Historical Amtrak equipment and travel experiences

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

I assume Amtrak used Southern equipment, including the SR livery when Amtrak took over the Crescent in 1979. What was the timeline for painting into Amtrak livery with the old equipment or was it just never repainted?

What was the timeline of moving from one set of equipment to another, realizing changes likely happened over time as it happening with VL1 to VL2 transitions.

What equipment would have been on the Crescent in the 1990-1993 era is my particular question actually? I think VL1 came on around 1994 at the earliest.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Unfortunately the people who lived thur these changes are not with us anymore.

You might want to look around the book store section at a model railroad convention. The Big E is approaching fast.
Saturday January 27, 2024 - 9:00am - 5:00pm
Sunday January 28, 2024 - 10:00am - 5:00pm

https://www.railroadhobbyshow.com/attending-the-show.php

 

[jis]

This article has a few ballpark timeframe information pieces which one might find useful...

https://history.amtrak.com/blogs/blog/the-southern-crescent-joins-the-amtrak-family

 

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

Unfortunately the people who lived thur these changes are not with us anymore.

You might want to look around the book store section at a model railroad convention. The Big E is approaching fast.
Saturday January 27, 2024 - 9:00am - 5:00pm
Sunday January 28, 2024 - 10:00am - 5:00pm

https://www.railroadhobbyshow.com/attending-the-show.php

Wikipedia has a good article on VL1 but I can't find anything before, , which I why I was asking here.
I was hoping to find some info on the sleeper layout eventually.

 

[jis]

IIRC all of the Sleepers in the Crescent when it was conveyed to Amtrak were 1949 River Series Pullman Standard 10-6s. Southern retained only one of those.

All of them were retired or sold by Amtrak by 1983. None were converted to HEP.

 

[John Santos]

Unfortunately the people who lived thur these changes are not with us anymore.

You might want to look around the book store section at a model railroad convention. The Big E is approaching fast.
Saturday January 27, 2024 - 9:00am - 5:00pm
Sunday January 28, 2024 - 10:00am - 5:00pm

https://www.railroadhobbyshow.com/attending-the-show.php

Interesting that none of the directions on that page include using a train to get there. Just sayin'.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Interesting that none of the directions on that page include using a train to get there. Just sayin'.

https://www.railroadhobbyshow.com/attending-the-show.php#PublicTransportationInformation
It’s listed under public transportation. And you have a final mile issue. The Springfield station is across the river from the Big-E.

 

[John Bredin]

Interesting that none of the directions on that page include using a train to get there. Just sayin'.

There's a whole page for public transportation.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

Unfortunately the people who lived thur these changes are not with us anymore.

People from the 70's aren't with us anymore???

 

[John Bredin]

https://www.railroadhobbyshow.com/attending-the-show.php#PublicTransportationInformation
It’s listed under public transportation. And you have a final mile issue. The Springfield station is across the river from the Big-E.

No final mile problem, as the page you mention says:

Beginning at 8:30 am on Saturday and 9:30 am on Sunday the Amherst Railway Society Courtesy Shuttles will begin their routes at the north entrance to Springfield Union Station located on Frank B. Murray Street. The vans are 15-passenger vans and there are Show Logos/Signs on the vans and the drivers will announce themselves on arrival.

 

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

IIRC all of the Sleepers in the Crescent when it was conveyed to Amtrak were 1949 River Series Pullman Standard 10-6s. Southern retained only one of those.

All of them were retired or sold by Amtrak by 1983. None were converted to HEP.

So 49 to 79 and then on to 83 was the 10-6s. From 1983 until 1994 or a bit later it would have been Heritage equipment, which is whatever was modern enough and been converted or had HEP. After this point it was VL1 and now a mix of VL1 and VL2?

 

[crescent-zephyr]

Did Slumbercoaches run on the Crescent? I remember as a kid walking through the sleepers after the Gulf Breeze and Crescent had merged together (remember that!?) and seeing the multi-level rooms, but I'm not sure if those would have been slumbercoaches or Duplex Roomettes. Or perhaps they could be either?

 

[John Santos]

https://www.railroadhobbyshow.com/attending-the-show.php#PublicTransportationInformation
It’s listed under public transportation. And you have a final mile issue. The Springfield station is across the river from the Big-E.

Oops, I didn't scroll down far enough!
Thanks @Just-Thinking-51 and @John Bredin for pointing this out.

 

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

Did Slumbercoaches run on the Crescent? I remember as a kid walking through the sleepers after the Gulf Breeze and Crescent had merged together (remember that!?) and seeing the multi-level rooms, but I'm not sure if those would have been slumbercoaches or Duplex Roomettes. Or perhaps they could be either?

So the reason for this thread, and I have been thinking of this for 6 months and never posted for whatever reason is this -a short history of my Crescent rides.
I took the Crescent during college, I think spring of 1992, from Charlotte to DC and it was paid by the AFL-CIO student support arm so it was in coach class to save money, but go union. I had always been a bit of a railfan as a young boy but having breakfast between Danville and Lynchburg at sunrise and watching out the window over some of the higher overpasses won me over. So for my honeymoon I decided to take the Crescent to DC and being the honeymoon we got a sleeper. I spent more on the honeymoon that I did the engagement ring. I think it was a bedroom. After a few days in DC we took Amtrak (might have been a Clocker) to NYP and then Empire Service to see her extended family that lived near-ish the Amtserdam station in NY. On the way south we took Empire Service back to NYP and then the Crescent back to Charlotte. On the southbound trip it seems we were upgraded to a bedroom and maybe it was a handicapped bedroom, if they existed in 1993, from a roomette type room. I seem to remember being told there were problems with our assigned room so we got a free upgrade.

