Passenger Trains > Looking for status on Amtrak Heritage baggage car 1171

The ex-CZ / CBQ Silver Coyote.

Anyone have a recent sighting or condition report for this car? (Within the last 3 months)

Thank you.

Z

I don't believe it has been active in years. I'll see if I can find my Amtrak by the numbers to find an actual retirement date.

No doubt stored at Beech Grove. Still no recent word on Amtrak policy for disposing of the long lines of Heritage baggage cars, diners, and former 10-6 crew dorms retired and stored at Beech Grove.

An interesting note regarding the former CZ baggage cars owned by Amtrak. They still retained all the air brake valves and air reservoirs hanging from the ceiling inside the car as-built. Amtrak never relocated them under the floor to my knowledge. This odd arrangement provided maximum space under those cars for the huge water tanks that the cars were built with to supplement the steam generator water in the F units. These water tanks were apparently removed early on in the 1950's, as most photos I have seen do not show them in place under the cars.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/17 19:31 by Topfuel.

My fantasy is to see two Heritage diners relocated to a nice spot on Manhattan's High Line park, and used for a restaurant. There would be lines out the door all day. Chelsea residents also eat out a lot.

Note the car on No.4 at the west end of Chapelle, NM May 2003. Bob

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F40PHR231 Wrote:
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> Google Earth view of Beech Grove. Is the Phase III
> car in the second string from the bottom the one
> you're looking for? Wouldn't count on this imagery
> being from the last three months...

The configuration looks correct.

Thanks!

Z

Retired August 2006 as per Amtrak by the Numbers.

Posted from Android

I found a good roster shot from 2005 at La Junta, CO

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For some reason, I can not for the life of me remember why, the two bedrooms (that would be most directly in the middle of the car) had their windows "blanked out" when converted from Heritage Sleepers (revenue service) to Heritage Dorm/Lounge cars..... Does anyone recall?

Most of the cars had the "bedroom" side gutted when converted to Dorm cars, with just an open shell so to speak on this half of the car. The original plan was to put a "lounge" here for sleeper car passengers, but that never came to be. The 10 roomettes on the one side were largely retained for crew or Amtrak personnel/business travel.

Was it equipment or an additional bathroom/shower put where the two bedrooms were (windows blanked out in the process)????

It's done for even the two Heritage Sleeper cars brought back to life to be part of the business fleet - Pacific Cape and Pacific Command.

For the trains I was aboard that had a Heritage Dorm/Lounge the "bedroom" space had been gutted, and only a shell remained. I remember the space being used for sleeper passengers' baggage when there was a late connection coming in from the West Coast at Chicago. It was a tight connection and we couldn't use the regular baggage check service.

Some Heritage Dorm/Lounges - supposedly - did not totally have the bedroom area gutted.

I see about nine Heritage Dorm/Lounge cars in the photo. There are a few Heritage Diners. I was also surprised to find out a few years ago that Amtrak had held onto as many Heritage Crew/Dorms as they did. Some were sold to private car owners, while Amtrak did retain the balance as opposed to just scrapping them.

VIA may have been interested at one time, but they are down to just two main routes with overnight sleeper service - tri-weekly at best. The remaining Hudson Bay route is holding on by a thread, but for who knows how long..... Gone is the overnight train to Gaspe, the six day a week overnight route to Halifax (cut to tri-weekly), overnight service between Toronto and Montreal (or Quebec), and any overnight service to Prince Rupert (made into a tri-weekly day train). In the 1990s, VIA did buy four Amtrak Heritage sleepers to augment the Hudson Bay service, but they were sidelined more than they were in service due to the cold Canadian winters.

Good information.

Just a thought, wasn't the air valve in the ceiling for the non-CZ car "Argo" and "Olympus" in order to provide boiler and water storage space behind non-boiler equipped Shovel Nose 1800 HP power units like "Pegasus" and "Zephyrus" when used on trains like the non-articulated Silver Streak Zephyr and others? Not an expert on this, but such information comes to mind or recall from articles about these cars.

As for Pacific series crew dorms, here is photo on the internet from the former bedroom area of Pacific Waters. The single lights on the left represent the previous hallway area and the rows of small ceiling lights are above the former bedrooms.

Great photos on this thread!

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Correct, but there would be another two windows on the right side for the remaining two bedrooms right beyond the door. Not sure what was put within this space because the windows are also blanked out for it.

Nice picture, and this is what I refer to as the gutted "former bedroom" section, but it's also been refurbished or built out so that it could be used for storing bags. This is where the "lounge" was supposed to go. Not sure how much sense it would have made in the scheme of things. Likely would have needed a few more windows, or larger ones.....