Switching Locations?

[GBNorman]

It was absolute choreography to watch the cutting or combining of UP103/4 and SP 101/2 at Ogden during 1968, when I was stationed at Hill AFB. Yard Engines at both ends, and you can be sure much supervision on the ground. This was not any kind of "Slam Bam" as Coaches were on the head and Pullmans on the rear.

Scheduled time was in the range of 45 minutes; sure would be "sport" to watch a "Keystone Kops" charade that Amtrak would pull. When Amtrak operated their 5-6 "The Everywhere West" their switching of cars at Ogden took "a bit longer".

 

[the_traveler]

It was probably less at Ogden, since the switching between the CZ, DW & Pioneer was done at SLC not Ogden!

 

[Seaboard92]

One thing everyone is forgetting that is important to know. A lot of the larger stations like Cleveland were owned by a terminal company which in part was owned by all of the tenants. And they provided the switch engines.

 

[ehbowen]

One thing everyone is forgetting that is important to know. A lot of the larger stations like Cleveland were owned by a terminal company which in part was owned by all of the tenants. And they provided the switch engines.

True, but in many cases they charged the tenants by the switch move. Which led to situations such as the one which prevailed here during the latter years of the Texas Chief service to Galveston. The small island city only had traffic to support a single coach's worth of passengers (actually, not even that) and Santa Fe's commissary (which also serviced the California Special) and Pullman's service facility (handling the Santa Fe trains as well as the Texas Eagle) was in Houston. However, Santa Fe's roundhouse was on the island. So, every morning a full ABBA set of F7s would leave Galveston hauling a single coach to Houston. The coach would be dropped on a track in Union Station; through passengers would transfer across the platform to the Texas Chief proper, and the locomotive lashup would couple on to it for the trip north to Chicago. Four F7s pulling a single coach across level (~1 foot per mile) and largely straight trackage...I called this "perhaps the most overpowered revenue passenger train in history!" BTW, I understand that the speed limit on the line from Galveston to Houston in the mid-1960s was 90 mph....

 

[MikefromCrete]

Back in the pre-Amtrak days, the railroads had switch crews working at major stations (and many minor ones). Before and after any passenger work, the switch crews went out and worked local yards and industries, so the cost of shifting passenger cars around was minimal.

 

[Twin Star Rocket]

Not in any timetable but I witnessed extra cars being added to the SUNSET LIMITED at El Paso in August 1972. Not sure how long that lasted.

 

[Twin Star Rocket]

Unless someone has already mentioned it, there was a sleeper transfer at Kansas City and don't forget the St. Louis section of the CITY of NEW ORLEANS.

Or was the latter a cross-platform transfer? Never rode it.

 

[brianpmcdonnell17]

Unless someone has already mentioned it, there was a sleeper transfer at Kansas City and don't forget the St. Louis section of the CITY of NEW ORLEANS.

Or was the latter a cross-platform transfer? Never rode it.

No, it was through cars and not a cross-platform transfer. Another example I am surprised has not been mentioned yet is Auburndale. Early on in Amtrak, trains were split there into west coast and east coast (of Florida) sections. This avoided the Tampa reversal that is used today, which was especially important because trains used to continue past Tampa to St. Petersburg. This also allowed both Tampa Bay and Southeast Florida to have all of the state's LD trains, although there was no LD service between the two areas (there was a briefly operated state-funded corridor service between Tampa and Miami).

 

[DevalDragon]

Don't forget about the Empire Builder in Spokane Washington.

 

[railiner]

It was probably less at Ogden, since the switching between the CZ, DW & Pioneer was done at SLC not Ogden!

It would depend on if you were talking about the old SFZ, or the new CZ...and then before or after the new CZ finally moved to the D&RGW route after the line re-opened from the Thistle landslide...

 

[railiner]

Unless someone has already mentioned it, there was a sleeper transfer at Kansas City and don't forget the St. Louis section of the CITY of NEW ORLEANS.

Or was the latter a cross-platform transfer? Never rode it.

There was a transcontinental heritage sleeper transferred at Kansas City between the National Limited, which terminated there, and the thru Southwest Limited. There was another one transferred at New Orleans between the Southern Crescent and the Sunset Limited, although with an overnight layover.