I did not do any sleepes for 25 years as we could not afford that with a family of 3 girls so the next sleeper was our 25 anniversary in a VL1 Roomette and then last sumer our 30th Anniversary trip that was bedroom northbound and roomette southbound. Those trips started/ended in Greensboro where we live now.

Anyway, I was trying to remember the layout of the rooms in 1993 as they seemed different that a bedroom on the VL1. That is the reason for the thread.

To your question about Slumbercoaches:
I do remember walking down the aisle after a meal and their were some rooms that seemed to be close in description to how they are described and I think I may have walked past some slumbercoaches, and that was somewhat on my mind as well. Don't hold me to this memory however.

 

[MARC Rider]

Did Slumbercoaches run on the Crescent? I remember as a kid walking through the sleepers after the Gulf Breeze and Crescent had merged together (remember that!?) and seeing the multi-level rooms, but I'm not sure if those would have been slumbercoaches or Duplex Roomettes. Or perhaps they could be either?

Yes they did. I rode on one in 1990. BAL-ATL. As far as I can remember, the whole train was Heritage eqi0ment, but there might have been some Amfleet 2 coaches. I'm pretty sure all the cars were painted in Amtrak livery.

 

[west point]

All SOU RR equipment was steam heat and steam ejector AC. Amtrak if memory serves started at day one with HEP equipment. That conversion permitted Amtrak to retire the steam generator cars and the few E-60s with steam generators to be converted to HEP.

 

[jis]

All SOU RR equipment was steam heat and steam ejector AC. Amtrak if memory serves started at day one with HEP equipment. That conversion permitted Amtrak to retire the steam generator cars and the few E-60s with steam generators to be converted to HEP.

No they did not start on day 1 with HEP. But by 1980 they were more or less all HEP approaching the completion of conversion of the Heritage fleet.

 

[railiner]

Did Slumbercoaches run on the Crescent? I remember as a kid walking through the sleepers after the Gulf Breeze and Crescent had merged together (remember that!?) and seeing the multi-level rooms, but I'm not sure if those would have been slumbercoaches or Duplex Roomettes. Or perhaps they could be either?

They were Slumbercoaches. They ran only New York to Atlanta. Passengers in Slumbercoach accommodations did not receive the "First Class Amenities" that the regular sleeper passenger's were given.

Here's the October 25, 1992 timetable and equipment...
http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19921025&item=0047

 

[crescent-zephyr]

They were Slumbercoaches. They ran only New York to Atlanta. Passengers in Slumbercoach accommodations did not receive the "First Class Amenities" that the regular sleeper passenger's were given.

Here's the October 25, 1992 timetable and equipment...
http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19921025&item=0047

Oh didn't know they only ran through Atlanta. I just remember them not being there when we got on in Louisiana and I remember them being there the next morning. The amount of switching that amtrak used to do on a daily basis, the Crescent cut off cars in Atlanta and split off to go to Mobile in Birmingham right?

 

[railiner]

Oh didn't know they only ran through Atlanta. I just remember them not being there when we got on in Louisiana and I remember them being there the next morning. The amount of switching that amtrak used to do on a daily basis, the Crescent cut off cars in Atlanta and split off to go to Mobile in Birmingham right?

Right.

http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19921025nr&item=0017

 

[Bob Dylan]

They were Slumbercoaches. They ran only New York to Atlanta. Passengers in Slumbercoach accommodations did not receive the "First Class Amenities" that the regular sleeper passenger's were given.

Here's the October 25, 1992 timetable and equipment...
http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19921025&item=0047

But you could eat in the Diner and enjoy great food and service!

I used to regularly ride in Slumbercoaches on the Crescent between Washington and Greenville,SC where my dad lived.

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

This list is valuable: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsList.aspx?id=SOU&cid=7
For instance, look at SOU 727, a photo of the Crescent taken in 1975, noted as "Budd combine," by James H. Selzer, Jr.

 

[fdaley]

I remember seeing really long consists of heritage cars, maybe 13-15 cars, on the Crescent in the early '90s when it was carrying through cars for the Gulf Breeze. The slumbercoach only ran NYP-ATL, and I thought maybe one or more 10-6 sleepers also ran only from Atlanta north. Heading south from NYP, the train had far more capacity in both coach and sleeper than it has now.

Definitely the Viewliner sleepers made their debut in 1996. We took the Crescent to New Orleans in June of that year, and I still have a couple of "Crescent Viewliner inaugural" coffee mugs that Amtrak handed out to mark the occasion.

 

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

I remember seeing really long consists of heritage cars, maybe 13-15 cars, on the Crescent in the early '90s when it was carrying through cars for the Gulf Breeze. The slumbercoach only ran NYP-ATL, and I thought maybe one or more 10-6 sleepers also ran only from Atlanta north. Heading south from NYP, the train had far more capacity in both coach and sleeper than it has now.

Definitely the Viewliner sleepers made their debut in 1996. We took the Crescent to New Orleans in June of that year, and I still have a couple of "Crescent Viewliner inaugural" coffee mugs that Amtrak handed out to mark the occasion.

Can you explain “10-6 sleeper”?

 

[crescent-zephyr]

Can you explain “10-6 sleeper”?

10 Roomette / 6 Bedroom.