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Re:CZ vs. DZ diner & coffee shop

To: BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re:CZ vs. DZ diner & coffee shop
From: "Stephen J. Levine" <sjl@p...>
Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 19:09:12 -0000
In-reply-to: <p05100300b742c5f64873@[63.205.12.138]>
User-agent: eGroups-EW/0.82
On the trains I rode, both #10 and #1, the Chuckwagon and the regular 
diner were in the section I rode, although separated by the Colorado 
Springs car.

Nevertheless, unlike the CZ dome-lounge-buffet cars, the DZ chuckwagon 
cars had a full kitchen located just behind the dome and occupying 
half of the A end, the other half being dormitory space for the crew 
and a single bedroom for the dining car steward. In contrast, the CZ 
cars just had sleeping space in the A end, with dormitory space for 
the crew and bedrooms for both the dining car steward and the 
zephyrette.

The door to the kitchen was in the alcove leading to the dome, 
although, I believe, there was an entrance to the kitchen from 
behind the under-dome lunch counter.

It is my personal belief that the Chuckwagon cars were intended to 
replace the dinette-coach on the 1936 Denver Zephyr. This dinette 
seated 16 and also had a separate kitchen.

The fact that the Chuckwagon cars were able to offer complete food 
service allowed them to be used as the Denver-Chicago food service car 
for the remnant of the California Zephyr that operated between Chicago 
and Ogden from after the CZ was discontinued to the start of Amtrak.

sjl

--- In BRHSlist@y..., Denny Anspach <danspach@m...> wrote:
> The interesting post on the DZ two section operations in January 
> 1956 caught my interest, especially that the diner and coffee shop 
> cars were split.
> 
> I have presumed, and probably incorrectly, that the CZ and DZ 
diners, 
> and coffee shop cars respectively were essentially laid out in 
> similar fashion insofar as the food service functions were 
concerned. 
> The CZ diners and coffee shop cars were designed specifically to 
work 
> with other back-to-back, especially when it came to pantry and 
> storage space. Specifically and essentially, the CZ diner had by 
> design very little pantry space, relying on such space in the coffee 
> shop car.
> 
> For this reason, the CZ diners did not do well when unconnected to 
> the coffee shops. When in early Amtrak service on the SFZ, part of 
> the problem was solved by routinely situating the former SP Domes 
> ahead of the diner, the vast empty space below the dome floor 
> substituting in a fashion for the otherwise absent former coffee 
shop 
> space.
> 
> I do not have specific information at hand at how long the CZ diners 
> lasted in Amtrak service, but I understood that they were not 
popular 
> because of the poor storage.
> 
> I would presume that the DZ diners might have been able to "make do" 
> in this regard (absent the coffee shop) because they only had to 
> serve evening and morning meals between terminal commissary visits.
> 
> Curious: how did the DZ diners do in Amtrak service?
> 
> Denny
> -- 
> Denny S. Anspach, MD
> Sacramento, CA


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