Nostalgia & History > Longest Amtrak train?

Just curious, from a historical standpoint, which Amtrak train had the longest typical passenger car consist in its heyday?  I'm not interested in including non-passenger cars like baggage, express, AutoTrain autoracks, roadrailers, PV, etc. in the car count.  Just passenger revenue cars (i.e. coach/lounge/diner/sleeper).  My guess (and this is purely a guess) would be the combined 5/25/35 Zephyr / Desert Wind / Pioneer, but would be curious if other trains were longer? 

Eighteen cars were common on Florida trains in the pre-HEP days.  My first LD trip was New York to Orlando on an 18-car Champion.  The Starlight also ran some long consists in the '70s, with as may as 10 coaches.  The train had to be split in two and spotted on two seperate platfroms at Seattle.

Dave

SP kept Amtrak train to 24 cars for braking capacity in the early 70s

The combined Desert Wind/Pioneer/SFZ didn't come along until Superliners, correct?  I'd think that would have kept the car count down.

Even excluding the Auto Racks, I think the Auto Train would be a strong contender.  Second guess would be a combined Champion/Meteor of the mid 70s.

I recall working as an engineer for the Minnesota Commercial one Christmas Eve in the 90s out of Midway (Minneapolis/St.Paul, MN) and switching the eastbound Empire Builder. The train was 5-8 hours late and there was quite a crowd which made it difficult for us to get into the depot to use the restroom without getting "mobbed" by upset passengers thinking we were the crew and our Alco was the EB locomotive.

Once the late train arrived, we had to switch it, to add express box/reefers (remember those?) and roadrailers plus some other coaches on the west end of the train which was unusual with the Amtrak power tied on to the east end. It was a struggle using that old Alco to tie those extra cars onto the rear of the EB while shoving upgrade from the yard but I did make a very soft joint, the slack rolled back nicely to test it and we thankfully, cut away and tied up. I believe the EB left with 21 or 22 cars not car lengths which probably was close to 40-50, 50' car lengths. Maybe not a record but long enough for me.

exprail 

One of the longest AMTRAK passenger trains EVER, was the chartered train for the "Promise Keepers" (Men's religious group) in Florida a few years ago.
A total of 23-cars pulled by three Genesis locomotives.  Total matched consist.  It was beautiful and even made Trains Magazine !!

KRK

Wouldn't a 1970s Florida train be the longest by
year-round average length? In spring 1972 the
Oakland-LA train would likely be 4-5 cars.

I think the passenger car count on AutoTrain peaks at 19.

Posted from Android

Into the early 90's, before Tom Downs' Mercer Management rationalization of Eastern long-distance trains, The Silver Star, Silver Meteor and Crescent/Gulf Breeze were all 18 cars at some point in their trips. Looking at old Consist Books, The Silver Star was 17 cars between New York and Washington, and added a mail car at Washington for a total of 18 cars south of Washington.  The Silver Meteor was 18 cars between New York and Jacksonville.  The Crescent/Gulf Breeze was 17 cars New York to Washington, where it added a Washington-Atlanta mail car, for a total of 18 cars.  It cut cars in Atlanta to turn back to Washington the same evening, and then cut the Gulf Breeze cars in Birmingham for Montgomery and Mobile.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/16 21:23 by knotch8.

knotch8 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Into the early 90's, before Tom Downs' Mercer
> Management rationalization of Eastern
> long-distance trains, The Silver Star, Silver
> Meteor and Crescernt/Gulf Breeze were all 18 cars
> at some point in their trips. Looking at old
> Consist Books, The Silver Star was 17 cars between
> New York and Washington, and added a mail car at
> Washington for a total of 18 cars south of
> Washington.  The Silver Meteor was 18 cars
> between New York and Jacksonville.  The
> Crescent/Gulf Breeze was 17 cars New York to
> Washington, where it added a Washington-Atlanta
> mail car, for a total of 18 cars.  It cut cars in
> Atlanta to turn back to Washington the same
> evening, and then cut the Gulf Breeze cars in
> Birmingham for Montgomery and Mobile.

That makes a lot of sense.  Many old time platforms in one time, big time stations in places like New Brunswick and PJC NJ are set up for 18 cars.  New Brunswick's old platform goes all the way to French street.

Interesting question and comments...

Amtrak did not institute the 18-car consist limit (which was adhered to very well for many years) until January of 1973. The reason for this limit, as explained by Amtrak management at the time, was the experience Amtrak had when they ran the Coast Starlight/Daylight daily during the summer of 1972. (Also, as mentioned, the Florida trains had often exceeded 18 cars over the previous year as well...) During the summer of 1972 the Coast Starlight/Daylight (which was its official name back in those days) ran daily for the first time. The ridership that summer was off the charts, and this was before the 1973-74 Energy Crisis so gas was still plentiful and cheap! The train operated with 18 to 22 cars every day, making it two long for many of the platforms along the route. Although it never taxed the pair of SP SDP45's assigned to the train from LA to Portland, this was still a long and heavy streamliner.

In discussing the 18 car limit with Amtrak management a few years later, I was told that they took the limit from the Santa Fe, who had a similar limit in the years leading up to Amtrak. (The huge San Francisco Chief trains, which often reached 19 or 20 cars between Barstow and Clovis (NM) in the mid-1960's were the only operational exception, and even then ATSF tried to keep them at 18 cars.) Reno Fun Trains in the early 1970's under Amtrak often ran with 20-plus cars as already mentioned.

Fast forwarding to the summers of 1983 through 1987, the combined California Zephyr/Desert Wind/Pioneer east of their combining point at Salt Lake City (from October, 1983 on) would run 14 to 18 cars in the summer (only two of which were baggage cars). Even with the smaller 12 to 14 car train, we quickly learned that two F40's could not maintain the schedule over the Rio Grande, so three F40's, or two F40's and a Rio Grande GP40 helper, were the norm from SLC to Denver. Two F40's had trouble with the longer trains even east of Denver, though the many double and sometimes triple stops at rural stations on the BN with those long Superliner trains contributed much to the train's running an hour of more late almost every trip.  I once saw four F40's on an 18 car CZ east of Salt Lake. An 18-car Superliner train with four F40's was quite an impressive sight!

When I see the pathetically short summertime Zephyrs, Starlight, Southwest Chief, etc., I think about how we ran those trains in the 1980's when long-distance trains were considered to have the most revenue potential of any service on Amtrak, including the NEC... (A study in the mid-1980's, commissioned by Amtrak, pronounced that fact, which subsequent consultants, commuter-oriented leadership, and others at Amtrak still keep quietly under wraps...) We rarely had fewer than 600 passengers on the combined Zephyr/Desert Wind/Pioneer on any trip during the summer east of Salt Lake City, making the Zephyr the most popular of Amtrak's long-haul trains each year from 1983 to 1987 (beating out even the Starlight!).

Think of the ridership potential that Amtrak has driven off, undoing the hard work of many to make those trains viable...

I hope that this information helps to answer the questions posed here...

Best wishes,

ShastaDaylight

 

> During the summer of 1972 the Coast
> Starlight/Daylight... operated
> with 18 to 22 cars every day

It was long on the three days a week
it ran to Portland. The other four days,
maybe 9 cars.

I rode a 25-car Amtrak special several years ago, Asheville-Spencer NC. 3 locomotives.

18 cars was about the practical limit on Florida trains. Otherwise, platform lengths at most ex-ACL/SAL stations would require two pull-aheads instead of one.