard delivered the first full-length dome cars built to the Milwaukee Road. These ten Super- Domes seated 68 on the dome level in single and paired seats and 28 in a café-lounge beneath the dome. These cars were so heavy at 112 tons they rode on special six-wheel trucks to spread the weight. Even so the height to top of dome was only 15’ 6” lower than the later Budd full-length domes by some 4”. The lower level contained equipment rooms at the ends on either side of the café-lounge for the necessary high capacity air-conditioning system, required for so much space under glass. Even so these Super-Domes could be quite warm in the summer months as they traversed Montana and traveled along the banks of the Mississippi River. The Milwaukee Road assigned one each to the two consists of the MORNING HIAWATHAS, another pair were assigned to the AFTERNOON HIAWATHA train sets for service between Chicago and the Twin Cities. The remaining six were assigned to the OLYMPIAN HIAWATHA train sets one per consist between Chicago and Seattle-Tacoma. The new Super-Domes entered scheduled service in their respective HIAWATHAS January 1, 1953. The words Super Dome appeared in script below the windows of the lower level café lounge.
Budd delivered a single Vista-Dome sleeper lounge observation to the CB&Q in December 1952. This car was identical to those built earlier for the VISTA-DOME CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR except that the shower in the drawing room annex was factory installed not retrofitted as was the case with the earlier VISTA-DOME CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR Sleeper Lounge Observations. This car was built for a pool arrangement where certain VISTA-DOME CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR cars on their Chicago layover were operated in overnight service in the VISTA-DOME AK-SAR-BEN ZEPHYR operating overnight between Chicago and Omaha-Lincoln.
The year 1953 witnessed only four Vista-dome cars being delivered all to the CB&Q. Two of these cars were 24-seat coach with a 3-bunk crew room ahead of the dome. Beneath the dome was a Buffet –Kitchen and 6-seat lounge. To the rear of the depressed center again on the cars main level was the coffee shop seating 17. The dome reached from the coffee shop seated the standard 24 passengers. These two cars served double duty operating in the VISTA DOME KANSAS CITY ZEPHYR consists each way between Chicago and Kansas City daily then returning in the overnight VISTA DOME AMERICAN ROYAL ZEPHYR consists. The daytime VISTA-DOME KANSAS CITY ZEPHYR operated a second Vista Dome in each consist, these cars were twenty-seven seat parlors with a single 5-seat parlor drawing room blunt end observations. The blunt ends still provided windows to the rear but also provided a diaphragm so they could be used mid-train if necessary. The parlor drawing room was located along with a pair of restrooms beneath the dome of these cars.
The years 1954-55 were the banner years for dome car production. During those two years a total of 127 domes came from American Car & Foundry and Budd. In addition SP constructed seven ¾-length domes using frames of older streamlined car types. The work was undertaken in that railroads own Sacramento shops. Budd built the largest number of these dome cars 92. Twenty of these were full-length domes that rode on six wheel trucks and weighed 192,000 lbs. Much lighter than the Pullman Standard built Milwaukee Road Super Domes that topped the scales at 224,000 lbs. The weight difference was attributable to Budd Company’s use of lighter stainless steel throughout in their car construction.
The AT&SF received eight Big-Domes from Budd in the first quarter of 1954. These eight cars featured 57-coach type seats in the forward part of the dome level combined with an 18-seat lounge to the rear on the dome level as well. On the lower level was a single double bedroom for the Courier-Nurse a Bar and 28-seat lounge centered between two equipment lockers that contained the cars air conditioning equipment. The Santa Fe assigned six of these cars to the EL CAPITAN pool one being assigned to each of that trains consists operating between Chicago and Los Angeles. The remaining two of these Big-Domes were assigned one each to the eastbound CHICAGOAN and westbound KANSAS CITYAN daily trains between Chicago and Oklahoma City.
In May 1954 the Santa Fe inaugurated a new streamlined train the SAN FRANCISCO CHIEF between Chicago and its namesake city by way of the panhandle of Texas or Southern transcontinental route. The only new cars built for this train were a series of 48-seat leg-rest coaches and six Big-Domes. These six Big-Domes differed from the earlier ones delivered for the EL CAPITAN and CHICAGOAN-KANSAS CITYAN as they only seated 10 in the lower level bar-lounge area. Instead of a Courier-Nurse room the remaining lower level was occupied by crew dormitory space for twelve. The Dome level of these cars was identical to the earlier Big-Domes delivered to the Santa Fe with 57 coach type seats forward and 18 seat lounge to the rear.
The Northern Pacific introduced new 46-seat leg-rest Vista-Dome coaches to the NORTH COAST LIMITED in July-August 1954 two assigned per consist. These were identical to those built for the VISTA-DOME CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR except they featured flat sides instead of fluted and were painted to match the other cars in the Northern Pacific’s finest in the new Raymond Loewy 2-tone green with white separation stripe scheme. One was a Chicago-Seattle car the other a Chicago-Portland car set out at Pasco and forwarded by the SP&S to and from Portland. Thereafter the train was referred to as the VISTA-DOME NORTH COAST LIMITED. Budd delivered ten Vista-Dome sleeping cars to the NP between September and November 1954. Like the ten Vista-Dome coaches delivered earlier the new Vista-Dome sleepers were assigned in pairs to each consist of the VISTA-DOME NORTH COAST LIMITED between Chicago and Seattle and Chicago – Portland. The Northern Pacific separated the Vista- Dome coaches with a flat top coach in each consist, doing the same with the Vista-Dome sleeping cars, trainlining a flat top sleeping car between the Vista-Dome sleepers. This provided superior viewing from the domes instead of having a train’s domes trainlined together like the VISTA-DOME CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR. The Vista-Dome Sleeping cars featured 24-seats in the dome with four duplex single rooms beneath the dome, four roomettes were located on the main level forward of the dome and aft of the dome on the main level was four double bedrooms. These cars revenue passenger count was only 16 in the cars sleeping space.
The Southern Pacific built seven-¾ length ”Stairway to the Stars” domes in their Sacramento Shops using the frames from older lightweight streamlined cars. The first of the seven was completed in July 1954 and the final car was completed in May 1955. Budd built the dome framework for these cars and shipped them from Philadelphia to Sacramento. These domes extended only 21 inches above the regular car roof. The SP domes did not have enough height for an upper and lower level. Instead the SP domes had six stairs at the one end when coming from the adjoining car leading to the dome level where there were 36 seats. These were arranged as 12 doubles and four singles, also in the raised dome portion of the car were four double and two single lounge sections. After this lounge area one descended six stairs to the main level 28-seat lounge and bar. The dome covered this main level lounge area and ended at the bar. A passageway to the left led to the rear past the bar and to the vestibule leading to the next car. The SP assigned their ¾ length domes to the SHASTA DAYLIGHT between Portland and Oakland, SAN JOAQUIN DAYLIGHT between Oakland and Los Angeles, and SAN FRANCISCO OVERLAND between Oakland and Ogden initially.
Budd began delivering one of their largest postwar orders that for the Canadian Pacific in July 1954. Of this 172-car order 36 were Scenic-Domes divided equally between two types. First there were 18 Skyline domes with 26- leg rest coach seats forward on the main level, beneath the dome was a Kitchen-Bar and a six -seat lounge, on the main level to the rear of the dome was additional buffet-lounge seating area for seventeen. The dome was a standard Budd offering with the usual 24-seats. These cars served meals to coach passengers on the CANADIAN and DOMINION and all passengers of the ATLANTIC LIMITED that train carrying no separate dining car and served as a coach lounge at other times.
The second type of Scenic-Dome car built for the Canadian Pacific was their PARK cars with 3-double bedrooms and 1-drawing room on the main level forward of the dome. Beneath the dome was a bar with twelve seats arranged at tables for two or four. In the rounded observation end on the main level was a desk with chair and thirteen lounge seats. The PARK cars dome area once again was a standard 24-seat arrangement.
The CP ordered these cars for an all-new streamlined transcontinental train the CANADIAN and to upgrade the secondary transcontinental train the DOMINION both Montreal-Toronto to Vancouver trains. The DOMINION operated with not only the Budd built streamlined cars but heavyweights and railroad built streamlined cars. The third train to receive the new Budd equipment was the ATLANTIC LIMITED an overnight train between Montreal and St. John, New Brunswick that operated across the state of Maine nightly. From St. John one could board a CPR steamship for the voyage across the Bay of Fundy to Digby, Nova Scotia. A CPR owned subsidiary the Dominion Atlantic Railway connected with the CP steamship and provided service to Yarmouth at the southern end of Nova Scotia or northbound traveled to Halifax the capital of Nova Scotia operating with Budd built RDC’s.
The Union Pacific began receiving a large order of Astra-Domes in December 1954 starting with coaches. The UP received 10 of these dome coaches from American Car & Foundry in December 1954-January 1955. These cars were quite different then any others constructed as they used mostly aluminum for the body with a steel underbody. Another feature not found on the domes from the other manufacturers was the use of one pane of curved glass for the side and top of the dome glass, only the SUPER DOMES of the Milwaukee Road were similarly equipped. The UP soon found out how expensive they were when they occasionally needed replacement. The UP assigned the dome coaches to the CITY OF PORTLAND between Chicago and Portland and the newly reinstated CHALLENGER between Chicago and Los Angeles. The fifteen Dome Lounge Blunt end observations arrived on the UP between February and April 1955. They were assigned to the CITY OF PORTLAND, CITY OF LOS ANGELES and CHALLENGER initially. Those assigned to the CHALLENGER were soon transferred to the CITY OF ST. LOUIS for operation between St. Louis and Los Angeles via Denver and Kansas City.
In April-May 1955 the UP received 10-Astra-Dome dining cars from ACF. These were based on the original Astra-Dome Dining car from the GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW. The UP assigned five to the CITY OF PORTLAND and the remaining five to the CITY OF LOS ANGELES. The CITY OF PORTLAND was the only UP Domeliner to have all three types of domes initially. Later the CITY OF LOS ANGLES would operate with all three types when it was combined with the CHALLENGERS in the off peak travel periods.
Beginning May 29, 1955 the Great Northern EMPIRE BUILDERS began operating with three Budd built Great-Domes in each consist, two were operated Chicago – Seattle the third operated Chicago – Portland. The Portland Dome coach operated via the SP&S between Spokane and Portland. These were nearly identical to those built the previous year for the NP VISTA-DOME NORTH COAST LIMITED with 46-legrest coach seats on the main floor and the standard 24-seats in the dome. The GN EMPIRE BUILDER cars were smooth sided cars from Budd and were painted in the Pullman Green and Omaha Orange scheme with dulux gold separation stripes and lettering. And if that wasn’t enough dome seating the GN added full- length Budd built Great dome lounge cars to the EMPIRE BUILDER beginning in October 1955. The dome level of these cars was identical to the Santa Fe Big domes with 57 coach seats and 18-seat lounge. The lower level lounge seated 34 with a buffet. The Great Dome Lounge was reserved for the exclusive use of the Pullman passengers. The EMPIRE BUILDER and for a short period the SUPER CONTINENTAL were the only scheduled trains operating with both short domes and a full-length dome assigned to the same consists. The GN received 16 short domes and 6 Great Dome Lounge cars. These domes were the last new cars ever purchased by the Great Northern. The Great Northern referred to both types of domes as Great Domes but also referred to the Budd short domes as Vista-Domes in some company produced literature.
In October 1956 the CB&Q received new cars for the new VISTA-DOME DENVER ZEPHYRS; each of the two consists operated with three Vista-Domes. First was a 46- leg rest seat dome coach with the standard 24 seats in the dome. The second Vista-Dome in each VISTA-DOME DENVER ZEPHYR was an 8-seat lunch counter 23 –seat coffee shop-Lounge 16-crew dormitory car with 24 – seats in the dome. The last Vista-Dome in the VISTA-DOME DENVER ZEPHYR consists was an 11-seat Parlor with a single 5-seat Parlor Drawing Room on the main level forward. Beneath the Vista-Dome was a Bar with 16-seat Lounge. A 12-seat lounge occupied the blunt ended observation end of the main level. The first and third Vista-Dome in each VISTA-DOME DENVER ZEPHYR consist was a Chicago-Denver car. The second Vista-Dome with the coffee shop was a through Colorado Springs car from Chicago. Continuing beyond Denver this dome accompanied by a coach, Slumbercoach and sleeper was coupled to the rear of the D&RGW ROYAL GORGE beyond Denver to Colorado Springs and return.
In December 1957 the NP received one Vista-Dome 46-seat leg rest coach and one Vista-Dome Sleeping car for assignment to the VISTA DOME NORTH COAST LIMITED pool of cars to operate as spares permitting the others to be rotated through the shops.
Pullman Standard constructed the final order of new Dome cars for the Union Pacific and Waba***o plans supplied by American Car & Foundry. These cars were Astra-Dome coaches and they were identical to those built earlier for the Union Pacific. These six Astra-Dome coaches were assigned to the CITY OF ST. LOUIS upon completion in December 1958 for operation by way of Kansas City and Denver before joining the UP Overland route mainline at Cheyenne.
In the period between June 1945 and December 1958 a total of 236 domes were produced. Two were railroad shop rebuilt short domes (CB&Q), 7 railroad rebuilt ¾ domes (SP), 30 new full domes, and 197 short domes were built by the three car manufacturers American Car & Foundry, Budd Company and Pullman Standard. Only six railroads owned both short domes and full domes AT&SF, CB&Q, GN, BN, Amtrak and Auto-Train, although the latter two railroads purchased theirs used from other railroads at the beginning of Amtrak. The BN cars were the result of the merger of the GN, NP, CB&Q and SP&S in 1970. The CB&Q, GN, BN, and Amtrak were the only railroads that operated both full domes and short domes in the same train the EMPIRE BUILDER.
Auto-Train operated short and full-length domes in their Lorton, Virginia – Sanford, Florida trains.
One railroad owned only full domes Milwaukee Road Super Domes.
One railroad owned only ¾ length domes Southern Pacific reconstructed in their own shops from older streamlined car types.
Pullman Standard built 10-full domes all for Milwaukee Road, and 24-short domes for AT&SF, B&O, GM (TRAIN OF TOMORROW), MP (and subsidiaries IGN, T&P), UP and Wabash.
American Car and Foundry built 35 short domes all for a single customer Union Pacific.
The Budd Company constructed the remaining 138-short domes (CPR, C&O, CB&Q, D&RGW, GN, MP, NP, SP&S, Wabash, and WP) and 20-full domes (AT&SF, GN, and CB&Q). Pullman Standard built a single Astra-Dome sleeping car, a single Astra-Dome dining car, a single dome parlor car, and seventeen (10-Super-Domes CMSTP&P) dome lounge cars only one an observation (Train of Tomorrow) six of these were AT&SF Pleasure Domes and lone observation originally GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW later UP. The remaining Pullman Standard built domes were all coaches’ 2-B&O, 1-IGN, 3-MP, 1-T&P, 6-UP and 1-Wabash.
American Car & Foundry built 10-Astra-Dome coaches, 15-Astra-Dome lounge observations and 10-Astra-Dome dining cars all for the Union Pacific.
Budd Company built 20-full length dome cars with lounges on the lower level 14-AT&SF, 5-GN and 1 CB&Q. The Budd Company built 147 short dome cars. Twenty-five of these short domes were sleeper-lounge-observation types, forty-eight were long distance coaches with 46-legrest seats and seven were parlor observations. Twenty-eight Budd built short domes combined food and beverage service with dormitory or coach seating. Eleven were day coach versions. Budd also built fourteen dome sleeping cars. All others were miscellaneous types.
The following passenger trains are known to have operated with dome cars in there consists prior to Amtrak.

