'Parlour Car Fire'?

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chuljin

Lead Service Attendant
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May 2, 2008
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Glendale, CA: 2 miles from GDL :)
Not to alarm anyone unnecessarily (it's unconfirmed hearsay, after all), but:

Today I went to Fry's Electronics, as I do almost weekly, by taking 775, GDL-BUR (whence Fry's is a very short walk) and 784, BUR-GDL.

Detraining at GDL, I went back to the door of the BC car, where (because we were a little early) the Conductor was chatting with the leader of GDL's afternoon foamers.

She asked him 'Did you hear about the fire on the Coast Starlight? Apparently the Parlour Car was on fire. Some guy took videos of it.'

I searched google news for 'amtrak fire' and so on, and only more recently did I find this.

Do you suppose this is what was referred to? In the first image in the story, it looks like it's the PPC the fireman is cautiously approaching.

Has anyone heard about some other recent (today?) incident on the CS?

I hope it continues in service and they're not down one next Friday when I take my own CS trip.

The title character of Evan Almighty said it best: 'If that's true, I'm going to be so pissed.'
 
Elsewhere on the web (TO) it is said to be a "refrigeration issue/freon leak" and it should not be long before the car is back in revenue.
 
I'm glad it's not too serious!!
smile.gif
 
I realized the source of the confusion.

I think the said Conductor (784, btw) thought 'fire' because she saw the FD poking around the PPC at CML, without getting details. Whew.

(Usually 784 'meets' 14 while the former sits at GTA, having arrived as 763. During the trackwork, 784 and 14 now meet at Seacliff, between CPN and VEC.)
 
chuljin said:
I realized the source of the confusion.

I think the said Conductor (784, btw) thought 'fire' because she saw the FD poking around the PPC at CML, without getting details. Whew.

(Usually 784 'meets' 14 while the former sits at GTA, having arrived as 763. During the trackwork, 784 and 14 now meet at Seacliff, between CPN and VEC.)
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A little off the topic but maybe you or someone here knows why the CS is 14 north, 11 south, when all other paired LD trains (I think) are even number-odd number consecutively? i.e. why aren't the CS 11 and 12? or 13 and 14?
 
That goes back to the Southern Pacific's unusual method of numbering trains. Their trains were numbered even/odd based on whether they were going to or from San Francisco. So, for a train like the CS that runs through San Francisco (or roughly so), a train running one way would switch from 11 to 12 halfway through the route and running the other way would be 13 and 14 along its whole length. For some reason, Amtrak pulled 11 and 14 as the two numbers for the whole length.
 
Thanks Tom.

And the search continues-- this is why we should give Bill a shock collar, we could page him whenever we had a question. He's more reliable than Wikipedia!
 
Ryan said:
That goes back to the Southern Pacific's unusual method of numbering trains. Their trains were numbered even/odd based on whether they were going to or from San Francisco. So, for a train like the CS that runs through San Francisco (or roughly so), a train running one way would switch from 11 to 12 halfway through the route and running the other way would be 13 and 14 along its whole length. For some reason, Amtrak pulled 11 and 14 as the two numbers for the whole length.
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Imagine if Amtrak did that for the Pacific Surfliners! It would either lessen confusion for those pax up on the platforms when both a northbound and southbound are leaving within minutes of each other--or cause massive confusion just because it's Southern California! :mellow:

Did the SP have any through trains from LA to Seattle? Or did everyone transfer from the Coast or Valley Daylights to the Shastas?
 
LA Resident said:
Ryan said:
That goes back to the Southern Pacific's unusual method of numbering trains. Their trains were numbered even/odd based on whether they were going to or from San Francisco. So, for a train like the CS that runs through San Francisco (or roughly so), a train running one way would switch from 11 to 12 halfway through the route and running the other way would be 13 and 14 along its whole length. For some reason, Amtrak pulled 11 and 14 as the two numbers for the whole length.
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Imagine if Amtrak did that for the Pacific Surfliners! It would either lessen confusion for those pax up on the platforms when both a northbound and southbound are leaving within minutes of each other--or cause massive confusion just because it's Southern California! :mellow:

Did the SP have any through trains from LA to Seattle? Or did everyone transfer from the Coast or Valley Daylights to the Shastas?
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SP didn't have full trains to Seattle, but for a long time had a through Pullman on the Cascade that would be switched onto one of "pool trains" between Portland and Seattle. So the closest was a Pullman through between Oakland and Seattle.

The connections between the Pacific Northwest bound trains on the SP was generally via the San Joaquin Valley. The San Joaquin Daylight with a connection in Martinez was the standard routing to connect with the Cascade from and to Southern California. The Coast Daylight wasn't scheduled to make that connection -- it arrived too late. When the Shasta Daylight was still running, it connected with the Owl (the overnight train via the Westside line through Los Banos), not the Lark.

Before World War II, the West Coast was a through train between Los Angeles and Portland via Sacramento. It stayed on in a truncated form as a Sacramento - Los Angeles overnight train until the early-mid 50s. Don't know if it had a through Pullman to Seattle, though. It wouldn't surprise me if it did.
 
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LA Resident said:
Imagine if Amtrak did that for the Pacific Surfliners! It would either lessen confusion for those pax up on the platforms when both a northbound and southbound are leaving within minutes of each other--or cause massive confusion just because it's Southern California! :mellow:

Did the SP have any through trains from LA to Seattle? Or did everyone transfer from the Coast or Valley Daylights to the Shastas?
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Believe it or not in the 'Good Old Days' it took three trains to go from LAX to SEA. You would take one train, say the Coast Daylight from LAX to SFO, take the ferry to Oakland, then another train, like the Cascade to PDX, and then another train run by the UP, NP, or GN on to SEA. Much easier on Amtrak.
 
ALC_Rail_Writer said:
Which route was AMTK 12 and 13? Pioneer, Desert Wind, Coast Daylight?
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13 was the Fast Mail, an eastbound only overnight mail train on the Corridor later on, which was the only legitimate freight-only train Amtrak ever ran. It would carry a passenger car only in the event of the Cap or Broadway missing a connection with 67.

Originally, 11/12 was the Coast Daylight, 13/14 was the Coast Starlight. When they ditched the Daylight, 11 followed the Daylights schedule through California while 14 followed the Starlights.
 
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You guys had me worried there. I'd hate to see anything happen to the PPC's before they officially retire them.

I'm shooting for a last run on them next year.
 
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