The "River Cities" was a thru coach switched off a Kansas City to St. Louis train to run over to Carbondale, Il, and then combine with the City of New Orleans, or vice versa....

 

[the_traveler]

I was thinking about Auburndale.

An interesting note was that this switching of the Tampa section and the Miami section was the ONLY location on Amtrak that this was done NOT at a station! (It was done at the wye.)

 

[cpotisch]

The "River Cities" was a thru coach switched off a Kansas City to St. Louis train to run over to Carbondale, Il, and then combine with the City of New Orleans, or vice versa....

So that car ran from Kansas City to New Orleans?

 

[railiner]

The "River Cities" was a thru coach switched off a Kansas City to St. Louis train to run over to Carbondale, Il, and then combine with the City of New Orleans, or vice versa....

So that car ran from Kansas City to New Orleans?

Correct...rode it one time...in a dome coach!

 

[iplaybass]

Unless someone has already mentioned it, there was a sleeper transfer at Kansas City and don't forget the St. Louis section of the CITY of NEW ORLEANS.

Or was the latter a cross-platform transfer? Never rode it.

I did it once (RT to NOL). One heritage coach behind an F40 over freight tracks. Scariest ride I've ever been on.

 

[cpotisch]

Don't forget about the Empire Builder in Spokane Washington.

Already mentioned in the original post.

 

[zephyr17]

It was probably less at Ogden, since the switching between the CZ, DW & Pioneer was done at SLC not Ogden!

It would depend on if you were talking about the old SFZ, or the new CZ...and then before or after the new CZ finally moved to the D&RGW route after the line re-opened from the Thistle landslide...

Yep, initially it was Ogden. Although I think it was for a fairly short period of time because for a while it was a cross platform transfer at Ogden, not through cars. I did a cross platform transfer at Ogden between the SFZ and the Desert Wind in 1981, the SFZ was full Superliner and the Desert Wind at time was not. IIRC, and it has been a long time, the Desert Wind at that time had a Santa Fe Hi Level, maybe 2, one had to have been a transition car, an Amfleet cafe and a 10-6. No diner. It was real dog's breakfast of a consist.

 

[the_traveler]

It must have been before the mid 80’s. I had taken both the Desert Wind and the Pioneer, both thru the CO Rockies,and both trains split from the CZ in SLC.

 

[zephyr17]

Yes, it was before the mid 80s. The SFZ operated over UP's Overland Route, which goes through neither Salt Lake City, nor the Colorado Rockies. Salt Lake was only an intermediate stop for the Desert Wind. After 5/6 shifted to D&RGW, it split at Salt Lake. Not sure how they handled it during the interim period it was officially supposed to have been routed on the D&RGW, but it was "detoured" on its former UP route due to the Thistle slide in April 1983. During the "detour" period I don't recall whether it continued west on the SP over the Lucin Cutoff as it did before, or whether it went south from Ogden to take the former WP as it did after it started running over the D&RGW. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that it stayed on the SP because there were no intermediate stops between Ogden/Salt Lake and Elko, in paired track territory, so there wasn't a passenger impact on whether it went over the ex-WP, recently merged with UP, over Silver Zone or SP over the Lucin Cutoff. Operationally it is just easier to stay on the UP/SP Overland Route, so the split would have remained at Ogden. However, if they shifted to the ex-WP and ran the whole train south to Salt Lake during the "detour" period, the split could have been at either Ogden or Salt Lake. I don't think they did, but I don't know. It doesn't make a bunch of sense.

I also don't recall exactly when the new trackage at Thistle opened and 5/6 actually started using the D&RGW, but it was fairly quick for a construction project of that magnitude, so late 1983 or early 1984 is my guess. I have a couple of books that have the date it started over the D&RGW (which was a big deal to Amtrak), but I didn't dig them out. But it was in 1984 at the latest.

 

[E60JPC]

There was a transcontinental heritage sleeper transferred at Kansas City between the National Limited, which terminated there, and the thru Southwest Limited. There was another one transferred at New Orleans between the Southern Crescent and the Sunset Limited, although with an overnight layover.