UP – C&NW – CMSTP&P – WABASH

CITY OF DENVER(C&NW-CMSTP&P)-Chicago-Denver

CITY OF LOS ANGELES(C&NW-CMSTP&P-UP)-Chicago-Los Angeles

CITY OF PORTLAND(C&NW-CMSTP&P-UP)–Chicago – Portland

CITY OF ST. LOUIS (WABASH-UP)-St. Louis-Los Angeles

CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO(C&NW-
CMSTP&P-UP-SP)–Chicago – San Francisco

CHALLENGER(C&NW-CMSTP&P-UP) - Chicago – Los Angeles

457/458(UP)-Portland - Seattle

CITY OF KANSAS CITY (WABASH)-St. Louis – Kansas City

BLUEBIRD (WABASH) – St. Louis – Chicago

BANNER BLUE (WABASH) - St. Louis – Chicago

MORNING HIAWATHA (CMSTP&P)-Chicago – Minneapolis


AFTERNOON HIAWATHA (CMSTP&P)-Chicago - Minneapolis

OLYMPIAN HIAWATHA (CMSTP&P)-Chicago-Seattle/Tacoma

CB&Q – D&RGW - GN – NP – SP&S – WP

VISTA-DOME AFTERNOON ZEPHYR (CB&Q)-Chicago-St. Paul/Minneapolis

VISTA-DOME AMERICAN ROYAL ZEPHYR (CB&Q)–Chicago – St. Joseph/Kansas City

VISTA-DOME DENVER ZEPHYR (CB&Q)-Chicago – Denver/Colorado Springs

VISTA-DOME CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR (CB&Q – D&RGW – WP)-Chicago – San Francisco

VISTA-DOME KANSAS CITY ZEPHYR (CB&Q)-Chicago – St. Joseph/Kansas City

VISTA-DOME NEBRASKA ZEPHYR (CB&Q)-Chicago – Omaha/Lincoln –

VISTA-DOME AK SAR BEN ZEPHYR (CB&Q) Chicago – Omaha/Lincoln


VISTA-DOME MORNING ZEPHYR (CB&Q)-Chicago – St. Paul/Minneapolis

VISTA-DOME SILVER STREAK ZEPHYR (CB&Q) Lincoln/Omaha – St. Joseph/Kansas City

41/42 (CB&Q)-Lincoln – Billings

EMPIRE BUILDER (CB&Q-SP&S-GN) Chicago – Seattle/Portland

VISTA-DOME NORTH COAST LIMITED (CB&Q-SP&S-NP) Chicago – Seattle/Portland

WESTERN STAR (CB&Q-SP&S-GN)-
St. Paul – Seattle

VISTA-DOME ROYAL GORGE (D&RGW)-Denver – Salt Lake City

VISTA-DOME PROSPECTOR (D&RGW) Denver – Salt Lake City

VISTA-DOME YAMPA VALLEY MAIL (D&RGW)-Denver -Craig



MP – IGN T&P –IC
COLORADO EAGLE (MP-D&RGW) St. Louis - Denver

MISSOURI RIVER EAGLE (MP)-St. Louis – Kansas City - Omaha

TEXAS EAGLE 1/2 (MP-T&P)-St. Louis – Dallas/Fort Worth/El Paso

TEXAS EAGLE 21/22 (MP) St. Louis – San Antonio/Houston/Galveston

LOUISIANA EAGLE (T&P)-New Orleans – Dallas/Fort Worth

CITY OF MIAMI (IC-C of G-ACL-FEC) – Chicago – Miami

PANAMA LIMITED (IC) Chicago – New Orleans

CITY OF NEW ORLEANS (IC)-Chicago-New Orleans
AT&SF – SP

SUPER CHIEF (AT&SF) Chicago – Los Angeles

CHIEF (AT&SF) Chicago – Los Angeles

EL CAPITAN (AT&SF)-Chicago – Los Angeles

TEXAS CHIEF (AT&SF) Chicago – Houston/Galveston

CHICAGOAN (AT&SF) Oklahoma City - Chicago

KANSAS CITYAN (AT&SF)-Chicago – Oklahoma City

SAN FRANCISCO CHIEF (AT&SF)-Chicago – San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO OVERLAND (SP) – Oakland – Ogden

SAN JOAQUIN DAYLIGHT (SP) – Oakland – Los Angeles

COAST DAYLIGHT (SP) San Francisco – Los Angeles

CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO (SP) - Oakland – Ogden

SHASTA DAYLIGHT (SP) – Oakland - Portland

B&O – C&O – PRR – SCL – C of G – SOU

CAPITOL LIMITED (B&O) – Washington - Chicago

SHENANDOAH (B&O) – Washington - Chicago

COLUMBIAN (B&O) – Washington - Chicago

PERE MARQUETTES (C&O) – Chicago – Grand Rapids

SOUTH WIND (PRR-L&N-ACL-FEC) – Chicago - Miami

FLORIDA SPECIAL (ACL) –Richmond - Miami

SILVER METEOR (SCL) – Richmond - Miami

NANCY HANKS II (CofG) Atlanta – Macon - Savannah

SOUTHERN CRESCENT (Southern) – Atlanta – New Orleans

CNR – CPR

SUPER CONTINENTAL (CNR) – Winnipeg - Vancouver or Edmonton - Vancouver

PANORAMA (CNR) Winnipeg -Vancouver

CANADIAN (CPR) Montreal/Toronto - Vancouver

DOMINION (CPR) – Montreal/Toronto - Vancouver

ATLANTIC LIMITED (CPR) Montreal – St. John

LE CHATEAU CHAMPLAIN (CPR) – Montreal - Ottawa

ROYAL YORK (CPR) Montreal - Toronto

FRONTENAC (CPR) Montreal – Quebec City

VIPER (CPR) – Montreal – Quebec City

233/234 (CPR) Montreal - Ottawa

Chicago was the place to see domes; no less than 52 domes arrived and departed the railroad capitol on certain days during the 1960’s. And that was by seven railroads AT&SF, B&O, CB&Q, CMSTP&P, IC, PRR and WAB.
Other cities having large numbers of domes arriving and departing daily were Minneapolis/St. Paul 8-full domes and 34-short domes, Kansas City with 6-full domes and 12 short domes, Denver with 11 short domes and two full domes (former OLYMPIAN HIAWATHA), Oakland 10-short domes, 6-3/4 domes and 2 –full domes. Los Angeles had 2-short domes, 2-3/4 domes and 2-full domes. Seattle had 16-short domes and 2-full domes arriving and departing daily. Portland another west coast destination saw no less than 14-short domes and 2-3/4 domes arriving and departing daily. St. Louis witnessed the arrival and departure of 24-short domes, daily Miami witnessed the arrival and departure of three domes at one time and some sources list four on certain days in the winter, all short domes. North of the border Vancouver witnessed 8-short domes and 4-full domes arrive and depart daily for a brief period.
Fastest daily dome car ride was on the CB&Q MORNING TWIN ZEPHYR as it raced along the east bank of the Mississippi in Wisconsin. Another fast run was on the Milwaukee Road HIAWATHAS as they raced from Chicago to Milwaukee with their full domes. The Santa Fe ran some very fast segments in Kansas with both the SUPER CHIEF and EL CAPITAN in their 39-hour 45- minute dash between Chicago and Los Angeles. Fastest dome ride over a thousand miles the CB&Q 1956 VISTA-DOME DENVER ZEPHYRS as they raced overnight between the windy city and mile high city nightly in each direction in 16 hours 30 minutes.

TTFN AL

[LoveDomes]

Good Afternoon Tom,

Here’s a bit of basic info on my favorite rail cars, the domes: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.



A dome car owned by the Santa Fe Railroad in the 1950s.from: www.trainweb.org

A dome car is a type of railroad passenger car that can include features of a lounge car, dining car and an observation. Its primary feature is a glass dome on the top of the car where passengers can ride and see in all directions around the train.

Configuration
A portion of the car, usually in the center of the car, is split between two levels, with stairs leading both up and down from the train's regular passenger car floor level. The lower level of the dome usually consisted of a small lounge area, while the upper portion was usually coach or lounge seating within a "bubble" of glass on the car's roof. Passengers in the upper portion of the dome were able to see in all directions from a vantage point above the train's roofline.
On some dome cars, the lower portion was built as a galley, where car attendants used dumbwaiters to transfer items between the galley and a dining area in the dome portion of the car.

History
The popular story is that the first dome cars in North America were conceived by Western Pacific's President Harry Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell was riding in the cab of one of his railroad's diesel locomotives through the Rockies when he thought that every passenger should be able to see the scenery that is passing by on his railroad's passenger trains. His idea was to provide a full 360-degree view from above the train in newly built "vista-dome" cars. The idea really wasn't too radical as railroad cabooses were often built with a cupola above the car's roofline so the train crew could get a better view of the train, and the Canadian Pacific Railway had used 'tourist cars' with raised, glass-sided viewing cupolas on their trains through the Canadian Rocky Mountains in the 1920s. Modern Vista-dome cars were introduced on the California Zephyr inauguration in 1949.



Auto-Train Dome Car 510 began life on the Sante Fe Railroad. from: www.TrainWeb.com

As dome cars became more common on North American passenger trains, some western railroads purchased or built "superdomes". These were dome cars where the upper level of the car extended for nearly the entire length of the car. Starting in the 1980s, the use of the dome car has become rarer as Amtrak has introduced new bi-level passenger cars that reach the maximum possible height over the length of the car. Dome cars are very popular on tourist railways and private charter rail services.
***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ****** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Until the next time!

Lars

[BudKarr]

Hello Captain Tom,

Just checking in from Helsinki - and I left a posting over at the bar.

Looks like this thread of yours is STILL hanging in there. Must say I am a bit surprised, however, I am supportive of what you are trying to achieve. Have not had much time to browse, but I will.

BK

[siberianmo]

G’day All!

PASSENGER TRAIN NOSTALGIA #47

Here’s something to enjoy regarding the Northern Pacific (NP) from a 1949 advertisement in my personal collection.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . See Nature’s greatest show at . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . YELLOWSTONE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

SEETHING GEYSERS and growling mudpots . . .

. . . . . steaming hot springs and lacy waterfalls . . .

. . . . . . . . . . begging bears and aloof antelope . . .

no wonder visitors never tire of talking about their Yellowstone trip on the streamlined North Coast Limited.

Make this your year to tour America’s biggest, strangest national park . . .

. . . . . but make your reservations soon! North Pacific – “the Yellowstone Park line” – will send literature about Yellowstone and other places you want to visit out West.

Write G. W. Rodine, Dept. 339, Northern Pacific Railway, St. Paul 1, Minn.

. . . . . . . . . . NORTHERN PACIFIC . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . YELLOWSTONE PARK LINE . . . . . . . . . . . . .


Enjoy! [tup]

Tom [4:-)][oX)]

[passengerfan]

Good Morning Tom, Just thought I would add the next installment in the series.

