Historical Amtrak Question

[Seaboard92]

I'm not sure for a fact but I think the Piedmont lounge cars might be ex Hospital cars. I've helped restore one for a museum from the hospital car collection

 

[railiner]

One of the 'tell-tales' that a lounge car was one of these, are long sections that are without windows...of course they could have been cut in with major mods thru the years...

The large side doors were usually removed and covered up....

 

[lstone19]

Meals included definitely started sometime between late 1985 and summer 1986. I had booked a long trip for Aug/Sep 1986 in late 1985 (probably as soon as they opened for sale) when meals were not included . By the time the trip happened, meals were included but if there was a fare increase associated with it, I didn’t have to pay it since I was already reserved. Even got a meal from PDX to Spokane on the coach only (for that summer) PDX section of the Builder because I had originally been booked in sleeper (before, thanks to Expo 86 in Vancouver, they decided to send all the sleepers to Seattle).

 

[MikefromCrete]

I'm not sure for a fact but I think the Piedmont lounge cars might be ex Hospital cars. I've helped restore one for a museum from the hospital car collection

The On Track On Line roster section shows that the North Carolina baggage-lounge-vending cars are former Army hospital cars, built by St. Louis Car in 1952-53.

 

[railiner]

I'm not sure for a fact but I think the Piedmont lounge cars might be ex Hospital cars. I've helped restore one for a museum from the hospital car collection

The On Track On Line roster section shows that the North Carolina baggage-lounge-vending cars are former Army hospital cars, built by St. Louis Car in 1952-53.

All that I can recall of the ex Army hospital cars that Amtrak converted into lounge cars was, they were numbered in the 3100 series...not sure how many of them there were...

 

[Seaboard92]

I knew they had something to do with being hospital cars. They are in great shape.

 

[Skyline]

Great stuff! Thanks for posting.

Liked those? Here's the last one in the set: A troop hospital car. These were built by ACF to regular streamlined, air-conditioned passenger car specs and many of them had a second life after the war...the Monon, for one, purchased a bunch of them and converted them to streamlined passenger equipment.

TroopHospitalScan.png

The Alaska RR and Amtrak 'inherited' some of these, as well...Amtrak gave them the HEP treatment, and converted them into lounge cars, most notably, "Le Pub" of Montrealer fame...

I'm reasonably certain a couple of these were assigned to the Broadway Limited in the 1970s as well. They were repurposed very creatively, and I think may have survived into the end of the Heritage era. Wonder where they are today?

As an aside, I rode PHL>PGH in one of these in May 1977 and had an in-depth convo with then-Amtrak Pres Paul Reistrup in that lounge. I found him knowledgeable and dedicated to a successful and secure Amtrak future, though his tip-toe into hauling "freight" turned out to be a Big Fail. He did spend some time talking about how Amtrak had become a political football which he was growing weary of dealing with, and suggested he would quit if Congress went through with plans to discontinue LD trains. Very candid convo with me, a complete stranger! Maybe he needed someone knowledgeable about pax rail to vent with that day? By the following year he, and several routes, would be gone.

 

[Seaboard92]

I believe one of the Le Pubs is now the Wisconsin Valley owned by the Friends of the 261.

There is another Le Pub at the Tennessee Central Railroad Museum and it still has its Amtrak Heritage Fleet interior. And is still in operation as well.

 

[railiner]

Those 3100 series cars did indeed run on The Broadway Limited, along with the Montrealer....there must have been about a half dozen of them, I suppose....

They were great 'party' cars, but were not that good for sightseeing, with limited windows on one end. They featured the HEP new standard of "earth tones", brown's, yellows. and red's, replacing Amtrak's first "psychedelic" garish purple and reds on previous refurbishing's...