This past Saturday, caught this train with Amtrak power making a station stop here at Union Station KCMO. The train has what looks like plastic tarp covering all the cars. Kinda looks like a halloween “ghost” train. The only reporting marks to what the train could possibly be is a sign “Rail Cruise America” on one of the cars (see 6th photo). Sorry in advance on the quality on a couple of the photos. Hopefully you Amtrak and passenger gurus can shed some information on what this train actually is and where did it originate and terminate?
BTW…Passenger equipment on the right is for the KC Rails Expo this coming weekend here at Union Station
I’d do a google serach for Rail Cruise America. Looks to me like you saw a refurbished set of cars being delivered and covered with plastic at the rebuilder so the grafitti guys don’t mark them up before delivery to the customer.
It is a “train for hire” charter available for different functions. Prices are based on distance, number of people, and level of service desired. They also do dinner trains and seem to be based out of St. Louis.
Okay [:D]. Thanks for the link above. I do remember those F units at the St. Louis Union Station from a trip there a couple of years ago. Just didn’t connect the company name with the train.
That is a special insulated wrap that Amtrak is putting on all its cars to make the air conditioning and heat more efficient, sort of like the blankets people have on hot water heaters. Amtrak hired several wrap artists to design and install the product.
There will be a big article about this in Trains magazine next April. With the money Amtrak saves they hope to bring back several stored SDP40Fs into operation on high speed trains.
Dave Nelson
Actually, if you zoom in on the second to last photo (click on it), you can just make out the sign for Rail Cruise America on the left end of the car. I don’t know if that is delivery wrap, it looks more like custom reusable covers for each car.
For those interested in the facts, it is actually a piece of modern art called “The Moving Drawing of Jheon Soocheon.” RailCruise America was hired to charter the train.
Well, that answers my question about the passenger cars wearing “clothes”! The same train passed right by my house last week sometime, and I posted a similar question and didn’t get an answer. That’s pretty interesting…
You’re welcome on the info. I stumbled across this movement while looking up something else at the RailCruise America site. I went to catch it on the former-GM&O at Joliet. The white covers had already accumulated a fair amount of road dirt. Judging from the way they look at KC, they’ll be black by the time it gets to LA.
As for whether or not it’s “art”…well, that’s another debate.
