Passenger Trains > Missouri River Runner at Washington, MO

Yesterday, we traveled out to Washington, MO to see the arrival of the Missouri River Runner # 318 from Kansas City to St Louis and then on to Chicago. It arrived 11 minutes late at 1:14 pm.The Venture coaches were: 4211 - Business Class, 4106, 4016 and 4112 - Coach Class, 4301 - Café Car along with two baggage cars – 61055 and 61063.

We enjoy going to Washington to have some coffee at a nice little coffee shop across from the station. The station has a waiting area but is unstaffed. It also houses Washington’s Visitors Center. We can usually catch a Union Pacific freight either before or after the Amtrak.

At home we have an n scale Bachmann SC-44 Amtrak Midwest Charger #4623 and four Venture coaches, one is the #4016. We have seen the #4623 on the St Louis railcam. Maybe we will get a picture of it live in Washington someday. 

Thanks for looking,

Marti and Hubert

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A couple more of the area surrounding the station.

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Here's Amtrak's "Ann Rutledge" passing the depot at Washington MO.  Slide mount says JUN 80.  I don't believe Washington was a scheduled stop for this train at that time.

mike woodruff
anacortes wa

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That  is  a  neat  town. Thanks  for  the  coverage.

In the first pic, are there two baggage cars on this train? 

symph1 Wrote:
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> In the first pic, are there two baggage cars on
> this train? 

After all these years, Amtrak still having to waste valuable rolling stock due to axle count/signal activation issues on the St. Louis-Chicago portion?

cutboy1958 - Thanks for the old picture.  We were not in this area in 1980, but nice to see the changes.  

symph1 - Yes, there were two baggage cars.  Have noticed that more than once here lately.  We also see them on the Lincoln Service, the continuation of this train to Chicago.  Amtrak's app does not indicate any baggage service on this train.  Wondering if they have picked up some revenue freight on this route.

Enjoyable set of photos and story , thanks for sharing them with us !!

Has your N-scale SC-44 ever made it all the way around your layout? 

The baggage cars are stricly for signal activation required by I believe CN, they require all the new train sets in Canada to slow for all grade crossings because they have too few axles and are fixed sets, they cannot drag empty cars around to activate signals. Funny no other railroad has that issue. 
Gonut

Gonut1 Wrote:
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> The baggage cars are stricly for signal activation
> required by I believe CN, they require all the new
> train sets in Canada to slow for all grade
> crossings because they have too few axles and are
> fixed sets, they cannot drag empty cars around to
> activate signals. Funny no other railroad has that
> issue. 
> Gonut

Too long of a problem with no solution. It's crazy and a complete waste of passenger car asset utilization. We were promised a solution - at this point - YEARS ago........ And it still continues. I am sure this train doesn't need this many cars, at all. They are ONLY needed (especially both baggage cars) for axle count cars. Ridiculous that this continues with no solution and other trains needing capacity go without (e.g. Hiawatha). 

Actually, BNSF and UP have axle count rules in places, though they vary, and a few don't matter because the trains need to be the required length anyway.  Even on CN, they seem to vary from route to route as far as train lengths are concerned. It's just too bad it's having to take forever to get this worked out.  

The extra baggage/axle count cars are for some grade crossing issues on the St. Louis - Kansas City leg.