STREAMLINED SLEEPING CARS
OF THE
UNITED STATES & CANADA
By Al

INTRODUCTION







The first lightweight streamlined sleeping car to enter service in the United States was the Pullman Pool car GEORGE M. PULLMAN named for the founder of the Pullman Company. This car was a true lightweight being constructed mainly of Aluminum by Pullman in May 1933.
The car was never repeated but certainly was innovative in many ways being of lightweight Aluminum construction it was the first successful railway application of this metal to a passenger car. The trucks under the car were experimental four wheel trucks with aluminum side frames of a new design built for smooth riding qualities at high speeds, but never repeated as they required a great deal of maintenance. The experimental trucks the Sleeper observation GEORGE M. PULLMAN was delivered with were never repeated under any other car and were replaced by standard 6 wheel trucks within the first two years of operation. The experimental trucks were never seen again. Rumors persist that one of the trucks developed a serious crack and that was the reason for their removal. The interior of the GEORGE M. PULLMAN consisted of 3 Double Bedrooms, 1 Compartment, 1 Drawing Room, with Buffet and Lounge Observation area. The car ran on several different trains over the years before being sold to the C&GW for use as a Business car and Charter car. The GEORGE M. PULLMAN despite its historical significance was retired and scrapped.
Since the first streamlined sleeping cars were direct descendants of the older Pullman heavyweight sleeping cars it is interesting to note that the interiors were basically similar to the heavyweights they replaced except for the clerestory roofs. Many of the heavyweight cars were becoming all room cars by this time as many trains began offering more and more of this type accommodations.
Since the government being far more frugal with taxpayer money during that period in history than in more recent years the person traveling at government expense was only permitted lower berth space. Therefore the demand for lower berth space in Sections continued throughout most of the streamlined Railroad era up until this order was rescinded in 1956. After that time government employees were reimbursed for Roomettes if traveling alone and in some cases where it could be shown that Roomette space was sold out they would reimburse for a Bedroom or even a Compartment. When pairs of Government employees of the same sex were traveling together they would be asked to share a double bedroom or could travel in two separate Roomettes. By the mid 1960’s the Government was reimbursing for any and all sleeping car space on trains including Drawing Rooms and in the case of some high ranking military brass they were even permitted Master Room space on the BROAWAY LIMITED and CRESCENT.
In North America there were four major manufacturers of lightweight streamlined sleeping cars Pullman Standard, Budd Company, American Car & Foundry and Canadian Car & Foundry. Only two Railroads in North America built there own lightweight streamlined sleeping cars the Milwaukee Road who built a number of Touralux sleeping cars for operation in that roads OLYMPIAN HIAWATHA following WW II. These were 14-section sleeping cars and were considered to be Tourist Sleeping Cars. The other Railroad to build sleeping cars in North America was the Canadian Pacific who built the GROVE series of 10 Roomette 5 Double Bedroom Sleeping cars in there own Montreal shops. These GROVE series cars ended their days operating on the NdeM.
During the streamlined era of sleeping car construction the following sleeping car space was available from the car manufacturers Open Sections with upper and lower berths, Duplex Roomettes, Roomettes, Duplex Single Rooms, Double Bedrooms, Compartments, Drawing Rooms and the ultimate in Sleeping car space the Master Room.
The Master Room was only found on three Railroads the New York Central, Pennsylvania, and the Southern and then they were only found in those roads finest trains the PRR BROADWAY LIMITED, LIBERTY LIMITED, NYC TWENTIETH CENTURY LIMITED, COMMODORE VANDERBILT, and SOU CRESCENT. The Master Room provided the largest sleeping car space available for a couple with their own private shower and bathroom annex.
Trains with Drawing Rooms operated in every region of the United States and Canada, and on most of the railroads. This second largest space available to the sleeping car passenger was quite spacious and very popular with families of three and four traveling together. The Drawing Room also came with a separate Bathroom annex but no shower on most trains they operated in. The one exception that comes to mind is the Drawing Room of the CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR Vista Dome Sleepier Lounge Observations; they were equipped with showers in the Bathroom Annex after a 1951 refit. One of these cars 378 SILVER LOOKOUT a CB&Q car delivered in December 1952 was equipped with the annex shower when delivered new from the factory.
The Compartment was next in space and space charges with accommodations for two. The postwar Compartments were built with a separate bathroom annex while those built prior to the war provided a toilet in the Compartment itself offering no privacy.
The Bedroom provided the most popular type of sleeping car accommodation for two people with the postwar cars having Double Bedrooms providing separate bathroom annex and the prewar cars provided the toilet in the bedroom. Many railroads offered two Double Bedrooms that opened up in suite to provide space for families traveling together, this was sold at Drawing Room rates and gave passengers two full size bedrooms and two bathrooms. This was probably the reason for the decline in cars purchased new with Drawing Rooms in the final years of railroad owned streamlined sleeping cars purchases. The two Bedrooms were far easier to sell year round while Drawing Rooms were most popular during the summers when children were out of school and families traveled together. The final cars built new with Drawing Rooms were all constructed in 1956 and the number was quite small. In January 1956 Pullman Standard delivered three 2 Compartment 2 Drawing Room 5 Double Bedroom Sleeping Cars to the Seaboard Air Line 60 BOCA GRANDE, 61 FORT LAUDERDALE, and 62 CLEARWATER. These three cars were assigned one per consist to the SILVER METEOR trains between New York and Miami. In May-June 1956 the Union Pacific received three 2 Compartment 2 Drawing Room 5 Double Bedroom Sleeping cars that joined two previously built cars from 1954 that comprised the OCEAN series. The cars were named 1303 OCEAN MIST, 1304 OCEAN SCENE, and 1305 OCEAN SUNSET while the two earlier cars of this type were 1301 OCEAN SANDS and 1302 OCEAN VIEW. Union Pacific bought the cars for assignment to the CITY OF LOS ANGELES.
Most popular prewar streamlined sleeping car types were the 10-Roomette 5-Double Bedroom sleepers with original owners Pullman Pool, B&O, AT&SF, NYC and PRR. Postwar only the CNR, Erie and CPR would own cars of this configuration and the CPR cars were built by the railroad itself. Other popular prewar types of sleeping cars were the 6-Section 6 -Roomette 4-Double Bedroom Sleeping cars owned by the AT&SF, CRI&P, C&NW, ERIE, IC, MP, SP, and UP. Postwar 6-Section 6-Roomette 4-Double Bedroom Sleeping car owners were B&A, B&M, CNR, CB&Q, L&N, NC&STL, NYNH&H, and WABASH.
Those roads purchasing prewar 4-Compartment 2-Drawing Room 4-Double Bedroom Sleeping cars were AT&SF, CRI&P, ERIE, C&NW, IC, NYC, PRR, Pullman Pool, SP and UP. Only AT&SF, CRI&P, PRR and SP would purchase 4-Compartment 2-Drawing Room 4-Double Bedroom Sleeping cars in the postwar period. Other railroads that purchased cars with Drawing Rooms were ACL, CNR, CPR, FEC, GN, M-K-T, MP, RF&P, SAL, SOU, and T&P.
Most popular interior postwar type of sleeping car was the 10-Roomette 6-Double Bedroom sleeping cars built new for the AT&SF (40), ACL (25), A&WP (1), B&O (10), C&O (56), CB&Q (23), CMSTP&P (10), CNOT&P (4), D&RGW (9), FEC (12), IC (5), L&N (5), MP (12), NKP (13), NYC (137), N&W (23), NP (2), PRR (81), RF&P (10), SAL (19), SOU (25), SP (57), UP (50), and WP (7).
Similar in capacity were the 14-Roomette 4-Double Bedroom Sleeping Cars purchased new by B&O (8), KCS (8), MKT (7), MP (22), NYNH&H (27), SL-SF (17), SOU (11), and T&P (16).
The B&O, MP and SOU were the only roads that purchased both 10-Roomette 6-Double Bedroom Sleeping cars and 14-Roomette 4 Double Bedroom Sleeping cars new.
All Bedroom Sleeping cars were built in three versions 11 Double Bedroom, 12 Double Bedroom, and 13 Double Bedroom. The 11 Double Bedroom was purchased new by C&O, IC, SAL, and UP. Twelve Double Bedroom Sleeping cars were built new for the CRI&P, NYC, and SP. And the 13 Double Bedroom Sleeping cars were built new for the NYC, PRR and SP. The operators of the CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR CB&Q, D&RGW, and WP received a half dozen 6 Double Bedroom 5 Compartment sleeping cars in July - August 1952 from Budd. Pleased with the acceptance by the public of these all room cars the CB&Q ordered two additional cars for 1956 delivery for the new DENVER ZEPHYRS. Union Pacific owned articulated 7 Double Bedroom 2 Compartment sleeping cars. The ACL rebuilt six 14 Roomette 2 Drawing Room sleeping cars in 1961 to 7 Double Bedroom 2 Drawing Room Sleeping cars. The ACL also purchased six NYC 4 Compartment 2 Drawing Room 4 Double Bedroom Sleeping cars in October 1962 and rebuilt them to 4 Compartment 4 Drawing Room cars before entering service in the FLORIDA SPECIAL.
Common on many roads were the 5 or 6 Double Bedroom Buffet Lounge cars. Rare were streamlined sleeping cars that featured sleeping accommodations and complete meal service. Trains that come to mind were the GN WINNIPEG LIMITED, UP BUTTE SPECIAL, NYNH&H FEDERAL, WASHINGTONIAN, MONTREALER, SP&S STREAMLINER and the SP OAKLAND LARK observations. In the case of the GN WINNIPEG LIMITED and UP BUTTE SPECIAL these cars were rebuilt from lightweight streamlined Sleeping cars for these specific train assignments. Even more rare were the 5 Double Bedroom Soda Fountain Lounge cars of the T&P and MP. The total of three of these cars were a product of Texas liquor laws, they operated in the TEXAS EAGLES between St. Louis and Fort Worth.
The Canadian National purchased new streamlined cars that featured Sections combined with complete kitchen facilities for some of their so-called remote region services.
One other postwar streamlined sleeping car type reaching 86 in new cars built the 22 Roomette sleeping car was owned by CRI&P (1), NYC (78) and SP (7).
Other Roomette Sleeping cars came in 17 Roomette versions for the AT&SF, and NYC. Eighteen Roomette streamlined sleeping cars were built for the IC, NYC, PRR, UP, and Pullman Pool; the latter two were transferred to the NKP. Twenty-one Roomette lightweight streamlined sleeping cars were ordered by ACL, FEC, PRR, and RF&P for assignment to the CHAMPIONS, several prewar PRR cars of this type ran in the BROADWAY LIMITED.
Next in size for sleeping car space was the Duplex Single Room operated by the PRR, SP and NP. The Roomette was just about the same size with the Duplex Single Room providing a bed crossways of the train while the Roomette provided a bed length ways of the train. The two SP cars of this type were originally built for prewar CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO trains. After they became SP property in 1945 they continued in two of the CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO consists until about 1952. They were than transferred to the STARLIGHT between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The NP - CB&Q - SP&S cars with Duplex single rooms were all Dome sleeping cars and operated in the NORTH COAST LIMITED. The NP transferred several of these cars to the IC in winter for operation in the CITY OF MIAMI. They were repainted IC colors for this service.
Several railroads ordered Duplex Roomettes that provided the same amenities as a basic Roomette in less space than provided by a standard Roomette, definitely not for the claustrophobic. They were easily spotted from outside a sleeping car by their staggered window arrangement. The Duplex Roomette was popular with the AT&SF, B&O, CB&Q, CNR, CPR, CRI&P, CMSTP&P, C&NW, GN, NP, Pullman Pool and SP&S. Only the AT&SF and CNR purchased 24 Duplex Roomette Sleeping cars the only accommodations in those cars. The twenty CNR cars rode on six wheel trucks and were built by Canadian Car & Foundry to plans provided by Pullman Standard. The CNR in later years assigned these cars as Crew Dormitory cars and later rebuilt several to Baggage Crew dormitory cars with the Dormitory space remaining the Duplex Roomettes. The twelve AT&SF 24 Duplex Roomette Sleeping cars rode on four-wheel trucks and like the CNR they became disillusioned with the cars by the 1960's. The Santa Fe instead of assigning the cars to non-revenue service like the CNR rebuilt the cars in March - April 1964 to 11 Double Bedroom Sleeping cars and assigned them to the SUPER CHIEF retaining their INDIAN prefix names. It is interesting to note that both the Santa Fe and Canadian National 24-Duplex Roomette Sleeping cars both carried names beginning with the letter I. The Santa Fe cars were given INDIAN prefix names while the CN cars carried names of towns and cities in Canada beginning with the letter I.
After the Duplex Roomette the lower berth and upper berth spaces known as Sections was at the bottom of the pecking order for Pullman space. The lower berth cost more than an upper but surprisingly both were very comfortable. Several railroads purchased all Section streamlined sleeping cars before WW II such as AT&SF 14 Section Sleepers for the CHIEF. The Union Pacific purchased articulated 12 section and 11 section open and enclosed Section sleepers for use in the CITY fleet. The CB&Q purchased articulated 12 Section sleeping cars for the DENVER ZEPHYRS. Only four railroads purchased all section streamlined sleeping cars following WW II these were the CB&Q, D&RGW, UP and WP. The CB&Q-D&RGW-WP cars of this type were 16-Section cars purchased for operation in the jointly owned and operated CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR. Six cars were initially purchased with each road owning two apiece. In 1952 one additional 16-Section sleeping car was delivered to the CB&Q for operation in both the CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR and AK-SAR-BEN ZEPHYR. The UP purchased fourteen 14-Section Sleeping cars that were delivered in 1954 for assignment to the CITY fleet. Both railroads had trouble filling these Section cars in the early 1960's and began looking for other uses for the cars. The 16-Section Sleeping cars of the CB&Q-D&RGW-WP were rebuilt to 48-revenue seat Leg-rest Coaches for the CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR beginning in November 1963. The UP rebuilt the 16-Section ALPINE series cars in 1965 to 44 revenue Leg-rest seat coaches. Many of the major railroads never owned a lightweight streamlined sleeping car with Section space like the PRR, NYC, N&W, NP, SL-SF, C&O, CMSTP&P, RF&P, SOU, and T&P. A quick review of Sleeping car space found in lightweight streamlined sleeping cars at the top the Master Room, followed by the Drawing Room, Compartment, Duplex Single Room, Roomette, Duplex Roomette, Lower Berth and Upper Berth.
Streamlined sleeping car oddities were prewar CRI&P 10 Section 4 Roomette sleeping cars 650 ODESSA LAKE and 651 LAWN LAKE built for the ROCKY MOUNTAIN ROCKET. A series of postwar streamlined twelve 8 Roomette 6 Double Bedroom Sleeping cars built in 1954 for the TWIN STAR ROCKET, ROCKY MOUNTAIN ROCKET, and GOLDEN STATES.
Other configurations that were only popular on certain roads were the 8 Section 2 Compartment 2 Double Bedroom sleeping cars of the AT&SF operated in the prewar CHIEF and SUPER CHIEF. The 14 Roomette 1 Drawing Room 2 Double Bedroom streamlined sleeping cars of the MP and T&P assigned to the TEXAS EAGLES.
Cars with Duplex Single Room accommodations included a pair of 12 Duplex Single Room 5 Double Bedroom Sleeping cars operated in prewar streamlined CITY trains that became SP owned following the war. The PRR purchased nineteen 12 Duplex Single Room 5 Double Bedroom Sleeping cars before WW II and received twenty-four 12 Duplex Single Room 4 Double Bedroom Sleeping cars following WW II. Northern Pacific purchased eleven Vista-Dome Sleeping cars that featured 4 Roomettes 4 Double Bedrooms and 4 Duplex Single Rooms beneath the dome. The NP, CB&Q, and SP&S owned the cars for service in the NORTH COAST LIMITED. In the winter months these cars could be found operating in the PRR SOUTH WIND and IC CITY OF MIAMI.
Up until 1947 Tourist Sleeping cars had been quite popular particularly on long distance Western trains. Many of these cars older heavyweight 14 and 16 section sleeping cars were operated in several trains and the space was sold for a space charge only above the price of a regular coach ticket. There was no need to buy an upgrade to first class, and then buy the sleeping car space supplement as well.
The only postwar trains after 1947 to operate with streamlined Tourist Sleeping cars in the U. S. were the OLYMPIAN HIAWATHA and COLUMBIAN the two Milwaukee Road trains between Chicago and Seattle-Tacoma. The Milwaukee Road initially constructed twelve 14 Section Touralux cars in the MT. series for operation in pairs in the new postwar OLYMPIAN HIAWATHA train sets with two extra as spares and six 32 revenue seat Coach 8 Section Touralux cars for the same train in the FALLS series. It was soon found this was too much tourist sleeping space so the 32 seat Coach 8 Section cars were withdrawn before their first year of operation was complete. Three of these FALL series cars were later rebuilt to MT. series 14 section Touralux cars and along with the second MT. series from the OLYMPIAN HIAWATHA they became the sole sleeping car space on the secondary COLUMBIAN train.
The only other railroads to venture into the Tourist sleeping car business after 1948 were the two Canadian roads both of whom continued operating heavyweight 14-Section Sleeping cars in their transcontinental trains uninterrupted until both considered purchasing lightweight streamlined cars. Instead CPR remodeled a series of heavyweight 14 section sleeping cars as tourist sleeping cars for operation in the CANADIAN of 1955. These cars were anything but streamlined but the CPR did dress them up with fluted stainless steel panels to match the rest of the all Budd built stainless steel car trains. The CPR carried these cars directly behind the Baggage Crew Dormitory cars ahead of the coaches for the passengers of these tourist sleeping cars.
Rival CN rebuilt and fully streamlined a series of heavyweight 14-section tourist Sleeping cars into 14 section tourist sleeping cars for operation in the SUPER CONTINENTAL between Montreal –Toronto and Vancouver, B.C.
At that time Canada was experiencing a period of rapid population growth. Large numbers of European immigrants were landing by ship and plane in Montreal and Toronto, this kept the Tourist Sleeping cars in both the CANADIAN and SUPER CONTINENTAL carrying large numbers of new immigrants to the Western Provinces for a number of years.
The big breakthrough in sleeping car space for coach travelers came in October 1956 with the introduction by Budd of the Slumbercoach in the new CB&Q DENVER ZEPHYRS. These cars provided forty Coach passengers with private rooms for the overnight trip between Chicago and Denver-Colorado Springs in each direction. Each Slumbercoach provided 24 Single Rooms for single occupancy and 8 Double Rooms for double occupancy. For single rooms the charge between Chicago and Denver was $7.50 plus coach fare and for double rooms the charge was $13.50 plus coach fare. Unfortunately these cars could have probably saved some of the nations passenger trains if they had made their debut a few years earlier, when some railroads were still interested in buying new passenger cars. For certain railroads the Slumbercoach became a very important part of their passenger operations. The Northern Pacific not only operated a Slumbercoach in the premier NORTH COAST LIMITED between Chicago and Seattle. Later they would assign Slumbercoaches to the secondary MAINSTREETER between St. Paul and Seattle; this would become the only sleeping car assigned to this train replacing the first class sleeping car and the crew Dormitory space as well.
The NYC returned ten 22 Roomette sleeping cars to Budd between August and October 1961 to be rebuilt to 16 single room 10 double room Sleepercoaches (NYC name for Slumbercoaches) for service in the TWENTIETH CENTURY LIMITED CLEVELAND LIMITED, NEW ENGLAND STATES and OHIO STATE LIMITED.
Many railroads operated streamlined sleeping cars but the largest owners of these cars was NYC (400) and PRR (347) in the United States whose combined lightweight streamlined sleeping car fleet totaled nearly 750 cars. The Canadian National owned a total of 413 new, used and remodeled streamlined Sleeping Cars. At the other end of the scale there was Atlanta & West Point with one, Western of Alabama with two, Bangor and Aroostook with two and Boston & Maine with four. Railroads such as the Lehigh Valley, Delaware & Hudson, Jersey Central, Reading, CGW, MeC, M&STL, CofG, and Monon owned none.
Streamlined sleeping cars served some very out of the way destinations in North America. Such destinations as Churchill, Manitoba on Hudson Bay, St. John’s, Newfoundland was served by narrow gauge semi-streamlined sleeping cars. Butte, Montana the richest city in America at one time with it’s mining activity was served by four different railroads and three of those provided sleeping car routes one the UP route a final destination on the line running north from Salt Lake City. The other two railroads that served Butte with streamlined Sleeping cars were the Northern Pacific and the Milwaukee Road with through routes. Prince Rupert, British Columbia always the little city with the big ambition to become a major West Coast port city was served by a streamlined train that carried a sleeping car, at one time this train was named SKEENA. Walla Walla, Washington the town that liked the sound of its name so much it repeated it was served briefly by a streamlined sleeping car operating over the NP between Seattle and the southeastern Washington city nightly traveling to and from Seattle from Pasco in the NORTH COAST LIMITED.
Streamlined sleeping cars served such famous resorts and National Parks as Hot Springs, Arkansas (MP), Greenbrier (C&O), Yellowstone National Park (UP & NP), Glacier National Park (GN), Sun Valley (UP), and to the rim of the Grand Canyon on the Santa Fe. In summer months the GN WESTERN STAR often departed Chicago with both PRR and NYC sleeping cars leased to tour groups en route to Glacier National Park where they were set out and served as the passengers hotel rooms while they visited the park. When the cars returned east an eastbound WESTERN STAR picked them up at Glacier for Chicago. From Portland the SP&S WESTERN STAR connection forwarded leased to tour group SP sleeping cars to Spokane where they joined the WESTERN STAR for the trip to Glacier National Park. The GN owned hotels in Glacier National Park that were outstanding for summer visitors.
North of the border Canadian Pacific served that countries western national parks Banff and Lake Louis owning hotels in both parks as well. Not only did the Canadian Pacific own Hotels and trains they also owned Steamships and there own Airline. Before WW II it was possible to board a Canadian Pacific Empress Steamship in Hong Kong and travel to Vancouver where you could board a CP train such as the DOMINION for the trip to Montreal where you could board another Empress Ship for the trip to England or France.
Canadian National served Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies and owned a hotel in that park as well.
Throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s the PRR brought train loads of passengers to the famous Army – Navy football game held each fall in Philadelphia with the sleeping cars serving as overnight hotel rooms for the annual event. And every May for many years Louisville, Kentucky was home to dozens of sleeping cars there for Kentucky Derby week some from as far away as California. Not all of these cars were streamlined sleeping cars but in the final years that the event brought passengers by rail most were brought by streamlined sleeping car and again it served as their hotel throughout the weeks celebrations. It should also be mentioned that many of the previously mentioned events and places brought many private railroad cars as well.
In winter months it was not unusual to see sleeping cars from many western roads operating in such winter trains between New York and Florida as the FLORIDA SPECIAL. It fact most winters it was rare to see many ACL or in later years SCL sleeping cars in the FLORIDA SPECIAL at all. With traffic between the Northeast and Florida busiest during the winter season the railroads operated all of their regular streamlined sleeping cars in such streamliners as the SILVER METEOR, SILVER STAR and CHAMPIONS. Demand for sleeping car space brought many off line sleeping cars from other roads to the routes to and from Florida. On the PRR SOUTHWIND NP Vista-Dome sleeping cars operated between Chicago and Miami in the winter months. The same was true for the IC CITY OF MIAMI but one had to be more astute as the IC repainted NP Vista Dome Sleepers each winter into the IC Chocolate, Orange and Yellow scheme returning them to the NP freshly repainted in NP colors each spring. The flexibility of the Pullman operated fleet among the railroads made sure that when necessary for peak travel demand or seasonal travel demands the cars from railroads where the demand was less were available to those railroads that needed them. Only at Christmas did the sleeping cars of most railroads remain on the rails of the owning road.
For years the CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR carried a through-streamlined 10 Roomette 6 Double Bedroom sleeping car east of Chicago via PRR one day and the NYC the next. The PRR owned CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR 10 Roomette 6 Double Bedroom Sleeping car 8449 SILVER RAPIDS, while the NYC leased one of the D&RGW cars of this type. The integrity of the stainless steel train was not to be broken with off line sleeping cars. But in the final years of this famous streamliner it was not unusual to see foreign sleeping cars such as B&O or even UP operating in the CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR.
The PRR PENN TEXAS at one time carried through sleeping cars from New York and Washington to St. Louis. These through sleeping cars were destined beyond to Houston, El Paso, and San Antonio by way of the MP TEXAS EAGLES as well as a second sleeping car to San Antonio via the MKT-SLSF TEXAS SPECIAL.
Other through streamlined sleeping cars operated in the Santa Fe CHIEF west of Chicago traveled east of Chicago to and from New York in the PRR BROADWAY LIMITED and NYC TWENTIETH CENTURY LIMITED. One other car in the CHIEF was a through car between Washington and San Diego traveling in the B&O CAPITOL LIMITED between Washington and Chicago, the CHIEF between Chicago and Los Angeles, and the SAN DIEGAN between Los Angeles and San Diego.
The SP/CRI&P GOLDEN STATE carried a through streamlined sleeping car from Minneapolis to Los Angeles. It traveled between Minneapolis and Kansas City in the TWIN STAR ROCKET and was transferred to the GOLDEN STATE at that point. At one time the Southern Pacific SUNSET LIMITED had been a through train between New Orleans and San Francisco by way of Los Angeles. After this was discontinued the MP and Santa Fe operated a through New Orleans - San Francisco Sleeping car via the MP to and from Houston and the AT&SF beyond traveling in the southern section of the GRAND CANYON from Clovis to Bakersfield and the GOLDEN GATE beyond.
Amtrak even operated a through 10 Roomette 6 Double Bedroom sleeping car between New York and Los Angeles that traveled by the SOU SOUTHERN CRESCENT and Amtrak former SP SUNSET beyond New Orleans to Los Angeles.
The All-Pullman trains were fewer in number during the streamline era than during the era the heavyweight sleeper reigned supreme. The all-Pullman streamlined trains were the following:

NYC

TWENTIETH CENTURY LIMITED

DETROITER

CLEVELAND LIMITED

ADVANCE COMMODORE VANDERBILT

COMMODORE VANDERBILT

GENESEE

PRR

BROADWAY LIMITED

PITTSBURGHER

GENERAL

SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS

LIBERTY LIMITED

AT&SF

SUPER CHIEF

CHIEF

SP

LARK

CASCADE

OVERLAND LIMITED

B&O

CAPITOL LIMITED

C&O

GEORGE WASHINGTON

ACL

FLORIDA
SPECIAL

MIAMIAN

PULLMAN

TREASURE ISLAND SPECIAL

FORTY-NINER

ARIZONA LIMITED

IC

PANAMA LIMITED

NYNH&H

FEDERAL

B&M

BAR HARBOR EXPRESS

UP

CITY OF LOS ANGELES

Only five of the above trains the TREASURE ISLAND SPECIAL, FORTY-NINER, PANAMA LIMITED, BAR HARBOR EXPRESS and MIAMIAN carried sleepers with upper and lower Berth sections. The other trains would achieve all-Room status with several introduced as all room streamliners. One of the most famous heavyweight All-Pullman trains the SAL ORANGE BLOSSOM SPECIAL never became streamlined and operated as a heavyweight for all of its years of service.
Many Railroads purchased used lightweight streamlined sleeping cars from other railroads when those railroads ended sleeping car services or even passenger train services. The NdeM became the largest purchaser of used streamlined sleeping cars with the Canadian National next. Few U. S. roads purchased used sleeping cars from other roads. Among those that did was the Milwaukee Road who purchased five PACIFIC series 10 Roomette 6 Double Bedroom Sleeping cars from Union Pacific. Other U. S. roads that purchased used sleeping cars were AT&SF, ACL, B&O, IC, NKP, and SCL.
The streamlined sleeping cars came with either stainless steel finish, or painted to match the rest of the train. In some cases where smooth side steel sleeping cars operated in otherwise stainless steel consists they were painted with shadow line striping to simulate the fluted stainless steel panels of the trains other cars. From a distance it was difficult to spot one of these cars in an otherwise stainless steel streamliners consist.
Many railroads owned streamlined sleeper lounge observations that brought up the markers of the roads premier trains. The streamlined Observations were either Skytop (Milwaukee Road), taper ended, round ended, and blunt or square ended. Most of these cars were combined with sleeping and Buffet Lounge facilities. Several railroads had Buffet and lounge seating only in their Observations while others combined lounge seating with sleeping car space and no Buffet or bar so the revenue from this source would not have to be shared with Pullman.
The old heavyweight Pullman workhorse had been the 12-1 containing 12 sections and 1 Drawing Room. During the Streamline era the workhorse was the 10-6 with 10 Roomettes and 6 Double Bedrooms.
Many of the older heavyweight sleeping cars offered rooms besides sections such as the following:
LAKE prefix
FORT prefix
CAMP prefix
10 Sections
1 Drawing Room
2 Compartments

CHIEF prefix
ISLAND prefix
10 Sections
1 Drawing Room
1 Compartment

VILLA prefix
10 Sections
3 Double Bedrooms

STAR prefix
LITTLE prefix
PRAIRIE prefix
14 Sections

GLEN prefix
6 Compartments
3 Drawing Rooms

CLOVER prefix
8 Sections
5 Double Bedrooms

WILLOW prefix
7 Drawing Rooms

POINT prefix
10 Sections
2 Drawing Rooms

FIR prefix
6 Sections
4 Roomettes
4 Double Bedrooms

Pullman streamlined or semi streamlined over 130 heavyweight sleeping cars prior to WW II for the following railroads:

Streamlined

Baltimore & Ohio

CAPITOL LIMITED

NATIONAL LIMITED

Gulf Mobile & Ohio

GULF COAST REBEL

Pennsylvania

GENERAL

LIBERTY LIMITED

PITTSBURGHER

SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS

Pullman

FORTY NINER

Semi-Streamlined

Chicago Burlington & Quincy - Chicago Rock Island & Pacific

ZEPHYR - ROCKET

Colorado & Southern
Fort Worth & Denver

TEXAS ZEPHYR

Kansas City Southern

SOUTHERN BELLE

Missouri Pacific

COLORADO EAGLE

Southern

TENNESSEAN

Lightweight streamlined sleeping cars for the most part were named but roads such as SP preferred numbers and other than SP sleeping cars operating for a time in the GOLDEN STATE, SAN FRANCISCO OVERLAND and CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO they were numbered. The cars assigned to the previously mentioned trains were numbered by the mid-1950s losing their names at that time. The NP streamlined sleeping cars delivered in 1948 were initially named only. All were numbered in 1954-55 and future deliveries of NP cars were delivered with numbers only. I can still recall the young man catching the NORTH COAST LIMITED insisting the Dome sleeper he was boarding was named VISTA-DOME NORTH COAST LIMITED.
Many Railroads supplemented their car names with numbers for the accounting departments. But many of these numbers were never actually painted on the cars themselves. In those cases the accounting department used a cross-reference guide to match car names to numbers.
After the breakup by the Government of Pullman and Pullman Standard the operating arm Pullman sold many heavyweight sleeping cars to the railroads. Pullman named most of the prewar lightweight streamlined sleeping cars, while the postwar sleeping cars were named by the railroads that purchased them. The following are examples of the most popular named sleeping cars.

ALPINE prefix
14 Section

UP

AMERICAN prefix
6 Section 6 Roomette
4 Double Bedroom

UP
C&NW
SP
ERIE

BAY suffix
22 Roomette

NYC

BEACH suffix
6 Section
6Roomette
4 Double Bedroom

NYNH&H

BLUE prefix
10 Roomette
3 Double Bedroom
2 Compartment

AT&SF

12 Roomette
4 Double Bedroom

WABASH

BROOK suffix
12 Duplex Single Room
5 Double Bedroom

PRR

CAPE prefix
2 Compartment
2 Double Bedroom
Buffet Lounge

CNR

CASCADE prefix
10 Roomette
5 Double Bedroom
AT&SF
B&O
CRI&P
NYC
PRR
PULLMAN POOL

CHATEAU prefix
8 Duplex Roomette
1 Drawing Room
3 Double Bedroom
4 Section

CPR

CITY prefix
17 Roomette
1 Section

NYC

18 Roomette

NYC
NKP
PRR

5 Double Bedroom
Café Lounge

NKP

10 Roomette
6 Double Bedroom

C&O
NKP

CLUB suffix
1 Compartment
4 Double Bedroom
Buffet Lounge
Observation

CB&Q
NP

5 Double Bedroom
Buffet Lounge
Observation

C&O

COLONIAL prefix
1 Drawing Room
3 Double Bedroom
Bar Lounge

PRR

COUNTY suffix
10 Roomette 6 Double Bedroom

ACL
PRR
RF&P

13 Double Bedroom

NYC
PRR

CREEK suffix
12 Duplex Single Bedroom
4 Double Bedroom

PRR

8 Double Bedroom
Skytop Lounge
Observation
CMSTP&P

CRESCENT prefix
1 Master Room
2 Drawing Room
Buffet Lounge

SOU

EAGLE prefix

All MP and T&P Sleeping cars
PRR sleeping cars assigned as through cars in MP and T&P trains

FALLS suffix
6 Double Bedroom
Buffet Lounge

NYC
PRR

14 Roomette
4 Double Bedroom

CNR

GLACIER suffix
16 Duplex Roomette
4 Double Bedroom

CB&Q
GN
SP&S

GOLDEN prefix
Most often associated with SP and CRI&P cars operating in GOLDEN STATE

GREEN prefix
6 Section
4 Double Bedroom
6 Roomette

CNR

GROVE suffix
10 Roomette
5 Double Bedroom

CPR

HARBOR suffix
22 Roomette

NYC

IMPERIAL prefix
4 Double Bedroom
4 Compartment
2 Drawing Room

C&NW
NYC
PRR
SP
UP
Pullman Pool

INDIAN prefix
24 Duplex Roomette
Later
11 Double Bedroom

AT&SF

INN suffix
21 Roomette
PRR

ISLAND suffix
1 Double Bedroom
1 Master Room
Buffet Lounge
Observation

NYC

LAKE prefix
10 Roomette
6 Double Bedroom

CMSTP&P

LAKE suffix
6 Double Bedroom
Buffet Lounge

NYC

LOCH prefix
24 Single Room
8 Double Room

NP
CB&Q

MANOR suffix
4 Roomette
5 Double Bedroom
1 Compartment
4 Sections

CPR

MT. prefix
14 Section

CMSTP&P

NARROWS suffix
2 Drawing Room
1 Double Bedroom
1 Compartment
Buffet Lounge
Observation

PRR

NATIONAL prefix
6 Section
6 Roomette
4 Double Bedroom

UP
WABASH

NORTHERN prefix
16 Duplex Roomette
1 Compartment
2 Double Bedroom

C&NW

OCEAN prefix
2 Compartment
2 Drawing Room
5 Double Bedroom

UP

PACIFIC prefix
10 Roomette
6 Double Bedroom

UP
CMSTP&P

PALM prefix
10 Roomette
6 Double Bedroom

AT&SF

PARK suffix
3 Double Bedroom
1 Drawing Room
Dome
Lounge Bar
Lounge Observation

CPR

PASS suffix
4 Section
8 Duplex Roomette
4 Double Bedroom

CB&Q
GN
SP&S

6 Roomette
5 Double Bedroom
2 Compartment

CB&Q
GN
SP&S

PINE prefix
10 Roomette
6 Double Bedroom

AT&SF

PINE suffix
6 Section
6 Roomette
4 Double Bedroom

C&EI
L&N
NC&STL

PLACID prefix
11 Double Bedroom

UP

POINT suffix
14 Roomette
4 Double Bedroom

NYNH&H

PORT prefix
12 Double Bedroom

NYC

RAPIDS suffix
10 Roomette
6 Double Bedroom

PRR

REGAL prefix
4 Double Bedroom
4 Compartment
2 Drawing Room
AT&SF

RIVER suffix
10 Roomette
6 Double Bedroom

A&WP
CNR
FEC
L&N
NYC
PRR
SOU
WofA

14 Roomette
4 Double Bedroom

SL-SF

4 Section
1 Compartment
7 Duplex Roomette
3 Double Bedroom

CB&Q
GN
SP&S

RIVIERE prefix
10 Roomette
6 Double Bedroom

CNR

ROYAL prefix
5 Double Bedroom
Buffet Lounge
Observation

L&N
NYC
SOU
WofA

SILVER prefix

All CB&Q, WP Sleepers and those D&RGW sleepers assigned to California Zephyr

SOUTH prefix
18 Roomette

CNR

STAR prefix
11 Double Bedroom

UP

STREAM suffix
6 Double Bedroom
Buffet Lounge

NYC

SUN prefix
11 Double Bedroom

UP

VAL prefix
22 Roomette

CNR

VALLEY suffix
6 Section
6 Roomette
4 Double Bedroom

AT&SF

10 Roomette
6 Double Bedroom

NYC

14 Roomette
4 Double Bedroom

SOU

VISTA prefix
1 Double Bedroom
4 Drawing Room
Lounge Observation

AT&SF

Both Canadian National and Illinois Central identified some of their sleeping cars by the first letter the car name began with.
B series
11 Double Bedroom

IC

C series
10 Roomette
6 Double Bedroom

IC

D series
10 Roomette
5 Double Bedroom

IC

E series
8 Duplex Roomette
4 Section
4 Double Bedroom

CNR

F series
22 Roomette

IC

G series
4 Compartment
2 Drawing Room
4 Double Bedroom

IC

I series
24 Duplex Roomette

CNR

NdeM and FCP purchased most of their lightweight streamlined sleeping cars used from U. S. and Canadian roads. They were renamed with the following prefixes, these prefixes did not necessarily identify specific interior configurations as the U.S. and Canadian roads did. The following prefixes were some of those assigned to NdeM and FCP sleeping cars.

CLUB prefix
6 Double Bedroom
Buffet Lounge

NdeM

4 Double Bedroom
Buffet Lounge
Observation

NdeM

DR. prefix
18 Roomette

NdeM

GOLFO DE prefix
4 Double Bedroom
4 Compartment
2 Drawing Room

NdeM

LAGO prefix
16 Duplex Roomette
1 Compartment
3 Double Bedroom

NdeM

10 Roomette
6 Double Bedroom

FCP

6 Double Bedroom
5 Compartment

FCP

MAR
MAR DEL prefix
10 Roomette
5 Double Bedroom

NdeM

MONTE prefix
6 Section
6 Roomette
4 Double Bedroom

NdeM

8 Section
3 Compartment

NdeM

PRESA prefix
22 Roomette

NdeM

3 Double Bedroom
1 Drawing Room
Bar Lounge

FCP

2 Drawing Room
1 Compartment
1 Double Bedroom
Buffet Lounge
Observation

FCP

2 Master Rooms
1 Double Bedroom
Buffet Lounge
Observation

FCP

RIO prefix
14 Roomette
4 Double Bedroom

FCP

10 Roomette
6 Double Bedroom

FCP

SIERRA -SIERRA DE prefix
13 Double Bedroom

NdeM

The NdeM also assigned the names of countries of the world to a large number of former NYC 10 Roomette 6 Double Bedrooms sleeping cars purchased for Mexican service. Next to the NdeM the Canadian National was the largest purchaser of used lightweight streamlined Sleeping cars. The Canadian National purchased large numbers of used cars from U.S. roads in the late 1960's for services throughout the country. During EXPO 67 in Montreal the Canadian National leased Sleeping cars from a number of U.S. roads.
The majority of streamlined sleeping cars were purchased by the railroads with specific train assignments in mind. Several sleeping car lines were never streamlined while in other cases streamlined sleeping cars were the only lightweight cars in an otherwise heavyweight train.

TTFN AL

[passengerfan]

The five stripes also looked good in the Brunswick Green a true classic electric in either scheme.

[siberianmo]

Good Morning!

And another version of my favorite loco:

(courtesy: www.trainweb.org)


Enjoy!

Tom[4:-)] [oX)]

[passengerfan]

And best paint scheme it ever wore !

[siberianmo]

G'day!

My favorite loco:

Pennsy GG1 (courtesy: www.trainweb.org}


Enjoy!

Tom[4:-)] [oX)]

[passengerfan]

Tom will include another book forward for those interested.

