Older passenger equipment on Amtrak trains.

[n2mopac]

I know there was another post on this topic in the past few days, but I couldn't find it, so I'm starting a new one. The previous question was regarding the sighting of older passenger cars from various roads being pulled in Amtrak trains today. Most of the previous responses talked about private owner's having cars pulled by Amtrak. But I am wondering if Amtrak is running some sort of promo by doing this. I say this bacause this morning (about an hour ago) Amtrak's Missouri Mule (KC to St.L round trip daily) came through here (Otterville/Sedalia, MO) pulling old UP passerger cars including a whistle stop style platform car. Anyone know why this recent rash of older passenger car sightings on Amtrak?

Ron

[Jetrock]

It is not that uncommon--owners of private cars couple their cars to Amtrak trains quite often. Or maybe they're trying to garner a little attention, not too bad an idea considering the current administration's outright hostility towards Amtrak...

[n2mopac]

I'm certainly not arguing with the private owner possibility, but I've never seen one come through here, and most traffic looking for "scenic" tours will tend to take a norther route through Chicago rather than through St. Louis/Kansas City. The Missouri Mule is a twice daily roundtrip that really is a glorified long-distance commuter route. I just found it interesting.

"Ron

[Anonymous]

I live in St. Louis and have occasionally seen Amtrak's STL-KC trains with non-Amtrak cars in their consists. Sometimes the UP cars are indeed UP business cars...it's probably cheaper for UP to pay Amtrak to move them somewhere instead making it's own move with it's own locomotives and crews. In addition, private (and sometimes RR owned) cars en route to and from Union Station in STL often utilize Amtrak.

[AntonioFP45]

10-4 on private cars.

Quite a few have been coupled onto the Silver Service trains in the past two decades.
This was common in the 1970s . Seaboard Coast Line coupled their heavyweight business cars and streamlined "training cars" on Amtrak and ran them to Florida.

From my understanding, it is a VERY EXPENSIVE venture for private car and excursion train operators, especially today with the liability issues.

[METRO]

My bet would be on private owners. Amtrak, does not own heavyweight coaches for use on their general passenger trains. Also, with Amtrak's money crunch it's pretty doubtful they'd start repainting cars in period paint, non-standard paint gets expensive and costs man hours that could be better spent.

~METRO

[Anonymous]

n2mopac, I was the poster of the original question. I was railfanning from the comfort of my Ford Ranger parked at what used to be the Independence, MO Missouri Pacific depot. The train had a dinette and a couple of coaches (all Amtrack) and then the three mysterious cars in question. One was a CB&Q California Zephyr car, one a Southern Pacific coach, and the third one is gone from my mind already. They did not look restored, just "well taken care of", if you will. Not sure what was up and from the responses on the forum neither is anyone else.

Cheers,

Ed

[n2mopac]

Interesting!!! So here are two instances of these cars being moved across the old MoPac Sedalia sub. Seems like someone is moving old passenger equipment west. Maybe these are pieces moving toward excursion or museum service from a previous home back east.

Ron