Half amfleet/horizon and half superliner ever been done before?

homersimpson101 · Nov 1, 2024

Has there ever been an Amtrak train comprising of horizon/amfleet cars and Superliners joined together with a Transition Sleeper car? Basically one level passenger cars, a transition sleeper car, and bi-level passenger cars?

railiner · Nov 1, 2024

homersimpson101 said:
Has there ever been an Amtrak train comprising of horizon/amfleet cars and Superliners joined together with a Transition Sleeper car? Basically one level passenger cars, a transition sleeper car, and bi-level passenger cars?

There was way back before there were Amfleet or Horizon cars.
When Amtrak began in 1971, they continued operating most trains the same way their former host railroads did, so the Santa Fe practice of combining the single level Super Chief, with the Hi Level El Capitan on the Chicago - Los Angeles run continued on the Amtrak Super Chief, using the same equipment.

zephyr17 · Nov 1, 2024

The Desert Wind operated with a mix of Superliners, Hi Levels, Amfleets and Heritage for a while in the very early 1980s. They used a Hi Level transition coach (that had not yet been converted to have dorm rooms on the transition end) to do it. I rode it in early 1981 and it was a Superliner coach, a Hi Level transition coach, an AmCafe and a Heritage 10-6. It could be a really oddball train in its first few years. Unfortunately, I didn't really appreciate it at the time and I seem to recall being vaguely pissed off at its weirdness.

That predated the Superliner II trandorms by more than a decade, though.

I do not think transdorms were ever used that way in regular revenue service. The only thing that comes to mind was an executive "grand tour" a few years ago, where they used a transdorm running "backwards" so they could run the Beech Grove biz car, which is pretty much a blinged out Amfleet, to hook onto Superliner trains. I think it was shortly before COVID and may have been during Anderson's Reign of Ignorance.

railiner · Nov 2, 2024

zephyr17 said:
The Desert Wind operated with a mix of Superliners, Hi Levels, Amfleets and Heritage for a while in the very early 1980s. They used a Hi Level transition coach (that had not yet been converted to have dorm rooms on the transition end) to do it. I rode it in early 1981 and it was a Superliner coach, a Hi Level transition coach, an AmCafe and a Heritage 10-6. It could be a really oddball train in its first few years. Unfortunately, I didn't really appreciate it at the time and I seem to recall being vaguely pissed off at its weirdness.

That predated the Superliner II trandorms by more than a decade, though.

I do not think transdorms were ever used that way in regular revenue service. The only thing that comes to mind was an executive "grand tour" a few years ago, where they used a transdorm running "backwards" so they could run the Beech Grove biz car, which is pretty much a blinged out Amfleet, to hook onto Superliner trains. I think it was shortly before COVID and may have been during Anderson's Reign of Ignorance.

They did run single level cars occasionally being deadheaded from Chicago to/from west coast destinations for repositioning or maintenance, ahead of the old Transdorms. They still do ahead of the new Transdorms for those purposes, but not in revenue service.

Trogdor · Nov 2, 2024

In post-2000 times:

There was a very, very brief period where Amtrak actually scheduled a single-level Kentucky Cardinal and a Superliner Cardinal, to be joined with a transition sleeper. The April 2002 national timetable confirms my memory on this. If it ran that way at all, it would have only been for an extremely brief period. In between the printing of that timetable and its planned effective date, the Auto Train derailment and subsequent loss of Superliners resulted in the Cardinal losing its Superliner equipment and going to single-level (and a shortage of Viewliners, combined with lack of ridership, meant the Kentucky Cardinal lost its sleeper entirely shortly after, followed a year or so later by the whole train being discontinued).

There were a few trips on the Sunset Limited where a shortage of Superliner coaches resulted in an Amfleet II being used ahead of the transition sleeper to provide capacity.

Also, just a couple of weeks ago, a Capitol Limited train did a round-trip with a Horizon coach in revenue service because of a last-minute bad-ordering of a Superliner coach with no replacement available in CHI.

jiml · Nov 2, 2024

Not great quality but here's video:

Brian Battuello · Nov 2, 2024

Wow, that's a great video regardless of the quality. Starting with the photographer staring face to face with the engine standing right on the tracks. These days he probably would have gotten arrested. An amazing consist with heritage single level sleeper, a heritage transition car, and a mix of Hi-levels and Superliners. Only thing missing was an SSL, presumably because the Desert Wind was part of a combined California Zephyr. Great sound capture as well.

According to the comments on the YouTube, it was shot on a Super-8 film camera with sound recording ability. That was pretty high tech for those days. Possibly something like this:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1540241412/bolex-581-sound-macrozoom-super-8-cine

If you think that's weird, check out this photo of two Desert Winds meeting at Cajun Pass in 1981, courtesy of Wikipedia...

Desert_Winds_meet_at_Lugo,_California,_February_1981.jpg

NE933 · Nov 2, 2024

Wow, great video and pictures. That was when Amtrak was Amtrak.

jiml · Nov 2, 2024

Brian Battuello said:
Wow, that's a great video regardless of the quality. Starting with the photographer staring face to face with the engine standing right on the tracks. These days he probably would have gotten arrested. An amazing consist with heritage single level sleeper, a heritage transition car, and a mix of Hi-levels and Superliners. Only thing missing was an SSL, presumably because the Desert Wind was part of a combined California Zephyr. Great sound capture as well.

According to the comments on the YouTube, it was shot on a Super-8 film camera with sound recording ability. That was pretty high tech for those days. Possibly something like this:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1540241412/bolex-581-sound-macrozoom-super-8-cine

If you think that's weird, check out this photo of two Desert Winds meeting at Cajun Pass in 1981, courtesy of Wikipedia...

View attachment 38183

Both the photos and video are very close to the description by @zephyr17 and mirror my first trip on the Desert Wind, which was in an Amtrak 10-6 sleeper (ex UP or SF - not sure). It followed the baggage car, then a lightly used transition car, the Superliner diner, an ex-Santa Fe hi-level lounge (which later became a PPC on the Starlight) and a mix of Superliner and hi-level coaches. It is important to remember that the Wind, and its sister train The Pioneer, both started as coach-only trains and only received sleeping cars when they were bumped from higher priority routes by the new Superliner stock. 10-6's and Amfleet were ubiquitous on both routes in the era, although I never experienced Amfleets out west on anything but the San Diegans.

zephyr17 · Nov 2, 2024

railiner said:
They did run single level cars occasionally being deadheaded from Chicago to/from west coast destinations for repositioning or maintenance, ahead of the old Transdorms. They still do ahead of the new Transdorms for those purposes, but not in revenue service.

Yeah, I wasn't counting deadheads. Those are fairly common on the Builder these days, shuttling Horizons for the Cascades.

Half amfleet/horizon and half superliner ever been done before?

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