It has taken a little while for me to gather a response, but I was able to
go through some associates and obtain a response from a project engineer
involved with Amtrak's initial selection of equipment from the railroads.
The following is most of his reply:
If you want the answer to those questions, you really have to go to one of
the two people who effectively made the decision as to which cars would be
acquired in 1971. The team leader was soon-to-be Chief Mechanical Officer
of Amtrak, Bill Edson. The other guy was Project Engineer-Passenger
Equipment of Penn Central . . . [who] still remembers (and has paperwork for
reference) some of those days. Bill Kratville led one of the two Klauder
teams to inspect the equipment, and Don Adams led the eastern team, although
they were merged as we got down to the final cars.
Kratville, who owned his own shop at the time, was helpful in knowing the UP
cars, although I was the one who nixed them, due primarily to their aluminum
construction and advanced debilitation (few shops at the time had the
heliarc welding capabilities and the knowledge to adequately repair that)
from galvanic action. Of course, in retrospect, every available car should
have been acquired.
Anyway, the specific answer may be much shorter and more concise than the
pages of railfan speculation. In the inspections, we evaluated condition
based on dollars of deferred maintenance found, in 1970 terms. Bearing in
mind that the railroads had little incentive to repair accident-damaged
cars, with the reduction in passenger trains and the imminent implementation
of Amtrak, these two cars, CB&Q/BN 199 Silver Inn, and CB&Q/BN 200 Silver
Manor, which had been built as part of the enhancements of 1951 which
allowed the California Zephyr and the AkSarBen (or perhaps Kansas City)
Zephyrs to share a common pool, were found to have $17,840. and $24,760. in
deferred maintenance, respectively. Thus, they were rejected when we were
given a bottom line number of cars (or dollar amount in acquisition funds)
by the powers that be.
It should be noted that cars 196 and 197 (Silver Salver and Silver Feast)
were also rejected, for the same reason, as was Car BN/NP 459, one of the
six North Coast Limited pool cars, built as late as 1958.
I hope this answers that question. I can't answer the larger one - why
weren't the best several hundred Budd cars rebuilt well, as was the Canadian
Pacific fleet, and still in service today? Note that when we sold the 50
Budd CB&Q bilevels in 2004 or 2005 for the West Suburban Mass Transit
District, they fetched more than their new-car cost in 1950!
I hope this provides some insight as to the decision process of how Amtrak
initially chose cars.
Tim Wells
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Stephen J. Levine
>To: cbq@yahoogroups. <mailto:cbq%40yahoogroups.com> 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]
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