[CBQ] California Zephyr Cars on Twin Cities Zephyr and Gallery Cars to Minneapolis / St. Paul

["Tom Mack via groups.io" <thommack=yahoo.com@groups.io>]

I believe the topic was asked before (I think by me!) about whether California Zephyr cars ever ran on the Twin Cities Zephyr. The answer is a definite yes based on a recent photo I found. I can't post it because it is on White River Junction Productions' "Slides With Mike Schafer" series CD entitled Growing Up With the Burlington Route, but here is what I found:

The photo is one of many of the Empire Builder / Afternoon Zephyr wreck at Lee, IL on November 6, 1965. Photo 85 clearly shows a WP owner board on a Budd car and the caption states it is Western Pacific Vista-Dome coach Silver Dollar. Silver Dollar was indeed a WP California Zephyr dome coach. So this photo proves the CZ dome coaches showed up on the TCZ at least once in the 1965 to merger era I model! A dome coach is exactly the type of CZ car that I would expect on the TCZ.

What is a bit confusing to me is not the fact that a CZ dome coach was on the TCZ, but it is surprising that the car was a WP owned car. While the Q could certainly do whatever they wanted to with their own CZ cars, it surprised me that they could take a WP CZ car and put it on the TCZ. Any comments on this?

The next problem is how do you get all those passengers from the wreck site to their destination in Minneapolis / St. Paul? Answer: Commuter cars, of course! The night of November 6 the Q brought out a suburban train consist from Aurora to take the stranded passengers to their final destination. Photo 83 shows a night shot of the train. Unfortunately it is hard to see the actual cars in the consist, but I would assume this train included Gallery Cars. 

Since "what goes up" to Minneapolis / St. Paul "must come down" back to Aurora, there must have been a train to bring the suburban train back the next day. Does anyone recall seeing photos or info on the train? It would have probably been on November 7, 1965 that it returned. Also, since there was a bunch of TCZ equipment tied up in the wreck, I would imagine the train returned with passengers to Chicago who would have been on the returning Morning Zephyr on November 7, 1965. 

It would be cool to model the train if I can find more info on it. Does anyone know anything about the "rescue" train and its consist? Any additional pictures of the Lee, IL wreck out there that anyone knows of?

-- 
Tom Mack
Cincinnati, OH

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