All aboard list remains down.
Am going to post it here because it does concern a Burlington issue.
sjl
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Thread on DZ of July 28, 1999
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 20:07:07 -0600
From: "Stephen J. Levine" <sjl@p...>
To: all-aboard@yahoogroups.com
Am responding to this interesting A-A thread of Jim McClellan's from
1999.
I think the reason why the whole DZ was abandoned that day in 1946,
after it was clipped, was not necessarily the articulation but the fact
that the trainset depended on head-end power for lights and other
utilities rather than having self-contained passenger cars. That was
why cars could not be added or subtracted to the consist, even though
the train was not completely articulated.
If you remember, the car immediately behind the locomotive had four
diesel generators to provide electricity for the train. All other
non-articulated passenger cars of the time were self-contained
electrically with batteries and generators that charged the batteries
when the cars rolled. If a foreign car were coupled, let's say, in
front of the observation car, it would have resulted in no electric
power to the observation car.
In Kenton Forrest's book on Denver's Railroads and Denver Union Station,
there are photos of an incident early in the DZ's career where a Rio
Grande steam locomotive clipped and derailed an articulated pair of
sleepers. According to this book, the pair were uncoupled and the train
proceeded along its way. In later Texas Zephyr days, often only one
pair of sleepers or only the all room sleeper were operated and, I
believe, the observation car was only operated seasonally.
Jim, what I'll bet happened is that the clipped car was either one of
the coaches or the diner in the coach-coach-diner articulated set.
Damaging any one of these cars would have taken these three out of
service, leaving only the coach-dinette to provide both coach seats and
food services on the train. While additional coaches and a diner could
have been placed in front of the power car, the 16 seat dinette
could not have fed the remaining coach and sleeping car passengers on
the train. Thus, with both coach and sleeping car passengers so
compromised, they would have needed to assemble a totally new train.
sjl
To: all-aboard@r...
Subject: {A-A} Articulated Denver Zephyr
From: Jim McClellan <whammy@w...>
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 21:54:18 -0500
Sender: owner-all-aboard@m...
Have there been any problems of loosing an entire Talgo train set for
a
trip or two because just one car in the set is bad ordered? I'm
talking
about the Seattle trains. The Acela trains I assume are also
articulated.
If one car is unroadworthy then is the whole train out of service
until
that car repaired? BTW, I have a 280 page Italian - English
dictionary
and I can't find the word Acela in the Italian section.
I was a Burlington switchman in Chicago in 1946. Worked all the yards
and
made transfers to other railroads. Worked in industry tracks. One
afternoon I was working in the Coach Yard at 14th & Canal. Just as
No. 1
the Denver Zephyr was leaving Chicago Union Station a Pennsylvania
switch
engine ran a lunar dwarf Stop signal and clipped the DZ. Another
crew
put
together a make up train in a (safe) hurry. I don't remember what its
consist was. The Burlington wanted its Denver Zephyr passengers to
head
west as soon as possible.
Later that evening the crew I was on was told to go to Union
Station
and
couple onto the DZ and bring it into the Coach Yard and put it on the
Zephyr pit. I don't remember what the damage was but we went slowly
into
the Coach Yard and put the DZ on the Zephry pit. The pit ran straight
north-south parallel to Canal Street unlike the other tracks in the
Coach
Yard Dan, I can't remember if there was a building covering the
pit,
but
there was more hardware there than on the other tracks in the Coach
Yard.
You talk about abandoning a train. I walked thru 3 of the cars and
focused
on the dining car. It had been abandoned with china, linens, glass,
silverware and menus all out in the open and set up on the tables. I
walked the 3 cars of the train to see what it was like and for
possilbe
polocking but I wasn't about to actually steal those dining car items
and I
didn't. Anyway, this shows you the Q's urgency with which a make-up
train
was put together and departed for
Denver. Also shows that one car struck on this long articulated train
doomed the entire train.
Jim Mc Wichita
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