Passenger Trains > did Amtrak ever use heavyweight cars?

Hello All,

I know that at the inception Amtrak bought a bunch of heavyweight cars but did any make it into revenue service? Did they ever make it into Amtrak colors or were they disposed of immediately? Does anybody have pictures?

what heavyweight cars did Amtrak buy?

leased some is all I have seen

There may have been some leased cars rolling around someplace - for some reason I think that some may have been used along with former GM&O E7 units out of Chicago. We didn't see any in the west.

John Gezelius
Tustin, CA

The Adirondack used a former Erie heavyweight lounge on occasion. It was a backup car to the former D&RGW diner-lounges.

Dave

What you may be thinking about or heard of is that, while Amtrak acquired all of the Budd-built stainless steel cars it could in 1971, it also obtained some Pullman-Standard cars and other, non-Budd, steel and aluminum products. They were not "heavyweights" per-se, but were corten, "carbon" steel, or some other combination of materials.

The non-Budd cars were mostly purged from the fleet as quickly as possible over the years, particularly in the late 1980's when conversions to head-end-power were completed, and as newer Amfleet and Bombardier superliners were starting to arrive.

The only non-Budd cars left from the original heritage fleet that I can think of are some baggage cars that are still active. They will eventually be replaced by new cars if and when any low-level cars start being produced under the contract with the Spanish company CAF, at the Elmira Heights former American Bridge Company facility in New York.

Yes, GMO heavyweight (streamstyled) did make it to Amtrak, running on the Abraham Lincoln
(MKE-STL) and on the North Coast Hiawatha (Days when it ran only Chicago to MSP, rather than
on to Seattle). There were a few diners, and observations on the NCH with six-wheel trucks.

I believe those cars were leased. Amtrak leased a lot of cars in its early years. A shortage in its own fleet,
worsened by the immediate need to take many neglected Eastern-sourced cars out of service for much-needed repairs,
forced it to use leased cars for longer than first intended. Some leased cars, such as Southern Pacific coaches
built by Pullman, were purchased by Amtrak once the leases expired, and ran for several more years, some never
getting Amtrak liveries beyond a blue-painted number panel.

Among Amtrak's six-axle trucked baggage cars, the last active one left Amtrak service when it went into the Big
Bayou Canot in Alabama, in the September, 1993 Sunset Limited wreck.

Remember also the long gone requirement back in the day that PV's had to be painted to match to be hauled by Amtrak.

Posted from iPhone

Not sure if the PRR P-70 coaches were considered heavy weight but they were used on the Clockers for years by Amtrak

Posted from iPhone

I rode the San Francisco Zephyr in the early 70's when one of the cars assigned to it (Denver - Oak) was an former SP 3/4 dome lounge. Was really looking forward to the view for that part of the trip, even if a full day's scenery was dull (train route was UP over Sherman Hill with nary a mountain in sight!).
The dome was bad ordered - UP loaned Amtrak a heavyweight lounge car (painted silver!) for the trip. I'm guessing that many RRs had cars available as stand-ins when needed and, given the state of what Amtrak back then, that happened a LOT.

DavidP Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Adirondack used a former Erie heavyweight
> lounge on occasion. It was a backup car to the
> former D&RGW diner-lounges.
>
> Dave


It seems to me the Adirondack also used ex-EL modernized coaches, in addition to the above mentioned ex-EL modernized diner-lounge, on occasion under Amtrak operation. I think the train may have even run begind PA's. But, none of these cars or locos were ever Amtrak owned.

Someone should define what we are talking about here. If we are speaking of six axle cars in general, that is a different story. Amtrak still has the six-axle dome car in its inventory, and ran El Capitan diners which if memory serves, were also six axles. I forget how many axles the Pacific Parlour cars have, but some of those are also still in use.

But by standard definition, stainless steel cars are not considered "heavyweight" (even if they are, relatively speaking).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/13 10:27 by amt207.

LoadLimited wrote:
Remember also the long gone requirement back in the day that PV's had to be painted to match to be hauled by Amtrak.

Yes, from Amtrak's Dept. of We-Should-Have-Bigger-Things-to-Worry-About. ICG not only painted their cars to match but even slappped on pointless arrow logos which I do not think was required.

djansson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------(train
> route was UP over Sherman Hill with nary a
> mountain in sight!).

