I remember that the original list of cars that Amtrak was going to take did not
include any Q cars, which surprised me. I would have thought that the Q cars
would have been the most desirable because vestibule doors and climate control
systems were the simplest. On a zephyr, it seemed that the only air-operated
sliding door on the whole train was at the dining room end of the diner.
Cooling and heating systems operated independently of each other.
I remember in June of 1975, on a San Francisco Zephyr trip, my wife and I
were riding in a 1952 ex-Santa Fe coach, behind which was one of the 1956 ex-DZ
coaches. The latter got sidelined when a water pipe broke in it and people
were moved into the our car. But then the air conditioning failed in our car
and, because it was tied into a complex climate control system regulating both
heat and air, the car became unbearably hot. So we ended up moving into the DZ
car where the water vapor made the car cool. It was simply ridiculous that a
car's heating system would remain on when the air conditioning failed, but that
was the Santa Fe's complex climate control system. Had the water line not
broken in the ex-DZ car (I think it was the Silver Bit), it would not have had
that sort of failure.
I think violations of the KISS principle in post-war passenger equipment made
the situation worse for Amtrak in its early years.
hjebone <stu5632@everestkc.net> wrote:
Steve,
I was at transportation college on 5-1-71, and went to work for
Amtrak on 6-12-72 and remained there until 1979 when I took a
sabbatical. But I had been a fan since 8-22-63 when I rode #17 from
Chicago to Oakland. While not in the operating department, my
collegue & I were different from our other co workers, as we actually
got out and rode the trains, especially #5 & #6, The San Francisco
Zephyr. It, for at least the first few months was hastily renamed the
City of San Francisco, then the SFZ, after D&RGW's last minute change
of heart, before 5-1-71, but after Amtrak PT #1 was printed.
Without digging out my entire Randall archive and Don pulling out his
early consists, I can tell you a little of what went on from memory.
At first, Amtrak announced it would only buy the 1300 newest cars for
the system, all 100% stainless. Period. This was woefully short of
what it would have needed for even a February consist of the CZ or
the Broadway. Amtrak, as someone opined, was married to Penn Central
from the 'git-go', and some of its and the GM&Os equipment was in
such unsafe condition, some of those trains got all new consists. But
it varied from day to day and month to month.
I can remember riding in mostly UP,ATSF and SP diners west of
Chicago, and even some western road stuff east of Chicago. The DZ,
which ran daily from Chicago to Denver only, usually had a Q diner.
Amtrak insisted, at least for the first two years, nothing carbon
steel painted, except UP was allowed on the property. This hurt
availability with a big 'ouch'. I was told at the time by some wag
that, "the railroads picked out what they wanted for exec trains and
such, and the junk that was left over went to Amtrak.'' I'm sure Bill
Kratville and others could debate that one! Suffice to say, we have
slides of four of the CZ obs taken from the Polk St bridge in
Chicago, parked next to the old REA building on the Burlington side.
And they sat there for months and months and months, until Amtrak
decided what to do with them. Initially, they wound up on the Texas
Chief, of all places.
By the oil crisis of 1974, this all went out the window. We started
to see all sorts of smooth side GN, NP and other railroads' cars. As
to why they picked certain Q cars, while others got sold or sidelined
was and is still anybody's guess. My favorite contradiction was this
one: we were ALWAYS short baggage cars. Amtrak would not touch the
Havelock baggage cars from 1952, and as a result, they all wound up
in company service. Yet, they would buy prewar SCL baggage-dorms. By
1974, they begged the SP to let them have the 1962
SLCC 'Economy' bags. SP agreed, and they were sorely needed. When we
got them,
most were in turnkey shape, and some in fresh paint! Early in the
game, they would not
even look at any prewar Q Budd equipment, but bought tons of it from
the Santa Fe and the SCL. My favorites were the 3380-81. The original
1937 Chief lounges.
I guess what I'm trying to say is: 1) At first there was no apparent
rhyme or reason to it. 2)When it became painfully obvious in '72-'73
that there was an acute equipment shortage, the prewar taboo came
off, but by then, the Q cars were in work train service. And 3) by
1974, they would buy or lease anything that would roll, including the
KCS' Stuart Knott, which had been in company service. Stu was already
painted boxcar red, and had a KCS MofW stencil in the center of the
car, where the shopman got too close with the silver paint, and it
dribbled down behind the stencil. Such were the days of the 'Rainbow'
trains. As far as I can remember it!
--- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, "Stephen J. Levine" <sjl@...> wrote:
>
> Of course, we know that, within only a few years after Amtrak
selected its cars, the Silver Inn ended up in a derelict condition
with other Burlington equipment. Obviously, the BN didn't need it.
>
> http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=721784
>
> Bob Webber <rgz17@...> wrote:
> Bill Kratville / Autoliner was the one who decided which
western cars
> ended up in Amtrak, of the offered cars. Autoliner refurbished
some,
> some were done by Pullman, some elsewhere. At the time, and for
many
> years before and since, Bill worked for the UP.
>
> If BN wanted to retain cars for company service or for whatever
use -
> even to selling the cars to non-Amtrak entities (like the Mexican
RRs
> or Autotrain), they could do so. Autotrain ended up with some 31 UP
> domes, along with WPs domes, and some AT&SF full domes. Since the
> five diners were extremely similar, I would think that the earlier
> diners would be more "preferable" strictly due to low use. One was
> essentially a spare for the CZ, the other two for KC trains - which
> didn't have a whole lot of use (compared with the DZ cars which
were
> in full use all the time). The NCL cars would be less preferable
> simply due to their construction - and again, harder use.
>
> They likely had an inspection of all the cars, checking especially
> the running gear, and desirability of the interior - and picked the
> two to retain.
>
> Note that some railroads, esp. the UP, but also the AT&SF regretted
> losing so many of their cars and ended up purchasing quite a few
back
> from various sources.
>
> At 12:32 PM 6/29/2008, Stephen J. Levine wrote:
> >I wonder if it had something to do with where the cars were
assigned
> >just prior to Amtrak, and also what diners Amtrak used on its San
> >Francisco and Denver Zephyrs in the early years.
> >
> > I believe that, by May of 1971, the only ex-Q train that ran a
> > full diner regularly was the Denver Zephyr. The California
> > Service/Nebraska Zephyr used the Chuck Wagons as their food
service cars.
> >
> > sjl
> >
> >Russ Strodtz <borneo@...> wrote:
> > It may be set by PC doing what Amtrak wanted. There were sets on
> >lists and I'm not even sure that they were able to inspect
everything
> >that they could look at. It is my understandment that other than
> >the Suburban what they got was what they were told to send out as
> >Amtrak wanted them. Also heard that UP could not understand exactly
> >what they wanted and how it was figured out but they still got what
> >was wanted. Still did not get enough and had to lease all kinds of
> >odd stuff.
> >
> >Even in recent times that are some odd things that are hard to
> >understand. If you can spend government money I guess that is
> >what will be decided.
> >
> >Russ
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: Stephen J. Levine
> >To: cbq@yahoogroups.com
> >Sent: Saturday, 28 June, 2008 18:33
> >Subject: [CBQ] Why didn't Silver Inn and Silver Manor go to Amtrak?
> >
> >I have always been curious as to why the 1952 diners Silver Inn
and
> >Silver Manor were not acquired by Amtrak.
> >
> >If BN was trying to hang onto the newer equipment for their own
> >executive trains, the 1956 DZ Silver Tureen and Silver Chef were
> >their newest diners, followed by the ones running on the North
Coast
> >Limited. Yet these all went to Amtrak.
> >
> >If the goal was to sell Amtrak the newest equipment, then why did
> >the 1948 CZ diners go to Amtrak instead of the two diners above
(the
> >third 1952 diner, the Silver Cuisine, did go to Amtrak.
> >
> >Was it because, with the Kansas City service not working out the
way
> >it was intended, these two diners became underused and thus, by
> >1971, were in the best condition of any of the Budd diners? I was
> >wondering if anyone had any inside information.
> >
> >sjl
> >
> >[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >------------------------------------
> >
> >Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >------------------------------------
> >
> >Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> Bob Webber
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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