STREAMLINED COACHES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA
By Al

INTRODUCTION

The lightweight streamlined Coach brought a degree of dignity and comfort to this means of travel so long neglected in the heavyweight era and earlier. Their were a few railroads that made changes to heavyweight era coaches that made this means of travel more comfortable but those railroads were few and far between. Generally speaking throughout the heavyweight era of rail travel the coach passenger was forced to travel in a crowded car with small washrooms, cold drinking water was rare and for those coaches with cold drinking water machines the paper cup from a dispenser alongside was a cent or two. In those days a Hershey Chocolate bar sold for a cent as well. Even scarcer was finding a coach during the heavyweight era with air conditioning, and after finding one did the air conditioning actually work. The
Railroads paid much greater attention to their first class trade with ice water machines with free paper cups, linen headrests, crisp fre***owels, individual bars of soap, large dressing rooms attached to large rest rooms, and by 1936 many of the first class cars were air conditioned. Those passengers who could afford to travel in either Parlor or sleeping car were treated quite well, far better than today’s airline traveler is. Anyone traveling in a coach for more than two hours on a hot summer day during the heavyweight era would certainly arrive in a bedraggled state to say the least without air conditioning or any of the other niceties. While a passenger traveling on the same train in an air conditioned Parlor car would arrive as fresh as the proverbial daisy.
Most heavyweight era cars traveled on six wheel trucks although several railroads owned coaches that ran on four-wheel trucks. Many of these were holdovers from the wooden car era and if one looked closely beneath the steel sheathing, evidence of the cars wooden origins was usually evident.
Seats in most heavyweight era coaches were generally speaking of the flip over back type making it simple to ready the car for the return journey by simply flipping the seat backs opposite to the position they arrived in. Another popular type of seating during this period were the paired seats on a central pedestal that turned completely, these offered a little more comfort as the backs usually reclined a couple of notches from the straight up and down position. Stuffing in these seats and backs was usually straw or horsehair with the most uncomfortable springs ever devised by man to torture his fellow man. All of this was covered with smooth easily washable leather or leatherette type material guaranteed to cause a person to slip off as soon as that one position of reasonable comfort was achieved. Finally a material seat covering was introduced that a person wouldn’t slip off of, but it was guaranteed to leave you itching for many hours after leaving the train after trying to sleep in one of these seats overnight.
Generally heavyweight coaches seated between fifty-eight and eighty passengers in anything but reasonable comfort. No such thing as a footrest could even be found on the majority of these heavyweight coaches, and for those with a footrest it was rare indeed if it was adjustable. It is said that the only persons capable of a nights sleep in one of these coaches was a baby in mothers arms or the traveling drummer (salesman) of whom it has been said could sleep standing up if required to do so.
For those passengers making a trip of a couple days duration or more some trains offered the Tourist Sleeper a car not quite up to Pullman car status but offering either fourteen or sixteen Sections for coach fare plus a nominal upper or lower berth charge. Generally speaking these were old Pullman section sleeping cars sold to the railroads and manned by the railroads own car attendants or in some cases they were actually Pullman owned and operated Tourist sleepers. Few Tourist sleeping cars lasted much past the late 1940s and only three North American railroads either built there own streamlined tourist sleepers or remodeled older cars giving them a streamlined appearance for service in the 1950s Canadian National Railways, Canadian Pacific Railway, and the Milwaukee Road.
The first appearance of true coach luxury in heavyweight cars debuted in the late 1930s in the heavyweight coaches of the C&O with two seats on one side of the center aisle and a single seat on the other side of the center aisle. These coaches seated 36 passengers and are generally recognized as the first true luxury coaches of the heavyweight era. These cars also introduced large rest rooms with a smoking lounge connected to each rest room. But for most passengers’ luxury coach travel would not be available until the lightweight streamlined coaches began making their appearance in the middle 1930’s. The heavyweight coaches of many railroads were often quite shabby in appearance both externally and internally. The interiors often had pealing paint, dirty floors as if the car cleaning crews and maintenance crews had neglected them, that was certainly the case with many of these cars during the depression and on some roads the practice of car neglect in the area of cleanliness continued. It wasn’t until the nations highways began to improve and inter-city buses began carrying more of these coach passengers, that the railroads finally woke up to the fact that the inter-city coach passenger contributed a great deal to a railroads bottom line. Remember these revenues did not have to be split with Pullman. But being typical of railroad arrogance at the time, inaction was the chosen course until it nearly became to late. They initially did nothing to counter the threat posed by inter-city buses with many railroads themselves becoming inter-city bus operators. For several railroads buses would play an important role for travel over the less popular routes and were certainly cheaper to operate than even the Doodlebugs. What with the bus requiring but a driver who not only drove but assisted the passengers in boarding and loaded the luggage, while the Doodlebugs required at least three, four or more crew. At the same time more and more people were beginning a love affair with the family automobile for many trips between cities. This was at a time when sweeping improvements in buses, automobiles and the nations highway system were all occurring simultaneously. Not forgetting to mention a fledgling Airline industry that was struggling with its very existence during this same period of time. If not for the Mail contracts enjoyed by the infant airline industry it is doubtful if they could have made it with passenger revenues alone. The Railroads almost waited to long to notice the changes occurring in many cases right alongside the railroads right of way, with many of the new highways choosing the same path as the railroads had selected earlier when they were built.
Many heavyweight trains were Mail and Express trains with a rider coach or two bringing up the markers being provided for passengers. These Mail and Express trains generally stopped everywhere and spent many minutes loading and unloading Mail and express before proceeding to the next town and another stop. Passengers were welcome to ride the Mail and Express trains Rider coach, but don’t expect even the water tanks to have been filled in many instances. Many passengers rode these trains, as they were the only trains that stopped at their small city or town. The smart passengers were those that only rode the Mail and Express train between the small cities or town they boarded in and a larger city that offered more choices of trains to ride. These rider coaches were generally the oldest steel coaches a railroad owned and their last assignment before maintenance of way service or scrap was operating on these Mail and Express trains. These coaches rarely had a window that one could see through due to the years of accumulated dirt and grime, another use for these older coaches was on the rear of a branch line mixed train that required more passenger capacity than a single combination Baggage Coach provided. It almost seemed as if many railroads were reluctant to purchase heavyweight coaches and in many cases they purchased old Pullmans and stripped the interior rebuilding these cars to coaches.
All heavyweight coaches were built with a vestibule at each end whereas in the case of the lightweight streamlined cars only Jim Crow or divided coaches, and certain prewar lightweight coaches were built with two vestibules. In the case of the Jim Crow Coaches and some prewar Canadian National and Canadian Pacific coaches that divided a smoking and non-smoking seating areas the two compartments were separated by a partition and door across the car. In the case of the Jim Crow cars each of these compartments had their own rest rooms with a vestibule at each end. The other lightweight cars to have two vestibules were commuter type cars. As the heavyweight coaches were replaced by lightweights the older cars ended up in the roads secondary trains, and for those that were already assigned to secondary trains they were passed to commuter, branch line, or Mail and Express train service. The last step for these old heavyweight Coaches was transfer to Maintenance of Way service or the scrap line. Once the streamline era really began in earnest during the late 1930’s few Railroads would order further heavyweight coaches. The M-K-T probably purchased the last twenty-five heavyweight coaches 901-925 from American Car & Foundry Company in 1937. The railroads purchased 425 parlor cars from Pullman in 1942 for conversion to coaches after the War Department turned thumbs down on such a large quantity of these cars being allowed to operate with there limited seating capacity and coaches were capable of accommodating so many more. This really represented a windfall for the railroads as no new cars were permitted to be constructed during the war and for Pullman to release so many of these parlor cars for conversion to coaches early in the war would see the railroads through to the end of the war. Even so many cars that had been slated for maintenance of way service or scrapping were pressed into service for the duration of WW II. Many of these cars were already sitting on rip tracks at the beginning of the war and with a minimum of work were returned to service. Heavyweight coaches were built by car builders Pullman, American Car & Foundry, Barney & Smith, Bethlehem Steel, Canadian Car & Foundry, National Steel Car Company, and many more were even railroad rebuilt from other types of heavyweight cars.
Heavyweight coaches featured Harriman Style Roofs (rounded), as well as the more traditional Clerestory roofs, with even the flat almost streamlined roof making its appearance toward the end of the heavyweight era. Most popular colors for the old heavyweight coaches were Pullman Green and Pullman Red while yet other roads tried variations of Maroon and Dark Green. Most railroads first class equipment and Pullman cars received Gold Leaf or Dulux Gold lettering of car names and numbers, but this was not the case with the lowly coach they received yellow lettering of the railroads name and car numbers after all gold leaf or Dulux Gold was expensive.
The layout of most trains during the heavyweight era was head end cars first trailing the locomotive tender, coaches, a diner, and in the case of many daylight trains a Parlor car or two. Santa Fe operated many trains during the heavyweight era with a Café Observation bringing up the markers a real treat for coach passengers. The overnight trains generally carried Pullmans to the rear of the Dining Car with a Lounge Observation sometimes complete with Barber and Valet service brought up the markers but these cars were only for the benefit of first class passengers.
The first indication that improvements were coming for the coach passenger came from the east, namely the Central of New Jersey Railroad when they inaugurated their BLUE COMETS February 21, 1929 between New York City and Atlantic City twice daily in both directions. Here was a train specially designed and rebuilt from existing heavyweight cars for coach passengers only. Thirteen cars were selected for rebuilding for BLUE COMET service two Baggage cars, two Baggage Smoking combinations with 48 revenue seats, six coaches with 64 revenue seats, one 36 seat Dining car (operated in trains during meal hours only), and two Open Platform Observations with 48 armchairs. All coaches were carpeted and the seats were covered in Persian Blue Mohair to compliment the exterior blues applied to the BLUE COMET cars. The exterior of the remodeled cars was finished in two shades of Blue with a Cream painted window band separating the two blues. All lettering and numbers were Gold Leaf. This was truly America’s first deluxe all coach train service and except for the timing of its introduction just before the stock market crash and subsequent great depression the BLUE COMET would probably have been successful. Unfortunately the BLUE COMET trains were soon discontinued during the depression and even after they were never reinstated.
Interesting that the second heavyweight deluxe coach train was an almost exact copy of the BLUE COMET named the MOTOR QUEEN. The new MOTOR QUEEN operated between Detroit and Cincinnati providing daily service in each direction. The two five car trains were remodeled heavyweights painted Blue with a Cream painted window band separating the blue. All lettering and numbering was again Gold leaf. Each of the two train sets operated with five cars a Baggage 48 revenue seat coach combination, two 64 revenue seat Coaches, a 24 seat Dining 18 seat Lounge Car, and the final car in each consist was a Open Platform Observation with 48 plush armrest seats. These two train sets were also replaced during the great depression but at least an attempt had been made at offering coach passengers some luxury by at least two railroads.
The Northern Pacific Railway received five and the CB&Q one of a new coach type in 1935 for service in the jointly operated NORTH COAST LIMITED. Each NORTH COAST LIMITED train set received one of the new coaches that featured 56 reclining revenue seats with an 8 seat-smoking lounge. Seating in these cars was generally assigned to the first 56 passengers traveling between Seattle and Chicago in each direction. With only one of these cars per consist Portland passengers were excluded. All cars in the NORTH COAST LIMITED at that time except for a Sleeping car were through Chicago - Seattle cars. The one sleeper was a Portland car that was forwarded to and from Pasco by the Spokane Portland & Seattle Railway jointly owned by the Great Northern Railway and Northern Pacific Railway, but all coach passengers to and from Portland changed trains to the SP&S train. These cars closely resembled streamlined cars as they had a flat roof and large square double paned sealed windows, two vestibules, fully air conditioned, and rode on 4 wheel trucks.
The Great Northern Railway took note of the new coaches purchased by the Northern Pacific Railway for NORTH COAST LIMITED service. When the Great Northern received new Coaches 938-949 in 1937 they were much different instead of being flat roofed they were round roof and except for the six Wheel trucks and riveted construction were considered stream-lined. A single vestibule, with 58 plush reclining revenue seats and a cheerful bright interior assured these cars their streamliner status. Each car was lettered for the EMPIRE BUILDER and the luxury coaches as they were called in company literature and advertising were assigned two per consist to the Great Northern Railways finest the EMPIRE BUILDER. One of these cars was a Chicago - Seattle car the other a Chicago – Portland car with the SP&S forwarding this car to and from Portland by way of Spokane. These cars would be among the first cars repainted following WW II in the new EMPIRE BUILDER colors of Omaha Orange and Pullman Green with the Dulux Gold striping and lettering. The cars were assigned to other train duties after the 1947 equipping of the EMPIRE BUILDER with all new streamlined train sets and would not be retired as a group until 1970.
The first successful lightweight streamlined coaches made their appearance in the two articulated streamliners of 1934. The first of these was the Union Pacific’s Pullman Standard built EMC powered M-10000 later to be named the CITY OF SALINA delivered in February, 1934. The other streamliner of 1934 was the Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroads 9900 ZEPHYR delivered by Budd in May 1934. These were America’s first truly successful streamliners. Several earlier experimental trains one dating back to 1900 on the B&O another a 1929 CGW trains will be covered in their respective chapters. The two western roads that took the plunge into streamlining first the Union Pacific with their M-10000 CITY OF SALINA and the Burlington with the 9900 ZEPHYR later renamed PIONEER ZEPHYR were both considered major successes. Even though the Union Pacific train would be retired and scrapped in 1941 for its Aluminum needed for the war effort, in actual truth the Union Pacific retired the train due to its own success. The train as the CITY OF SALINA began each day in Salina, Kansas and ran to Kansas City. Later it made a round trip from Kansas City to Topeka and then returned to Salina completing its day’s work. The articulated consist was partly its downfall for the CITY OF SALINA route outgrew the train with a steam hauled replacement with more cars for additional capacity taking over the route. The Union Pacific was also not enamored with the power choice of the M-10000 it was a distillate engine producing 600 horsepower. The 9900 PIONEER ZEPHYR was retired in 1960 and transferred to the Museum of Science and Industry on Chicago’s Lake Shore where it has recently returned after a nearly year long restoration and is now displayed inside a new parking facility adjoining the Museum.
The two streamliners differed in materials used in their construction the M-10000 CITY OF SALINA was built of Duraluminum a derivative of ordinary Aluminum but much stronger developed for airship construction and the aircraft industry. It was stronger than ordinary Aluminum and was easily cold shaped. The frame and center sill of the cars, as well as the trucks and wheels were constructed of steel, as were the engine motor mounts and that framing around the engine. The 9900 PIONEER ZEPHYR was constructed of stainless steel shot welded together. The two articulated trains were very close in weight with the CITY OF SALINA slightly longer with larger passenger capacity. The 9900 PIONEER ZEPHYR was the faster of the two and was also the only true diesel powered train set with a 600 HP Winton Diesel powering the Electric Generator that supplied power to the traction motors. As mentioned earlier the M-10000 CITY OF SALINA featured a 600 HP distillate engine a type of power plant installed in many EMC built motorcars. The CITY OF SALINA was the only streamliner ever equipped with a distillate engine.
The major problem with these early streamliners was they were articulated, and that fact meant that when extra capacity was needed there was none available as nothing else on the road was compatible.
The Santa Fe would take a different approach to streamlining with a single 52 revenue seat lightweight stream-lined Stainless Steel Coach 3070 being delivered by Budd in January, 1936. This car established the 13’ 6” standard height for lightweight streamlined cars; this cars width was 10’, which became standard for lightweight streamlined cars. The length was 85’ which also became standard although this latter figure varied somewhat with certain Railway Post Office cars having an overall length of 60’ while other lightweight streamlined cars ran 77’ – 80’ and 85’ in length. The height and width dimensions permitted the new car to be used with any heavyweight car by simply coupling them together, steam lines, signal lines, air lines and coupler height standards had all been established long before Santa Fe took delivery of Coach 3070. These dimensions allowed the diaphragms of heavyweight and lightweight cars to be an almost perfect match. The Santa Fe Railways approach to streamlining would eventually become the standard for the railroad industry, Diesel Electric Locomotives for power and individual non-articulated lightweight streamlined cars. In the case of the Santa Fe for the most part they would choose cars of Stainless steel or sheathed in stainless steel owning only a few sleeping cars and a number of Baggage Cars that were smooth sided cars of Cor-ten Steel. Many other roads selected the less expensive Aluminum or Cor-ten steel cars painted in the new color schemes adopted by that particular railroad. For many railroads the streamline era ushered in a new paint scheme along with the new diesels and lightweight streamlined cars. In fact it has been said that the Diesel design men at La Grange and Schenectady would design most of the railroads new paint schemes. Many of these railroads had one paint scheme for their passenger diesels and lightweight streamlined passenger cars and another for just their Freight Diesels. Streamlined Steam Locomotives and tenders would be assigned to pull many of the early streamlined passenger trains. In the case of the Santa Fe their finest the SUPER CHIEF would be assigned diesel power while the streamlined consists of the CHIEF were assigned modern steam power not streamlined steam power between 1938 and 1945 before finally being dieselized. Roads like the Milwaukee Road, New York Central, Pennsylvania, and Southern Pacific would operate their prewar streamliners with modern streamlined steam power until after WW II. And roads like the Norfolk and Western were even reluctant to give up on steam for they’re streamlined train until the latter half of the 1950s.
Lightweight streamlined coaches and train sets were built by American Car & Foundry, Bombardier, Budd Company, Canadian Car & Foundry, Canadian Vickers, General Motors, Goodyear Zeppelin Corporation, Hawker Siddeley Canada Limited, Montreal Locomotive Works, National Steel Car Company, Pacific Railway Equipment, Pressed Steel Car Company, Pullman Standard, and the Rohr Corporation. All constructed more than one streamlined coach during the lightweight streamlined era. Foreign built lightweight streamlined cars and equipment came to North American Railroads from France, Japan, Netherlands, South Korea, and Switzerland. Those railroads who rebuilt older heavyweight cars into streamlined cars or built new lightweight streamlined cars in their own shops were the Atlantic Coast Line (ACL), Baltimore and Ohio (B&O), Canadian National (CN), Canadian Pacific (CP), Chicago Milwaukee St. Paul and Pacific (CMStP&P). The Great Northern (GN), Gulf Mobile & Ohio (GM&O), Illinois Central (IC), Louisville & Nashville (L&N), Lehigh Valley (LV), Nashville Chattanooga & St. Louis (NC&StL), New York Central (NYC), New York New Haven & Hartford (NYNH&H), Pennsylvania (PRR), Reading (RRR), and the St. Louis – San Francisco (StLSF) all of these railroads could count themselves among those railroads that rebuilt heavyweight cars into streamlined cars or who built new streamlined cars from the ground up.
Probably one of the best known and most successful early coach train operations was introduced by the Union Pacific and Chicago and North-western Railroads on August 21, 1935 named the CHALLENGER, they operated between Chicago and Los Angeles daily. The CHALLENGER was the first attempt to offer long distance coach passengers some of the amenities offered to first class passengers in an economy train. The Union Pacific had suffered a major drop in coach rider ship, and with it revenue during the great depression. The thinking was the concept of the CHALLENGER might be a way to recoup some of this lost business and revenue. Union Pacific management was convinced that by offering an all coach train with some of the amenities offered first class passengers only in the past might be the way to attract new riders and bring back old riders to the trains. Not only did the new CHALLENGERS restore the lost coach revenue, but also within a year was the most profitable passenger operation on the Railroad. Initially the trains were made up of old heavyweight cars refurbished for the new service offering Coach, economy dining cars and Tourist Sleeping cars. So pleased with the initial years operation of the CHALLENGER were the two operating roads that the Union Pacific rebuilt an additional sixty cars (47 Coaches, 5 Dining Cars, and 16 Tourist Sleepers) for the 1936 edition of the CHALLENGER beginning May 15, 1936.
The CHALLENGER offered a stewardess nurse who proved especially helpful to Mothers traveling with infants and smaller children, the CHALLENGER provided at least one coach in each consist for the exclusive use of Women and Children traveling together. Where most overnight trains were charging coach passengers a nickel or dime for pillow rental the new CHALLENGER provided free pillow service. The CHALLENGER was the first long distance coach train in the United States that all cars were fully air-conditioned. The CHALLENGER was the first train to provide subdued Blue lighting in the coaches for the nocturnal parts of the trip. Of course white lighting was provided for those passengers who wished to read by individual lights above each seat. All seats in the rebuilt CHALLENGER coaches were equipped with individually adjustable seat backs and the cushions were covered in a Scottish plaid covering to signify thrift. Each seat back headrest was covered with a fresh white linen headrest cover changed daily with the trains name Challenger embroidered in Red script on those headrest covers. The Dining Car served extremely reasonable priced meals and in no time became quite popular with the thrifty minded passengers. Rather than assign a separate Lounge Car the Dining Cars were used for this purpose during non-meal hours. Eventually the trains would have separate Lounge cars assigned beginning in April 1937. The CHALLENGER heavyweight coaches, dining cars, lounges, and Tourist Sleeping Cars were painted Olive Green with Gold Leaf lettering and with the words Challenger in Red Script centered on the car sides below the windows. The CHALLENGER continued to grow with the Union Pacific assigning all available cars to CHALLENGER service after rebuilding and refurbishing including many of their Harriman type cars. The Union Pacific – Chicago and North Western – Southern Pacific introduced a second CHALLENGER between Chicago and San Francisco on September 15, 1937. This coincided with the delivery of the first lightweight streamlined cars purchased for assignment to the CHALLENGER. There were 48 revenue seat lightweight streamlined Coaches delivered for all three CHALLENGER owners C&NW 6132-6147, UP 5300-5327, and SP 2424-2429. Fifty seat articulated paired lightweight streamlined coaches were delivered to the Southern Pacific 2414-2415, 2416-2417. Also 56 Revenue seat lightweight streamlined Coaches with stewardess - nurse quarters for the C&NW 6160-6166 and UP 5200-5211. The final group of cars delivered at that time were five Twin Unit Dining cars delivered to the Union Pacific numbers 5100-5104. The Twin Unit Dining cars were assigned to the LOS ANGELES CHALLENGER pool of cars while the coaches could be found mixed with heavyweights in the consists of both the LOS ANGELES CHALLENGER and the SAN FRANCISCO CHALLENGER. The new cars delivered to the C&NW for CHALLENGER service were painted the same Olive Green paint as the UP and SP CHALLENGER cars but instead of Gold Leaf lettering on the Olive Green like the UP and SP used. The CHALLENGER cars the C&NW owned were lettered using yellow paint with two narrow yellow paint stripes running the length of their cars one above the windows the other below the windows. Even this influx of new cars would not be enough to stem the demand for space on the CHALLENGERS and Pullman supplied an additional forty Tourist Sleeping Cars for the CHALLENGERS. This became one of the few instances Pullman owned Tourist Sleeping cars actually carried a train name in this instance THE CHALLENGER on there sides as all other cars assigned to this service carried. So successful were the CHALLENGERS that on many summer days they departed with two and even three sections of the LOS ANGELES CHALLENGER and SAN FRANCISCO CHALLENGER. Demand for seats on the CHALLENGERS sometimes forced the operators of the CHALLENGERS to use equipment that was not up to the trains standards and in most of those cases the cars were assigned to the short trip passengers.
Rival Santa Fe on the Chicago – Los Angeles route received thirty 60 Revenue seat lightweight streamlined stainless steel coaches from Budd for assignment to that roads SCOUT the closest competitor to the CHALLENGER. The Santa Fe SCOUT was a daily economy train that differed from the CHALLENGER in that it carried first class Pullman Sleeping cars over part of its route. But the Tourist Sleeping cars carried by the SCOUT were not only through cars but additional cars of this type were added in route on the westbound SCOUT. The SCOUTS economy diner was open to both first class and coach passengers. The SCOUT and LOS ANGELES CHALLENGER matched the others time keeping thus offering passengers a choice of routes between Chicago and Los Angeles. The Santa Fe SCOUT was always considered a heavyweight train and other than the lightweight streamlined Budd coaches the SCOUT would never become more streamlined than that. Where its closest rival the Union Pacific LOS ANGELES CHALLENGER after being discontinued following WW II would be reinstated in the 1950s as a lightweight streamlined CHALLENGER, serving as a rival to the Santa Fe EL CAPITAN a premium service coach train rather than as an economy train.
By December 1936 there was twenty-seven lightweight streamlined trains in service all carrying coaches and many of the trains were fully articulated or partially articulated. These 27 trains are listed below:

UNION PACIFIC

M-1000 CITY OF SALINA fully articulated 3-car train delivered February 1934 entered scheduled service January 31, 1935 between Salina and Kansas City round trip daily.

M-10001 CITY OF PORTLAND fully articulated delivered October 1934 entered scheduled service June 6, 1935 between Chicago and Portland ten times monthly.

M-10002 CITY OF LOS ANGELES fully articulated entered scheduled service May 15, 1936 between Chicago and Los Angeles ten times monthly.
M-10004 CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO fully articulated entered scheduled service June 14, 1936 between Chicago and San Francisco ten times monthly.
M-10005 CITY OF DENVER M-10006 CITY OF DENVER partly articulated entered scheduled service June 18, 1936 overnight every night in both directions between Chicago and Denver.

CHICAGO BURLINGTON & QUINCY

9900 PIONEER ZEPHYR fully articulated delivered May, 1934 entered scheduled service November 11, 1934 between Lincoln and Kansas City round trip daily.

9901 TWIN ZEPHYR 9902 TWIN ZEPHYR fully articulated entered scheduled service April 21, 1935 one round trip daily between Chicago and Minneapolis later increased to two round trips daily.

9903 MARK TWAIN ZEPHYR fully articulated entered scheduled service October 28, 1935 one round trip daily St. Louis to Burlington.

9904 ZEPHYR TRAIN OF THE GODDESSES 9905 ZEPHYR TRAIN OF THE GODS fully articulated entered scheduled service December 18, 1936 between Chicago and Minneapolis two round trips daily.

9906 DENVER ZEPHYR 9907 DENVER ZEPHYR partly articulated entered scheduled service November 7, 1936 between Chicago and Minneapolis two daily round trips.

ILLINOIS CENTRAL

121 GREEN DIAMOND fully articulated entered scheduled service May 17, 1936 between Chicago and St. Louis round trip daily.

CHICAGO MILWAUKEE ST. PAUL & PACIFIC

1-2 HIAWATHAS not articulated entered scheduled service May 29, 1935 between Chicago and Minneapolis round trip daily

3-4 HIAWATHAS not articulated entered scheduled service October 11, 1936 between Chicago and Minneapolis round trip daily

NEW YORK CENTRAL

MERCURY non-articulated entered scheduled service July 15, 1936 between Cleveland and Detroit round trip daily.

NEW YORK NEW HAVEN & HARTFORD

COMET fully articulated bi-directional entered scheduled service June 5, 1935 between Providence and Boston seven round trips daily.

BESLER non-articulated bi-directional entered scheduled service September 12, 1936 between Bridgeport and Hartford three round trips daily.

ALTON

ABRAHAM LINCOLN non-articulated entered scheduled service July 1, 1935 between Chicago and St. Louis round trip daily.

BALTIMORE & OHIO

ROYAL BLUE non-articulated entered scheduled service June 24, 1935 between New York and Washington round trip daily.

MAINE CENTRAL/BOSTON & MAINE

6000 FLYING YANKEE fully articulated delivered February, 1935 entered scheduled service April 1, 1935 between Boston and Bangor round trip daily.

GULF MOBILE & NORTHERN

352 REBEL 353 REBEL non-articulated entered scheduled service July 10, 1935 between Jackson and New Orleans round trip overnight.

The one thing the above trains all had in common was coach accommodation although only a few of the above trains were actually all coach trains, those trains were the M-10000 CITY OF SALINA, 9900 PIONEER ZEPHYR, 9903 MARK TWAIN ZEPHYR, COMET, BESLER and 6000 FLYING YANKEE. Others were for both Coach and Parlor car service the 9901-9902 TWIN ZEPHYRS, 9904 ZEPHYR TRAIN OF THE GODDESSES, 9905 ZEPHYR TRAIN OF THE GODS, GREEN DIAMOND, HIAWATHA'S, MERCURY, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, and ROYAL BLUE.
The CITY OF PORTLAND, CITY OF LOS ANGELES, CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO, CITY OF DENVERS, and REBELS all provided Coach and Pullman Sleeping car accommodation.
The DENVER ZEPHYRS were the only trains that provided Coach, Parlor, and Pullman Sleeping car accommodation. The only trains in the previously mentioned groups whose cars could simply be uncoupled and coupled were the HIAWATHAS, MERCURY, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ROYAL BLUE, and the CITY OF DENVER. The REBELS could simply be coupled and uncoupled but they were not compatible with any other equipment. After December 1936 all lightweight streamlined passenger equipment would be compatible for coupling and going from car to car. Cars would no longer be articulated in more than three car sets, and in most cases pairs only with the vast majority of all lightweight streamlined cars delivered after December, 1936 single cars. In the 1950’s the railroads would once again experiment with lightweight low center of gravity trains that were incompatible with the rest of the railroads passenger equipment, and from time to time thereafter these lightweight streamlined experiments continue to surface for another look. Recently in 1999, new TALGO trains entered service in the Northwest built for State agencies and operated by Amtrak. Branding these as experimental is probably unfair as after their early trials in the United States they went on to Spain where the TALGO type became very successful. The latest trains to enter service in the United States are the ACELA trains operating in the Northeast corridor at speeds up to 150 miles per hour.
Prior to WW II there was a number of Coach streamliners built and placed in service in different regions of the country for overnight operation. These trains for the most part were seven-car train sets built by Budd or Pullman Standard and either pulled by a single 2,000 hp passenger diesel or in many cases streamlined steam locomotives generally a 4-6-2 Pacific. The three things these trains all had in common was comfortable reclining seats in the coaches, clean modern dining cars, and attractive lounge cars. Many of these trains borrowed an idea from the CHALLENGERS (originally introduced on the GM&O REBELS) and introduced stewardess nurses or train hostesses and some even went so far as to assign one coach for Women and Children traveling together. It’s to bad Amtrak and VIA Rail Canada haven’t tried this women with children coach idea, but then some would say times have changed and at least in the United States the American Civil Liberties Union would have a field day with that idea. After all if all the screaming kids and their mothers were assigned or confined to one coach or two then they could disturb one another and permit the rest of the coach passengers to have some peace and quiet. But unfortunately the American Civil Liberty Union Lawyers in this country would rather force all passengers to suffer someone else’s children equally.
The routes of these very popular coach streamliners were between New York City and both coasts of Florida by two routes SILVER METEOR (PRR, RF&P, SAL), and CHAMPION (PRR, RF&P, ACL, FEC), New York City and New Orleans (PRR, SOU). Between Chicago and Florida by three different routes CITY OF MIAMI (IC, C of G, FEC), SOUTH WIND (PRR, L&N, ACL, FEC), and DIXIE FLAGLER (C&EI, L&N, NC&StL, AB&C, ACL, FEC).
Other lengthy coach operations would be introduced before WW II such as the PRR TRAILBLAZER overnight between Chicago and New York City, not to be outdone the NYC introduced an all coach overnight train between Chicago and New York on the same date the PACEMAKER. This latter train was a heavyweight and would not be completely streamlined until after WW II. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroads COLUMBIAN became a Jersey City to Chicago overnight coach train days before WW II began. The PRR was the only one of the three railroads with New York City – St. Louis routes (NYC-B&O-PRR) to offer a coach streamliner between those two points the JEFFERSONIAN introduced in 1941 using rebuilt heavyweight cars stream-lined in Altoona Shops for this train.
The Santa Fe offered a deluxe streamlined Coach service between Chicago and Los Angeles in the same 39-3/4 hours as the All Pullman SUPER CHIEF naming the new coach consists EL CAPITAN. The EL CAPITAN was nineteen hours faster westbound and twenty-one hours faster eastbound than the SCOUT or the UP LOS ANGELES CHALLENGER and therefore an extra fare was charged to ride the faster train. The EL CAPITAN trains were an immediate hit with the traveling public and quickly grew from their humble five car beginnings with a passenger capacity of 186 to eight cars with a capacity of 366. Before WW II the EL CAPITAN would increase by a third train set thus providing every other day service in each direction. The EL CAPITAN will be more fully covered in the Santa Fe Chapter of this book. We will mention here that from those first five car train sets the EL CAPITAN went on to become the finest all coach daily long distance train in the world until 1971.
By the beginning of WW II most railroads in the United States and Canada owned some streamlined cars or in many cases complete streamlined trains. Nearly every region of the country witnessed the passing of lightweight streamlined passenger trains, not always daily for many of the prewar streamliners were in such short supply that some trains only operated every five or six days.
The railroads were operating many lightweight streamlined trains by the beginning of the war that carried both coach and parlor cars. The Southern Pacific who by the outbreak of WW II was operating a MORNING DAYLIGHT, NOON DAYLIGHT, and SAN JOAQUIN DAYLIGHT between San Francisco and Los Angeles in both directions daily operated some of the more famous of these. The latter by its namesake valley while the first two traveled by way of the Coastline. The Santa Fe was offering three daily streamliners named the GOLDEN GATES between San Francisco and Los Angeles in a Bus-Train-Bus service. The Santa Fe was also providing four streamlined round trips daily with two consists of the SAN DIEGANS between Los Angeles and San Diego. Further east the Southern Pacific Railroads subsidiary Texas and New Orleans was operating twice-daily streamlined trains between Houston and Dallas, the morning trains in each direction were the HUSTLERS and the afternoon trains were the SUNBEAMS. North of there Santa Fe was operating the CHICAGOAN and KANSAS CITYAN daily between Oklahoma City and Chicago. The other Santa Fe streamliner operating in the mid-west at that time was the TULSAN between Tulsa and Kansas City with through cars to and from Chicago carried in the CHICAGOAN eastbound and KANSAS CITYAN westbound. The Southern was operating a Coach streamliner the TENNESSEAN between Washington and Memphis that carried heavyweight Pullmans behind the streamlined coach section. The CB&Q was opera-ting the four car GENERAL PERSHING ZEPHYR between St. Louis and Kansas City round trip daily and by the outbreak of the war it was extended beyond Kansas City to Omaha and Lincoln. The CB&Q was also operating a train between St. Louis and Minneapolis overnight with the Rock Island that carried lightweight coaches and heavyweight sleeping cars the ZEPHYR – ROCKET. Rock Island was operating Diesel – Electric powered ROCKETS with light-weight coaches between Chicago and Peoria (PEORIA ROCKET), Des Moines and Chicago (DES MOINES ROCKET), between Minneapolis and Kansas City the Rock Island provided daily service using two sets of ROCKET equipment one in each direction. Other ROCKET services operated between Kansas City and Dallas and the CB&Q was operating the 9901and 9902 ZEPHYRS (formerly TWIN ZEPHYRS) between Dallas – Fort Worth and Houston. The TEXAS ZEPHYR was providing overnight service between Denver and Dallas over CB&Q subsidiaries FW&D, and C&S. The TEXAS ZEPHYR was another of those trains with lightweight coach section and heavyweight Pullman section. Of course by that time the Chicago – Denver route was served by three overnight trains the CB&Q DENVER ZEPHYR, C&NW-UP CITY OF DENVER and the CRI&P ROCKY MOUNTAIN ROCKET the latter with direct service to Colorado Springs and Denver. The Rock Island was operating the CHOCTAW ROCKET between Memphis and Amarillo daily in each direction using two Diesel – Electric powered streamlined train sets. Three Railroads were operating streamliners between Chicago and Minneapolis daily the CB&Q with twice daily streamliner service with the TRAIN OF THE GODS and TRAIN OF THE GODDESSES ZEPHYR train sets. Milwaukee Road was offering twice daily HIAWATHAS between Chicago and the Twin Cities, and last but not least the C&NW introduced their Diesel – Electric powered streamlined 400s between the same terminal cities providing a daily train in each direction.
The Alton was offering two daily streamliners in each direction between Chicago and St. Louis the ABRAHAM LINCOLN and ANN RUTLEDGE. The NYC was providing through MERCURY train service between Chicago-Detroit- Cleveland daily in each direction using streamlined steam powered consists. The NYC on the very day the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor took place December 7, 1941 inaugurated new Budd built lightweight streamliners between New York City and Detroit-Cleveland named the EMPIRE STATE EXPRESS powered by streamlined 4-6-4 Hudson Locomotives.
The prewar lightweight streamlined coaches were well lighted, airy, clean, and comfortable, fully air conditioned, with ice water, clean rest rooms, and were generally not over-crowded. The prewar lightweight streamlined coaches were equipped with folding steps at vestibules for boarding, skirting to hide the equipment and air conditioning units located beneath the cars etc. Several of the early articulated streamliners even had streamlined truck covers but mechanical forces that needed to inspect the trucks soon discarded these. Buying a lightweight streamlined railroad passenger car was almost like buying an automobile except there was even more options available. For the car body itself a Railroad could choose Cor-ten steel, aluminum or stainless steel from manufacturers such as American Car & Foundry and Pullman Standard. From Budd there was no choice as they only built Stainless steel cars. There were three types of air conditioning Ice, Steam ejector, and mechanical, with ice being the cheapest initially to install but the most labor intensive as the cars equipped with Ice systems where fans blowing across the ice provided the cooling consumed 500 lb. of ice per hour. Most cars equipped with ice systems bunkered 4,500 lb. of ice beneath the car enough for nine hours of cooling before needing replenishing. The ice type air conditioning was ordered by few railroads after WW II. The Steam Ejector system where the steam line from the diesels or steam power up front was very popular with many roads and the secret to successful operation of this system was maintaining constant steam pressure. The Santa Fe was very successful with the steam ejector system while Southern Pacific replaced their steam ejector installations with Mechanical. The mechanical or electric type that either used a power supply to operate a generator for electrical power for the air conditioning or used power from a cars belt driven generator were by far the most popular. The latter type was quickly replaced by a separate engine driven unit operating an electric generator supplying the necessary power, as the belt driven generator was not of sufficient power output to supply the batteries with enough power for any extended station stop. Most lightweight streamlined cars built for and operated in complete streamlined trains before the war were equipped with full width diaphragms giving the streamliners an unbroken appearance as if one long unit. Many railroads selected certain types of trucks for their prewar streamlined cars and switched to newer types of trucks on car orders following the war. The commonwealth truck with outside swing hanger appeared on New Haven passenger cars beginning in 1948. Beginning in 1947 the H type coupler became standard for all passenger cars. No longer was their any slack action on passenger trains equipped with these couplers. Following the war many of the lightweight streamlined cars no longer were purchased as deluxe cars, the skirting was missing and in many instances the full width diaphragms were no longer an expense that many railroads were willing to pay for. On some cars rigid non-folding steps replaced folding steps. But many of the postwar lightweight streamlined cars were built with carpeting in the aisles a feature no longer restricted to just the first class cars. And this was only the beginning of better things to come for the postwar coach passenger. World War II brought a halt to new passenger car construction except for Troop Sleepers, Troop Kitchen, and U.S. Army Hospital cars but none of these could be mistaken for streamlined car types.
Many Railroads had streamlined a number of trains before WW II but the vast majority of lightweight streamlined trains would come following WW II and in some cases second and third generations of the same streamlined trains would follow. The major railroads would move from ten and twenty trains per month on certain routes to daily service requiring additional equipment for the postwar streamliners, this was particular true of western roads such as the Santa Fe and Union Pacific.
Following WW II the car manufacturers were inundated with orders for lightweight streamlined cars and complete streamlined trains. Orders were for everything from head end cars to Observations and every type passenger car in between. It was almost as if a large majority of the Railroads heavyweight passenger cars had worn out at the same time from the heavy wartime use and were in need of replacement immediately or as soon as possible. Rider ship figures had soared to new heights during the war and the railroads were determined to hold onto as much of that business as possible, many felt the best way was to offer the traveling public more lightweight streamlined trains. For the coach passengers the best was yet to come from the car manufacturers. First following the war came the leg rest seat for long distance services, the seating capacity of these leg-rest coaches varied between 38 and 56 with even the latter seating capacity able to offer large rest rooms and smoking lounges. In Canada Canadian Pacific Railway purchased 60 Leg-Rest seat Coaches for the CANADIAN and other services. Even better news for coach passengers came from the CB&Q in 1947 when the worlds first lightweight Vista Dome train sets the TWIN ZEPHYRS began twice daily round trip service between Chicago and Minneapolis. These train sets each featured seven cars with five of these cars dome equipped. The 24 seats in the dome coaches was for the use of any coach passenger who wished to enjoy the view and this space was not sold as revenue seating. Only the Dome Observation was off limits to Coach passengers as this car was a parlor and the 24 seats in this dome were reserved for the use of the parlor car patrons. With four domes in each consist for coach passengers this gave those passengers 96 dome seats. The revenue coach seats in these four cars numbered 212. Besides the dome seating the Baggage Buffet Lounge car provided 39 non-revenue seats and the dining car another 48 non-revenue seats. So in actual fact the Vista Dome TWIN ZEPHYRS provided coach passengers with 162 non-revenue seats for a ratio of 1-3/4 seats per coach passenger. Where the Vista Dome TWIN ZEPHYR Coaches seated 50 or 54 in revenue seats. The two Vista Domes with the seating for 50 operated one per consist had a Conductors office otherwise they were the same as the 54 seat Vista Dome Coaches.
The long distance Vista Dome Coach with 46 reserved leg rest seats was introduced with the jointly owned and operated CB&Q-D&RGW-WP CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR inaugurated March 20, 1949. Each CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR operated with three Dome Coaches in each consist and two other Vista Domes for the enjoyment of Pullman Passengers. Besides the CB&Q-D&RGW-WP Budd would sell these 46 seat Leg Rest Dome Coaches to the Missouri Pacific for the COLORADO EAGLE, Great Northern for the EMPIRE BUILDER, and Northern Pacific for the NORTH COAST LIMITED.
Credit must also be given to the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway for the innovative planning and design work that went into the stillborn CHESSIE. The CHESSIE consisted of three trains constructed by Budd for service between Washington-Newport News and Cincinnati. The CHESSIE never entered service but did go on a tour of the area served and was then quietly dropped. The CHESSIE would have given coach passengers the highest ratio of non-revenue seats to revenue seats of any coach streamliners ever constructed. If a fifteen car CHESSIE had operated there would have been 322 revenue seats available and 288 non-revenue seats available. But if thirteen car or fewer CHESSIE trains had operated the non-revenue seats would have outnumbered the revenue seats. The CHESSIE never entered service and most of the equipment from the three train sets was sold to other railroads.
Postwar lightweight streamlined coaches were built in long distance versions with leg rest seats with seating between 38-60. Higher capacity shorter distance coaches with seating from 54-80. There were combination Coaches with Baggage Coach and Baggage Crew Dormitory Coach. Other types of postwar cars that featured coach seating were Snack Bar Coaches, Dining Coaches, Coach Lounges, Stateroom Coaches, and of course Dome Coaches in both long distance and short distance versions. Combination Domes for multiple uses, and Coach Observations. Later would come Hi-Level Coaches, Keystone Coaches, Bi-Level Coaches, and Superliner Coaches not to mention the experimental lightweight trains. Budd came up with the Rail Diesel Car in the latter 1940s as the answer to the less than profitable Branch Line rail operations. At least with the Budd RDC the Branch Lines at least stood a chance of breaking even with their less expensive operating costs. The RDC came in four basic types the all coach RDC-1, the Baggage Coach combination RDC-2, the Railway Post Office Baggage Coach Combination RDC-3 and the shorter in length Railway Post Office Baggage Combination RDC-4 (one Midwestern Railroad even operated RDC-4s with seating for 17 passengers the M&STL.).
Probably the greatest number of new streamlined trains entered service between 1946 and 1949 when the car manufacturers were working around the clock turning out lightweight streamlined cars to equip the nations postwar streamlined trains. A second round of new streamlined car purchases took place from the car builders in the early to mid 1950s that would complete the streamlined car needs of most railroads in the United States and Canada.
It seemed as if every railroad from every region of the United States was demanding new lightweight streamlined cars from the manufacturers as soon as possible following the Second World War. The car manufacturers were anxious to fulfill those orders in spite of many shortages of certain raw materials caused by the war. In spite of these initial shortages of materials the Railroad car manufacturers soon discovered there were many new sub contractors available to them more than ever before thanks to the hundreds of small manufacturers that came into being with the encouragement of a wartime government in a time of national need. And many of these small wartime manufacturers were only to willing to bid on parts and assemblies for the new postwar streamlined passenger car boom in order for there doors to remain open following the second world war.
One Railroad the Milwaukee Road built all of there own lightweight stream-lined cars in there own Milwaukee shops except for ten Super domes, and thirty sleeping cars delivered by Pullman Standard, not to mention the five used Budd built PACIFIC series 10-6 sleeping cars purchased from the Union Pacific.
Another railroad the CI&L (MONON) purchased twenty-five surplus U.S. Army Hospital cars built by American Car & Foundry in 1944 in anticipation of an invasion of Japan that thankfully never took place. The MONON shops converted these cars into the roads entire lightweight streamlined passenger fleet. The Alaska Railroad purchased thirty two of the same cars and had a WW II ship builder Puget Sound Bridge and Dredging Company in Seattle rebuild them into the ARR modern passenger fleet before barging them north to the Railroad. Just one more example of a once busy wartime contractor looking for postwar business wherever they could find it in order to keep the doors open. The former U. S. Army Hospital cars had a fully streamlined appearance after completion by the Seattle based ship builder Puget Sound Bridge & Dredging.
The two major Canadian Railroads the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific did not receive the large numbers of streamlined passenger cars necessary to streamline the majority of their fleet until 1954 later than any of the major U. S. Railroads. That was probably because of a lack of competition in Canada, whereas in the United States major cities such as Seattle on the West Coast were served by the Great Northern Railway, Milwaukee Road, Northern Pacific Railway, Union Pacific, and Canadian Pacific Railway. Nearby Vancouver, British Columbia a city of comparable size was served by Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, and Great Northern. Many Canadian travelers were finding it possible to travel
Canadian National and Grand Trunk Western between Toronto and other eastern Canadian cities to Chicago where they could board the Great Northern Railways EMPIRE BUILDER to Everett where they could change trains to the INTERNATIONAL to complete there trip to Vancouver. This route was faster by over a day than the all-Canadian route of either the Canadian National or Canadian Pacific. It was also possible for passengers between Toronto and Winnipeg to travel faster by way of Chicago and St. Paul than the Canadian routes north of Lake Superior. Both of these alternatives to the all Canadian route were comparable in price, and the time difference of a full day on the trip to the west coast made it even more attractive for Canadians to take the route south of there border.
South of the U.S. border the National de Mexico received the AZTEC EAGLE train sets from the Schindler Company of Switzerland the first and only new long distance trains built for the NdeM during the forties or fifties. The makeup of these beautiful red and cream painted lightweight stream-lined train sets included 1st and 2nd class coaches, fortunately the latter never caught on in the United States and Canada. It was bad enough that Railroads operating in the American south operated with so called Jim Crow or divided coaches to separate the races. That a single example of this type car should have been built during the streamline era is America’s disgrace. Unfortunately a number of U.S. railroads built lightweight streamlined coaches with divided interiors. These will be covered in the respective chapters of those Railroads.
Many Railroads when sleeping car needs waned rebuilt these cars to coaches the one means of rail travel that showed an increase in demand on some roads in the U.S. in the late 1950s and 1960s. Many Railroads purchased new cars for commuter services and as long distance train services of some of those roads slowed they converted their long distance coaches to commuter cars by adding additional seating. In other cases railroads that operated no commuter services sold long distance coaches to railroads that operated commuter services for conversion to high capacity commuter coaches. There always seemed to be a ready market for good used coaches right up to the time of Amtrak and even beyond in some cases.
The Canadian National Railway appeared to overbuild when they had Canadian Car & Foundry build and deliver 218 eighty-seat coaches 5437-5654 between January and July 1954. This group of coaches would probably become the most widely rebuilt and remodeled group of coaches owned by any Railroad, with the entire group having seating reduced to 76 within the first two years of service. Some of these coaches were rebuilt to Snack Coaches, Lounge Cars, Club Car, Dining Lounge Cars, Coach Crew Dormitory Cars, and in one instance even a business car complete with open platform observation. Still others were rebuilt to Dayniter Coaches, and even Dining cars.
In 1956 the new CB&Q DENVER ZEPHYRS introduced the Slumbercoach to the rail traveling public. These cars with 24 private single rooms and 8 private double rooms were the answer for several railroads to attract increased coach ridership. The fare for space in the Slumbercoach was based on your coach ticket plus $7.00 for a single room as a room charge between Chicago and Denver or Colorado Springs. If the new Budd built Slumbercoach had been even five years earlier it would probably have been much more widely accepted. Here was the car that made all the privacy afforded a Pullman Passenger traveling in a Duplex Roomette available to the coach passenger for a much lower fare. The Slumbercoach rooms offered the coach passenger
The Slumbercoach rooms offered the coach passenger his own seating, sink, toilet, and bed in complete privacy. Initially these cars operated on the B&O, MP, NYC, NP, and CB&Q. By the time of Amtrak’s take over only the BN (ex CB&Q and NP) and B&O were operating the original Slumbercoaches from Budd and PC was operating the converted Sleeping cars from Budd.
The remainder of this book is a Railroad by Railroad look at the Streamlined coaches and the trains they operated in