Not true. While they are somewhat in the distance, from the Sherman Hills you get views of the Never Summer Range to the south and the Snowy Range to the west. There are also good views of the Snowys west from the Laramie area before you climb up Sherman.

njmidland Wrote:
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> Yes the Adirondack had both Erie modernized
> heavyweight coaches and DL&W "Phoebe Snow"
> lightweight coaches. Keep in mind the heavyweight
> cars were used only on the D&H and didn't run
> south of Albany.
>
> Are you sure about the Erie diner-lounge ever
> being used? I would love to have a photo to prove
> this. Our Erie diner-lounge 941 (EL 741) had some
> D&H unused baggage checks that we found when we
> started removing the wall along the kitchen
> hallway and wondered how they got there.
>
> Tim Stuy
> Erie Lackawanna Dining Car Preservation Society


You know, I was going on what the previous post said about seeing EL heavyweight lounge cars on the train. I know EL did not have any full heavyweight lounges so I assumed he meant the diner-lounge cars. Still, if you think about it, those cars were still on EL property and were probably in servicable condition so it was possible one was used. I'm sure you would agree, EL took very good care of their equipment and it would not surprise me if such a car ran on this train, if only for a few days. I
>
> ATSF3751 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > DavidP Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > The Adirondack used a former Erie heavyweight
> > > lounge on occasion. It was a backup car to
> the
> > > former D&RGW diner-lounges.
> > >
> > > Dave
> >
> >
> > It seems to me the Adirondack also used ex-EL
> > modernized coaches, in addition to the above
> > mentioned ex-EL modernized diner-lounge, on
> > occasion under Amtrak operation. I think the
> train
> > may have even run begind PA's. But, none of
> these
> > cars or locos were ever Amtrak owned.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/13 12:49 by ATSF3751.

john1082 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There may have been some leased cars rolling
> around someplace - for some reason I think that
> some may have been used along with former GM&O E7
> units out of Chicago. We didn't see any in the
> west.


E7's were also leased to Amtrak by SCL and possibly PC.

amtrakbill Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Not sure if the PRR P-70 coaches were considered
> heavy weight but they were used on the Clockers
> for years by Amtrak
>
> Posted from iPhone


The P70s made it into 1976 at least - I reemmber seeing them pulled by E60CPs (the five E60s with steam generators). I think this practice was pretty much done with by early 1977, but this is purely on memory... and sadly I don't have photos of this (except for one lousy, lousy shot taken by me when I was 14 and had no idea what I was doing with a camera).

According to Pullman records, the last true heavyweight was built in
February, 1931. The depression was wreaking havoc on American industry,
and the railroads were no exception. Many attempted to cancel all orders
for new cars in late 1929 or early 1930. New York Central had an order
for twelve "Van" series baggage, barber, bath, and lounge cars that they
wished to cancel. Pullman forced them to take four and cancelled eight.
Other railroads did the same. Until the first real production of the
lightweight equipment beginning in 1934, the shops were kept operating
by upgrading existing cars with air conditioning, better sound insulation,
and in general greater passenger comfort additions. The "City of Salina"
built for Union Pacific from Aluminum marked the death of any future
heavyweight steel cars from Pullman.

SR2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> According to Pullman records, the last true
> heavyweight was built in
> February, 1931. The depression was wreaking havoc
> on American industry,
> and the railroads were no exception. Many
> attempted to cancel all orders
> for new cars in late 1929 or early 1930. New York
> Central had an order
> for twelve "Van" series baggage, barber, bath, and
> lounge cars that they
> wished to cancel. Pullman forced them to take
> four and cancelled eight.
> Other railroads did the same. Until the first
> real production of the
> lightweight equipment beginning in 1934, the shops
> were kept operating
> by upgrading existing cars with air conditioning,
> better sound insulation,
> and in general greater passenger comfort
> additions. The "City of Salina"
> built for Union Pacific from Aluminum marked the
> death of any future
> heavyweight steel cars from Pullman.


ACF constructed heavyweight lounge and dining cars for the Texas Special (MKT & Frisco) in 1937, these were the actual last heavyweight "feature" heavyweights built. Of couse heavyweight baggage cars were built after that, SP and Monon being two roads the received such stock during or after 1937. One cannot omit the US Army hospital cars built during WW2 which were essentially heavyweights as well.