Steam & Excursion > Norfolk Southern Passenger Cars

Recently there was a story on here about the Norfolk Southern Passenger Cars not being able to operate with Amtrak as they have not been approved by Amtrak for mainline service.  I was told that only private passenger cars, those not owned by the Class One railroads, are the only ones that must be certified by Amtrak for operation by them as I have observed the Norfolk Southern passenger cars in operation many times on the Northeast Corridor being pulled by their F units.  I was told some time ago by a Chessie System (now CSX) Official that Amtrak will operate passenger cars and office cars on their railroad as long as they have been certified by that Class One to meet their requirements.  Have these rules been changed?
John

Any equipment that would be considered for Amtrak operations - regardless of the owner would be subject to at least a PC-1 annual inspection, in addition to a more thorough mechanical background (like documentation of past work) look. I have seen the NS exhibit car moving in Amtrak service, and it lacks HEP and fixed markers - requirements for other Amtrak certified equipment to move freely around the system.

The NS excursion cars are not the same ones that operated on the NEC. That was the OCS, which probably has all the necessary parts to be Amtrak certified.

Posted from iPhone

There is something in the original Amtrak agreement that allows office car movements on the home road withou meeting the full 800,000 private car tarriff. I believe if you operate on Amtrak off your home road, full inspection applies. HEP has historically been waived on a limited case-by-case basis, but you must agree to hold Amtrak harmless if you need to be set out for operational reasons.

Regards

TL

Posted from iPhone

Some NS cars in their current fleet have been PC-1/PC-2 tested and Amtrak-certified, and some have not.  The ex-C&O coaches numbered in the 40-series they recently restored for steam excursions have not been Amtrak-certified (at least they weren't recently, that may change).  Most of the rest of the office car fleet has been. 

Here is a source:

http://www.altoonaworks.info/ocs.html

​Any of the cars with a number in the 800000 series either is, or was at some point, Amtrak-certified.

​Same case with most of the other large railroads:  many of their office/private cars are Amtrak-certitied, but some are not.

​Chris.

cars get the 800000 series number has no bearing weather they have been overhauled or not, some cars are allowed a shop move, one way one time, non rev i think

There are cars that were assigned 800000 series numbers in the 1980's that have never turned a wheel in Amtrak PV service, so presence of such a number - as Dan notes - is not necessarily an indicator of Amtrak Certification.

When I was still with the U.P. Heritage Fleet, part of my job was working with Amtrak's Manager of Private Car Standards and Compliance, Harold Weisinger and it was decided to assign us a solid block of 50 or so 800,000 numbers to assign at our leasure.   I don't recall if I assigned numbers to cars or not.   

As a host road we filed an annual PC1 inspection and a PC5 clearance diagram and were able to run whatever we wanted on Amtrak.  We ran on BNSF, NS and CSX owned lines as well as them running on ours.    

I wonder if the same inspector that inspected our cars and passed them is still around.  His name used to make PV  owners run for the hills.  We had our cars Amtrak certified, did the 40 year teardown on the trucks and runthrough lines.
I liked working with Harold, he was a class act.  I had him sit down on 1522 coming back from Hannibal one night and I thought we were going to have to use a scoop shovel to get him off the seat.   He did a good job of running. 

the whole ski train had numbers, none of the hawker sidney cars were amtrak approved thou

Frisco1522 Wrote:
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> I wonder if the same inspector that inspected our
> cars and passed them is still around.  His name
> used to make PV  owners run for the hills. 

Don, in those days only Harold Weisinger, Mike Ponicki, and maybe Pete Messina ( Pete was upgraded later maybe ) were qualified to do PC2 inspections.    Mike scared the bejesus out of most car owners.   Have your shit ready to go and he was great to work with.    This is a picture of a Amtrak training class I brought Harold and Mike in for at the old U.P. shops in Omaha.   This your man ?

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