Historical Amtrak equipment and travel experiences

[jis]

That photo illustrates why it was called the "Rainbow Era".

 

[MARC Rider]

All this discussion of Heritage sleepers! Coaches cold be just as diverse. Here's a photo of Train 798, the Mount Rainier leaving Portland for Seattle in 1974. Light meals were served in the observation-lounge. Don Leap, who caught this scene under the then new Fremont Bridge, has passed away. He handed this over to me when we were working on saving what became the Cascade Corridor.
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Ah, the Rainbow Era! I remember seeing a NEC train come into Baltimore sometime in the early 70s (I was visiting then, not living there) with a bunch of Union Pacific coaches in the consist. Of course, the Penn Central, circa 1970, was a sort of rainbow era, as a typical WAS-BOS train Would have some stainless steel streamliner cars in PRR livery, P70 coaches in Tuscan Red PRR livery, P70 coaches in what I called "vomit green" Penn Central livery, and stainless steel coaches in New Haven Livery.

 

[railiner]

Ah, the Rainbow Era! I remember seeing a NEC train come into Baltimore sometime in the early 70s (I was visiting then, not living there) with a bunch of Union Pacific coaches in the consist. Of course, the Penn Central, circa 1970, was a sort of rainbow era, as a typical WAS-BOS train Would have some stainless steel streamliner cars in PRR livery, P70 coaches in Tuscan Red PRR livery, P70 coaches in what I called "vomit green" Penn Central livery, and stainless steel coaches in New Haven Livery.

Don't leave out NJT...it had its own "Rainbow Era" when it acquired a bunch of former GN, NP, and BN cars in various heritage color schemes...some wags nicknamed some North Jersey Coast Line trains, as the North Jersey Coast "Empire Builder". I rode them between Newark and Bay Head...they still contained their luxury reclining low density seats for a while...

 

[jpakala]

Boarding in Pittsburgh for Chicago in the mid-1970s I had a duplex roomette even though PRR did not have those (though PRR alone had duplex rooms apart from the single rooms under NP dome sleepers, e.g.), and I overheard the conductor & another staff member commenting about how long it had been since they saw upper & lower berths, of which there were six in the adjacent sleeping car.

 

[fdaley]

Don't leave out NJT...it had its own "Rainbow Era" when it acquired a bunch of former GN, NP, and BN cars in various heritage color schemes...some wags nicknamed some North Jersey Coast Line trains, as the North Jersey Coast "Empire Builder". I rode them between Newark and Bay Head...they still contained their luxury reclining low density seats for a while...

Ditto for Metro North. In the early '80s, one of the rush-hour trains to Poughkeepsie, leaving GCT about 5:15 p.m., had cars that had been redone for then-new Adirondack in the mid-70s, including some that I believe had been part of the Phoebe Snow's consist at one time. They still had D&H colors, big picture windows, and reclining seats with lots of leg room. Each of the cars had an Adirondack-themed name on the side; I recall one was "Saranac Inn" but I don't recall the other specific names.