Passenger Trains > Beech Grove & another private car on rear of 29

My parents are riding 29 into Chicago, which they report as stuck behind a stalled NS freight and waiting to cross over somewhere near Porter, IN. Up until this point, the train was estimated to have an on-time arrival into Chicago. Curiously, my Dad says Beech Grove is on the rear, maybe even with Boardman in it? He also mentioned there is another perhaps private car, but he is not sure what it is. I hoping that the possible presence of the president is enough to get that train moving again!

I took 29 from Cleveland, Ohio to Chicago Saturday. We were doing great too until we got past our last station stop, which is south bend, Indiana.

Adjacent to Beech Grove may be an ex-10-6 Heritage Sleeper that Amtrak has renovated and used as part of its business fleet. There are two of these ex-10-6 Heritage Sleepers that got renovated and currently in Amtrak's business fleet. They last assigment was as crew cars for the crew of single level overnight long distance trains. Amtrak retired all of them citing the "cost involved" to maintain them. But I think this was more of a all out front to get the Heritage Crew Cars off the consists. So now the crew gets to take up precious Viewliner revenue space, which ultimately makes riding a Viewliner sleeper more expensive due to less capacity and more demand (or the same demand). They've "talked" about bringing some of these ex-10-6 Heritage Sleepers out of storage and back on the road, but that is still in "study phase." Amtrak would be so wise to do such.

Most of the private cars you see are of the "heritage" vintage or older. I've ridden a number of these; retrofitted with retention toilets,showers, etc. With proper maintenance those old Budd cars will outlast anything Amtrak is running. The Viewliner space problem is compounded since each crew member gets his/her own private room (no doubling up).

I wonder if 100002 was along-the Corridor clipper.