The Slumbercoach revived the old Tourist Sleeper concept popular until the late 1940’s, although not quite as much space was available to the Slumbercoach patron it was provided for a much lower fare than its Pullman contemporary. Although the Milwaukee Road would build new Touralux cars (Milwaukee Roads name for Tourist Sleeping cars for their OLMPIAN HIAWATHA). Canada’s two major roads would operate modernized Tourist Sleepers in their most famous postwar streamlined train the Canadian Pacific Railways CANADIAN and the Canadian National
Railway SUPER CONTINENTAL.

TTFN AL

[siberianmo]

Good Morning!

PASSENGER RR FALLEN FLAG #37

Here’s another Passenger RR Fallen Flag from Classic American Railroads:

Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O)

Headquarters: Richmond, VA

Mileage in 1950:

5,343 (including ferries)

Locomotives in 1963:

Steam: 3 (fireless “cookers”)
Diesel: 1,053

Rolling stock in 1963:

Freight cars: 92,992
Passenger cars: 324

Principal routes in 1950:

Chicago-Cincinnati, OH-Ashland, KY-Staunton, VA-Newport News, VA
Gordonsville, VA-Washington, DC
Clifton Forge-Richmond VA
Ashland-Louisville, KY
Limeville (Ashland)-Columbus, OH-Toledo, OH
Columbus-Pomeroy, OH
Catlettsburg (Ashland)-Elkhorn City, KY
Ronceverte-Durbin & Bartow, WV
Chicago-Grand Rapids, MI-Detroit, MI-St. Thomas, ON-Buffalo & Niagra Falls, NY
Grand Rapids-Petoskey & Bay View, MI
Erieau, ON-Ludington, MI
Ludington-Milwaukee & Manitowoc & Kewaunee, WI (ferry routes to each from Ludington)
Toledo-Bay City, MI
Port Huron-Bay City-Elmdale, MI
Holland-Muskegon-Hart, MI

Passenger trains of note:

George Washington (Washington & Newport News-Cincinnati & Louisville)
F.F.V. (Washington & Newport News-Cincinnati & Louisville)
Sportsman (Washington & Newport News-Cincinnati & Detroit)
Pere Marquettes (Detroit-Grand Rapids; Chicago-Grand Rapids & Muskegon; Detroit-Saginaw, MI)
Resort Special (Chicago-Petoskey; later, Washington-White Sulphur Springs, WV)


Enjoy! [tup]

Tom [4:-)] [oX)]

[siberianmo]

Morning Al

Appreciate the info ... why not Post it at the bar[?] That montage was also provided for Sunday Photo Posting Day!

Catch ya later ...

Tom[4:-)][oX)]

[passengerfan]

Tom the Montage of Milwaukee photos show the postwar MORNING and AFTERNOON HIAWATHA Parlor Lounge Sktop Observations with 24 Parlor Seats and a five sest Parlor Drawing Room. These four cars were built in Milwaukee Road shops and were numbered and named
186 CEDAR RAPIDS
187 COON RAPIDS
188 DELL RAPIDS
189 PRIEST RAPIDS

All were saved except for the burnt out car. Wiil have to look up in my records which car that was.
Three of the other pictures were of Milwaukee Super Domes one in Milwaukee Colors one in CN colors and the third looks to be in CSX colors will have to do some record digging on the third one.

The other Observation is one of the Milwaukee Road Beavvertail obs from 2935 HIAWATHA either WENONAH or NOKOMIS both were later rebuilt to Express Cars and the last picture is an Express car as Milwaukee referred to their baggage cars.

TTFN AL

[siberianmo]

Nice work Al - once again a fine effort and much appreciated![tup] I suugest that you Post it over at the bar AFTER I run the Train of Tomorrow pix. Would fit in quite nicely as a Monday input, fer sure, fer sure![tup]

Almost time for today's NFL playoff game, so I'm outtahere![swg]

Tom[4:-)] [oX)]

[siberianmo]

G'day!

Here’s an interesting “Poster” some may find of interest:

Milwaukee Road montage (from: www.trainweb.org):


Note: If this doesn’t enlarge, click on the URL:
http://www.trainweb.org/hiawatha/opening.html


Enjoy!

Tom [4:-)] [oX)]

[passengerfan]

Ton and Lars To add to the train of tomorrow px i have added this text for all to enjoy.

At the same time CB&Q train #45 was departing Chicago that morning a press conference was being held by GM Vice-President Mr. Cyrus Osborn in Chicago announcing that GM and Pullman Standard had teamed up and were going to build the TRAIN OF TOMORROW as a demonstration train for the country to see.
General Motors itself was impressed enough with the dome idea it was turned over to there design & styling department and Mr. Harley Earl vice-president (famous for the Buick portholes) of styling turned to his staff and turned the idea into three ten foot models complete with clay passengers and crew members to fill them. Thus was born the GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW. These models went on display in 1945 and were exhibited to many railroad presidents and the reaction of these top Railroad executives led to GM awarding a contract to Pullman Standard for four Astra-Dome cars to be pulled by a new matching General Motors EMD E7A unit. The order called for Pullman Standard to build one each Astra-Dome Cars of four car types.
First was an Astra-Dome Coach with seating for 48 on the main car level with bathrooms located beneath the dome, the dome itself seated 24, this car was named STAR DUST.
The second car in the GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW consist was an Astra-Dome dining car with seating at tables for eighteen in the dome arranged three tables for four on one side and three tables for two on the other. The main floor dining room of SKY VIEW as the Astra-Dome dining car was named seated 24 on the main level. The seating in the main dining room on the main level of the car to the rear of the dome dining room was arranged with four triangular tables for four on one side and four triangular tables for two on the other side. The Kitchen was located at the other end of the cars main floor. Food prepared in the Kitchen located in the cars forward main level area traveled by an electric Dumbwaiter at the front of the dome to the smart waiter (the one who received the tips) in the dome. Beneath the dome in the depressed area of SKY VIEW was located a private dining room for ten passengers. Total dining accommodation was provided for 52.
The third Astra-Dome was a sleeping car, providing 24 seats in the dome, the same as the coach. The sleeping accommodation of DREAM CLOUD as the car was named was unusual providing two three berth Drawing Rooms forward of the dome on the main level, beneath the dome was three compartments. On the main level to the rear of the dome was the location for eight duplex roomettes. Thus as a sleeping car Astra-Dome DREAM CLOUD was built with a maximum sleeping car capacity of twenty. The DREAM CLOUD never operated in revenue service as a sleeping car instead after sale to the Union Pacific along with the other three Astra-Dome cars that comprised the TRAIN OF TOMORROW it served as a parlor car. All space was sold at parlor car rates in DREAM CLOUD on its daily Portland-Seattle round trips.
The fourth Astra-Dome in the GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW was a Lounge Observation, again with 24 seats in the dome. This car MOON GLOW featured 44 lounge seats in singles and sofas on the main level and beneath the dome and two bars served the cocktail lounges ahead of and beneath the dome. The area of the main level to the rear of the dome in the beautifully rounded Observation end was strictly a lounge area.
Honors for the first factory built dome coach, dome diner, dome sleeping car, and dome lounge observation went to Pullman Standard. For it was Pullman Standard who designed and built the entire GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW Astra-Dome ASTRA-LINER and proved the concept of the depressed main level section beneath the dome was feasible and had the necessary strength and robustness for railroad use. Ironically Pullman Standard would never build another dome sleeping car or dome dining car, at least not one with kitchen facilities anyway.
The beautiful blue and stainless steel ASTRA-LINER TRAIN OF TOMORROW was first displayed outside Chicago’s Soldier Field May 28, 1947. Two days prior to its public debut at Soldier Field May 26-27, 1947, the TRAIN OF TOMORROW made its first test sortie operating a 560 mile round trip over the Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville (Monon) to their famous French Lick resort in Indiana from Chicago and return. Ironically the Monon that hosted the GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW on this test run would never own a dome.
After a week in Chicago on public display the GM TRAIN OF TOMORROW departed on a 65,000-mile exhibition tour of the country visiting every major city in the United States that had the necessary clearances for the extended height cars. The exhibition tour was completed in December 1949 and the train sat outside Pullman Standard in Chicago until March 1950.