Unless someone has already mentioned it, there was a sleeper transfer at Kansas City and don't forget the St. Louis section of the CITY of NEW ORLEANS.

Or was the latter a cross-platform transfer? Never rode it.

The "River Cities" was a thru coach switched off a Kansas City to St. Louis train to run over to Carbondale, Il, and then combine with the City of New Orleans, or vice versa....

Actually the "River Cities" coach ran from St. Louis to Centralia, IL, where it was combined with the City of New Orleans headed south. I rode the River Cities in March 1986.

 

[railiner]

There was a transcontinental heritage sleeper transferred at Kansas City between the National Limited, which terminated there, and the thru Southwest Limited. There was another one transferred at New Orleans between the Southern Crescent and the Sunset Limited, although with an overnight layover.

Unless someone has already mentioned it, there was a sleeper transfer at Kansas City and don't forget the St. Louis section of the CITY of NEW ORLEANS.

Or was the latter a cross-platform transfer? Never rode it.

The "River Cities" was a thru coach switched off a Kansas City to St. Louis train to run over to Carbondale, Il, and then combine with the City of New Orleans, or vice versa....

Actually the "River Cities" coach ran from St. Louis to Centralia, IL, where it was combined with the City of New Orleans headed south. I rode the River Cities in March 1986.

Good catch! I had forgotten that detail....it ran over the Southern Railway. It did not use ICG's own St. Lous to Duquoin line, like IC's former trains did for that connection.

 

[RebelRider]

Unless someone has already mentioned it, there was a sleeper transfer at Kansas City and don't forget the St. Louis section of the CITY of NEW ORLEANS.

Or was the latter a cross-platform transfer? Never rode it.

No, it was through cars and not a cross-platform transfer. Another example I am surprised has not been mentioned yet is Auburndale. Early on in Amtrak, trains were split there into west coast and east coast (of Florida) sections. This avoided the Tampa reversal that is used today, which was especially important because trains used to continue past Tampa to St. Petersburg. This also allowed both Tampa Bay and Southeast Florida to have all of the state's LD trains, although there was no LD service between the two areas (there was a briefly operated state-funded corridor service between Tampa and Miami).

There are a couple good videos from back in the day of the Auburndale shuffle:

Amtrak, Auburndale, FL. Trains Combine During Storm, Railroad Time Capsule 1983

Florida Amtrak from Tampa - Miami with FP40 Locomotives, combine at Auburndale 1988

Amtrak at Auburndale, FL - Now and Then

 

[Maglev]

Regarding the Pioneer, the comments here all mention switching in SLC. But when I rode the CZ in 1994, the Pioneer cars were taken on and off at Denver.

 

[zephyr17]

Yeah, they moved the Pioneer onto the UP Overland route in the early 90s. There were two reasons, improve bad times into Seattle, especially when the train was late, because the Overland Route is considerably faster than the D&RGW, and resume service to Wyoming. So for the last part of its life, the Pioneer was switched off at Denver, the Desert Wind was switched off at SLC.

That doesn't account for the time during the Mercer cuts when the Pioneer and Desert Wind ran three days a week, with the Pioneer switching off at Denver and the Desert Wind continuing to LA, and the CZ running to Emeryville running the other 4 days. That was a mess, it was supposed to save money, but with all the western Long Distance trains running less than daily, it actually depressed ridership much more than they saved, so they ended up losing more money in the end.

They also retired a large part of the Santa Fe Hi Level fleet at that time, which has being used to extend capacity of the trains, and there simply weren't enough Superliners to cover all the routes when they went back to daily, and the Desert Wind and Pioneer died.

 

[railiner]

During the period that the CZ, Pioneer, and Desert Wind ran combined all the way from Chicago to Salt Lake City, during the summer month's, it did something that I don't believe any other Superliner ever did...it carried two Superliner diner's in the consist, along with one Sightseer Lounge (that was staffed on both levels).

On board, they called the Chicago/Oakland diner the "Chicago Diner", and the Chicago/Los Angeles diner the "L A Diner", owing to their crew bases. The Pioneer picked up a Sightseer in SLC. I don't recall what the Pioneer ran with from Denver to Seattle, after the change in the '90's....