Nostalgia & History > Ex-NYC Wingate Brook in New Orleans

April 77
Less than ten years after bringing up the rear of the last westbound NYC 20th Century Limited, the Wingate Brook is stored in New Orleans.
A 5 double-bedroom buffet lounge observation car, it was built by Budd in 1949 for the New York-St.Louis Southwestern Limited.
Judge Roy Hofheinz (of Astrodome fame) purchased the car in 1968 and along with other cars stored them in the Houston area.
He sold it to Amtrak in 1972.

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In Oct 86 I saw the car again, this time in Milwaukee.
It's still around but I don't know where - someone will know.

Gary

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Interesting set. How sad to see the back windows covered over in Amtrak service.
Bob

Interesting how the car got a second lease on life.
Hope it is at least still around.  
Thanks for your interesting post.
ALLEN

refarkas Wrote:
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> Interesting set. How sad to see the back windows
> covered over in Amtrak service.
> Bob

They weren't covered over.  That's just good old GE Lexan doing what it does after a few short years. 

When we rode the Chief, back in the the mid to late 70s, it was used as the sacrificial buffer car between the train and the Amtrak SDP40F locomotives.

SamRae Wrote:
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> When we rode the Chief, back in the the mid to
> late 70s, it was used as the sacrificial buffer
> car between the train and the Amtrak SDP40F
> locomotives.

​Best use for it. A good friend who rode the Century often enough to be familiar with most of the Brook series cars claimed it had the worst ride of them all, especially at speed. This same sentiment was echoed by a former NYC barman who had spent many a night on it as well.
—Mac

MacBeau Wrote:
>
> ​Best use for it. A good friend who rode the
> Century often enough to be familiar with most of
> the Brook series cars claimed it had the worst
> ride of them all, especially at speed. This same
> sentiment was echoed by a former NYC barman who
> had spent many a night on it as well.

> Mac

I wonder if they had the same complaint about the Creek-series cars, or just the Brooks.  If so, there must have been a difference in the way the trucks were sprung on the Brooks compared to the Creek cars. 

It is still around, passed though the hands of a number of owners, it is mostly rebuilt, including different trucks.

This car was operated until Amtrak retired the steam-heated obs cars, about 1979.  At some point after it was vandalized, thus the photo at Avalon Railcar above with the windows boarded up.  It was passed among several owners over the years, and had many stop/start restoration projects done to it.  I think it was among the dozens of cars purchased/optioned/contracted or whatever by IPH over the years - thus Ozark Railcar now has it posted for sale.