TTFN AL

[passengerfan]

Reply to Texan 22 the EMPIRE BUILDER gave up a single coach dome beginning the winter season of 1968 to the WESTERN STAR. The domes returned to the EMPIRE BUILDER for the Christmas - New Years travel peak then ran once again in the WESTERN STAR between St. Paul and Seattle only.

[siberianmo]

G’day!

Continuing with my hope that we'll get some conversations going on this thread, here's another 'contribution' to the cause:[swg]

PASSENGER TRAIN NOSTALGIA #46

Here’s something to enjoy regarding the Canadian Pacific (CP) from a 1949 advertisement in my personal collection.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Enjoy a world of service . . . go
Canadian Pacific

Miles and miles of solid
comfort . . . that’s the vast Canadian
Pacific Railway network. East or
West across Canada . . . enjoy
every service on smooth rolling Canadian
Pacific trains! Stop over at luxurious
Canadian Pacific hotels like the
Chateau Lake Louise in the Canadian
Rockies.

. . . . . Superb service! Such comfort . . .
. . . . . aboard sleek Canadian Pacific
. . . . . Princess ships, sailing the Inside
. . . . . Passage to Alaska and the Yukon.
. . . . . Canadian Pacific White Empress
. . . . . ships will sail you to Europe. Soon,
. . . . . Canadian Pacific will fly you to
. . . . . Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand,
. . . . . Australia, and latger – the Orient!

There’s no place like Eastern
Canada for vacation fun! And you
can’t beat hospitable Canadian
Pacific hotels like Digby Pines in
Nova Scotia for gracious service!
Or visit The Algonquin in New
Brunswick. (These are two of
Nineteen Canadian Pacific hotels
And lodges across Canada!)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Canadian Pacific . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

SPANS THE WORLD – Railways – Steamships – Air Lines – Hotels – Communications – Express


Enjoy! [tup]

Tom [4:-)][oX)]

[siberianmo]

Good Morning!

PASSENGER RR FALLEN FLAG #36

Here’s another Passenger RR Fallen Flag from Classic American Railroads:

Illinois Central (IC)

Headquarters: Chicago, IL

Mileage:

1950: 4,779
1995: 2,732 (including rights)

Locomotives in 1963

Diesels: 629

Rolling stock in 1963:

Freight cars: 49,226
Passenger cars: 857

Principal routes:

Chicago-New Orleans via Mattoon & Carbondale, IL, & Grenada, MS
Memphis-New Orleans via Vicksburg, MS & Baton Rouge, LA
Memphis-Jackson, MS via Greenwood, MS
Fulton, KY-Birmingham, AL
Freeport-Centralia, IL via Clinton & Vandalia
Chicago-Omaha, NE
Tara (Fort Dodge)-Sioux City, IA
Cherokee, IA-Sioux Falls, SD
Manchester-Cedar Rapids, IA
Waterloo, IA-Albert Lea, MN
Centralia, IL-Madison, WI
Gilman, IL-St. Louis
St. Louis-Du Quoin, IL
Edgewood, IL-Fulton, KY
Fulton-Louisville, KY via Paducah
Effingham, IL-Indianapolis, IN
Mattoon-Peoria, IL via Decatur
Jackson-Gulfport, MS
Meridian, MS-Shreveport, LA

Passenger trains of note:

Chickasaw (Memphis-St. Louis & Chicago)
City of Miami (Chicago & St. Louis-Miami & St. Petersburg, FL; joint with CG, ACL and FEC)
City of New Orleans (Chicago & St. Louis & Louisville-New Orleans)
Daylight (Chicago-St. Louis
Delta Express (Memphis-Vicksburg, MS)
Green Diamond (Chicago-St. Louis)
Hawkeye (Chicago-Sioux City
Iowan (Chicago-Sioux City)
Irvin S. Cobb (Louisville-New Orleans)
Kentucky Cardinal (Louisville-Memphis)
Land O’ Corn (Chicago-Waterloo, IA)
Louisiane (Chicago & St. Louis-New Orleans)
Magnolia Star (Chicago-New Orleans)
Mid-American (Chicago-Memphis)
Night Diamond (Chicago-St. Louis)
Panama Limited (Chicago & St. Louis-New Orleans)
Planter (Louisville-Memphis)
Seminole (Chicago-Jacksonville, FLA via Birmingham & Columbus, GA)
Southwestern Limited & Northeastern Limited (Meridian-Shreveport)


Enjoy! [tup]

Tom [4:-)] [oX)]

[Anonymous]

AL - Do you have the date info on the GN Western Star with a dome??? When I worked about her in 65 she was all flat tops. Was the dome one from the Empire Builder when that train was shortened for winter service?? or did they get one from either the Q or NP when the off season reduced demand? Thanks for all the great info!!! These forums are a definite education!

[LoveDomes]

Morning Tom & Al

Hey, that's some fantastic listing of streamliners you put forth, Al [tup][tup] Lots of effort went into that one. Sure should be posted over at the bar, the guys would love it.[yeah]

Nice photos of "The Train of Tomorrow."

QUOTE: The central idea for this train originated with General Motors in 1944, and subsequent practical suggestions from railway officers and transportation experts were combined in a four-car Astra Dome train which included an Electro-Motive 2,000-hp. Diesel locomotive, one chair car, one sleeper, one dining car and one observation-lounge car. Electro-Motive engineers of the Pullman-Standard Car Manufacturing Company developed detail engineering designs with the help of GM stylists and built the cars.

The E.- M. 2,000-hp. Diesel locomotive was 71 ft. long and had a loaded weight of 318,000 lb. Each of the cars was 85 ft. long.

The chair car had a weight of 147,000 lb. and a seating capacity of 72, including the Astra Dome.

The dining car had a weight of 160,000 lb. and seating capacity of 52, including 18 in the Astra Dome and 10 in the private dining room. The total refrigeration space supplied in the car was 111 cu. ft., and had ice-making capacity of 225 lbs of ice cubes in 24 hr.

The sleeping car had a weight of 150,000 lb. and passenger capacity of 24 sitting and 20 sleeping, exclusive of 24 seats in the Astra Dome. This car was designed with two three-berth drawing rooms, eight duplex roomettes for single occupancy, and, under the dome, 3 compartments, each with 2 lengthwise lower berths.

The observation car had a weight of 141,000 lb. and seating capacity of 68. The car was designed with a rear main lounge, cocktail lounge, lower bar and Astra Dome.

The total length of the train, including the locomotive, was 411 ft.; car heights, rail to Astra Dome roofs, 15 ft. 6 in.; empty weight, 920,000 lb.; loaded weight, 977,000 lb.; exterior finish, steel and glass, blue and silver; interior finish, metals, wood plastics and fabrics in 37 colors; total passenger capacity, 216.

The exterior of the train was finished with a glistening blue-green on its sides and roof, punctuated by decorative moldings and sheathing below the windows which had a bright, silver finish.

Finally, after the war, General Motors ordered the four-car demonstrator set from Pullman. The all-dome train was delivered in May 1947 and toured the country as the GM "Train of Tomorrow". The consist went on exhibition tours totalling 65,000 miles. After the tour ended in 1950, the Union Pacific purchased the equipment for it's contribution to pool service in the Seattle-Portland run with NP & GN. (from: www.trainweb.org)

Until the next time!

Lars

[siberianmo]

Hey Al

Check this out - Not the UP version, but the first with the name! ...

GM Train of Tomorrow


GM Train of Tomorrow (model)


Enjoy!

Tom[4:-)] [oX)]

[passengerfan]

Good Evening Tom and Lars thought I would put this out to ponder overnight.

Streamlined Dome Cars
Of The
United States & Canada
The following trains began demonstrating or entered service on the dates listed as dome equipped trains. The number of domes listed in parenthesis represents per consist. And the two terminals are shown for each of the dome operated trains.

TRAIN OF TOMORROW May 28, 1947 (4) Demonstrator See UP 457-458 for service.

VISTA DOME TWIN ZEPHYRS CB&Q December 19, 1947 (5) Chicago – Twin Cities twice daily round trips.

COLORADO EAGLE MP- D&RGW June 1948 (1) St. Louis – Denver daily each direction

CHESSIE C&O August 1, 1948 (2) Cincinnati – Washington daily each direction never entered scheduled service.

PERE MARQUETTE C&O October 1948 (1) Chicago – Detroit daily each direction

VISTA DOME CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR CB&Q – D&RGW - WP
March 21, 1949 (4) Chicago – Oakland daily each direction.

COLUMBIAN B&O May 5, 1949 (1) Washington – Chicago Overnight each direction

ROYAL GORGE D&RGW September 1949 (1) Denver – Salt Lake City daily each direction via Pueblo.

BLUE BIRD WAB February 26, 1950 (4) St. Louis – Chicago round trip daily

457-458 UP June 18, 1950 (4) Portland – Seattle round trip daily

SHENANDOAH B&O January 8, 1951 (1) Washington – Chicago every other day

CAPITOL LIMITED B&O January 8, 1951 (1) Washington – Chicago overnight each direction

SUPER CHIEF AT&SF December 1951 (1) Chicago – Los Angeles daily each direction

TEXAS EAGLES MP – T&P 1-2 July 1952 (1) St. Louis – Fort Worth overnight each direction

TEXAS EAGLES MP 21-22 July 1952 (1) St. Louis – San Antonio overnight each direction

MISSOURI RIVER EAGLE MP July 1952 (1) St. Louis –Omaha/Lincoln via Kansas City daily each direction

CITY OF KANSAS CITY WAB August 1952 (1) St. Louis – Kansas City round trip daily

MORNING HIAWATHA CMSTP&P December 1952 (1) Chicago – Twin Cities daily each direction

AFTERNOON HIAWATHA CMSTP&P December 1952 (1) Chicago – Twin Cities daily each direction

OLYMPIAN HIAWATHA CMSTP&P December 1952 (1) Chicago – Seattle/Tacoma daily each direction

VISTA DOME AK-SAR-BEN ZEPHYR CB&Q December 1952 (1) Chicago – Omaha/Lincoln Overnight each direction

VISTA DOME KANSAS CITY ZEPHYR CB&Q February 1, 1953 (2) Chicago – Kansas City daily each direction

VISTA DOME AMERICAN ROYAL ZEPHYR CB&Q February 1, 1953 (2) Chicago – Kansas City Overnight each direction

SAN JOAQUIN DAYLIGHT SP June 24, 1954 (1) Oakland – Los Angeles via San Joaquin Valley daily each direction

CHICAGOAN – KANSAS CITYAN AT&SF 1954 (1) Chicago – Oklahoma City daily each way

SAN FRANCISCO CHIEF AT&SF 1954 (1) Chicago – Oakland daily each direction

EL CAPITAN AT&SF 1954 (1) Chicago – Los Angeles daily each direction

NORTH COAST LIMITED CB&Q – NP August 16, 1954 Coaches (2) October 1954 Sleepers (2) total (4) Chicago – Portland/Seattle daily each direction

CITY OF PORTLAND C&NW - UP 1955 (3) Chicago – Portland daily each direction)

CITY OF LOS ANGELES C&NW - UP 1955 (2) Chicago – Los Angeles daily each direction

CHALLENGER C&NW - UP 1955 (1) Chicago – Los Angeles daily each direction

SAN FRANCISCO OVERLAND SP April 1955 (1) Oakland – Ogden daily each direction

SHASTA DAYLIGHT SP May 1955 (1) Oakland – Portland daily each direction

CANADIAN CPR April 24, 1955 (2) Montreal/Toronto – Vancouver daily each direction

DOMINION CPR April 24, 1955 (2) Montreal/Toronto – Vancouver daily each direction

ATLANTIC LIMITED CPR April 24, 1955 (1) Montreal – St. John Overnight each direction

CITY OF ST. LOUIS WAB - UP (1) St. Louis – Los Angeles daily each direction

EMPIRE BUILDER CB&Q - GN Coaches (3) May 29, 1955 Lounges (1) October 1955 Chicago – Portland/Seattle daily each direction

CHIEF AT&SF July 1956 (1) Chicago – Los Angeles daily each direction

VISTA DOME DENVER ZEPHYRS CB&Q October 28, 1956 (3) Chicago – Denver/Colorado Springs Overnight each direction

CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO (SP) 1956 (1) Ogden – Oakland daily each direction

CITY OF DENVER CMSTP&P - UP January 1958 (1) Chicago – Denver Overnight Each direction

TEXAS CHIEF AT&SF 1958 (1) Chicago – Houston daily each direction

WESTERN STAR GN (1) winter only St. Paul – Seattle daily each direction

YAMPA VALLEY MAIL D&RGW (1) Denver – Craig round trip daily

POCAHONTAS N&W 1969 (1) Cincinnati – Norfolk daily each direction

VIGER CPR 1969 (1) Montreal – Quebec City round trip daily

FRONTENAC CPR 1969 (1) Montreal – Quebec City round trip daily

RIDEAU CPR 1969 (1) Montreal – Ottawa round trip daily

RIO GRANDE ZEPHYR D&RGW (5) Denver – Salt Lake City every other day

SUPER CONTINENTAL CNR (1) Edmonton – Vancouver daily each direction

PANORAMA CNR (1) Winnipeg – Vancouver daily each direction

COAST DAYLIGHT SP (1) San Francisco – Los Angeles daily each direction

AURORA ARR (1) Anchorage – Fairbanks summers daily

POWHATAN ARROW N&W (1) Cincinnati – Newport News daily each direction

CITY OF MIAMI IC - CofG – ACL – FEC (1) Chicago – Miami winters only every other day

SOUTH WIND PRR – L&N – ACL – FEC (1) Chicago – Miami winters only every other day

LE CHATEAU CHAMPLAIN CPR (1) Montreal – Quebec City round trip daily

LOUISIANA EAGLE T&P (1) New Orleans – Fort Worth Overnight each direction

TURBO TRAINS CNR (2) Toronto – Montreal twice daily round trips

PANAMA LIMITED IC (1) Chicago – New Orleans winter only one season only overnight each direction

BANNER BLUE WAB (1) Chicago – St. Louis round trip daily

NEBRASKA ZEPHYR CB&Q (1) Chicago – Omaha – Lincoln round trip daily

NANCY HANKS II CofG (1) Atlanta- Savannah round trip daily

CITY OF NEW ORLEANS IC (1) Chicago – New Orleans daily each direction

SOUTHERN CRESCENT SOU – L&N (1) Atlanta – New Orleans daily each direction

TTFN AL

[siberianmo]

Al Once the highway systems were in place, the RR's were bound to lose out - cairs, buses, trucks, RV's - you name it. Just a matter of time .....

Thanx for stopping by!

Tom[4:-)] [oX)]

[passengerfan]

Tom Just a comment or two on your Rock Island post . At one time the GOLDEN STATE did an outstabding job transprorting midwesterners to the sunshine of Arizona in the winter months.

Now days go to Arizona in the winter and see RVs as far as the eye can see. Many spend summers in the midwest or even further north and grab their RV at the first sign of cold weather and head for Arizona.

The railroads lost all of the business and it wasn't to the airlines that I can see it was to the RV industry.

TTFN AL

[siberianmo]

G’day!

PASSENGER TRAIN NOSTALGIA #45

Here’s something to enjoy regarding the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific (Rock Island) from a 1949 advertisement in my personal collection.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Now! Beat the Winter Crowds to SUNSHINE LAND!

. . . . . . . . . . The Golden State . . . . . . . . . .
Direct – CHICAGO to LOS ANGELES

Serving El Paso, Douglas, Tucson, Phoenix and Palm Springs

A perfect travel combination for your winter holiday – luxurious Golden State streamliner via the low-altitude Golden State Route!

Here’s smooth Diesel Speed; finest of private room and sectional Pullman accommodations; latest type reclining-seat Chair Cars. Coffee-Shop-Lounge, Dining Car, Lounge Car. Through Sleeping Cars from New York and St. Louis. Extra fare – and worth it!

. . . . . THE IMPERIAL . . . Chair Cars
. . . . . and Pullmans to San Diego – Los Angeles.
. . . . . Tourist Sleepers to Los Angeles. Dining and
. . . . . Lounge Cars. No extra fare.

. . . . . . . . . . ROCK ISLAND LINES . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Road of Planned Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


Enjoy! [tup]

Tom [4:-)][oX)]