BN’s stint as a passenger operator was very brief but did lead to some interesting consists!
Has anyone ever written a book that covers BN’s passenger days? I know there is a Morning Sun title about BN freight equipment and passenger cars but it’s qiute expensive and when I thumbed through it, only about eight pages were devoted to passenger equipment.
If there is not any books on the subject, I’m surprised a railfan author hasn’t taken this subject up. I might have to!
Surprisingly in the just over a year that BN operated Passenger trains very little changed. There was a numbering system put together similar to SCL that coach numbers corresponded to seating capacity but few car received the BN numbers. The accounting department referred to cross reference sheets. The former GN cars remaoined on the GN the former NP cars remained on the NP trains and the CB&Q cars remained on the CB&Q. Power was a little different CB&Q E units ran from Chicago to Havre on the GN Empire Builder and Western Star. One or Two ex CB&Q E units were assigned to Interbay in Seattle for powering the Internationals. But little changed. Not one complete trains set was repainted in Cascade Green. If I can be of any more help please let me know.
BN actually issued two system timetables in the period from March 2, 1970 to April 30, 1971. Not too much changed in that period although it did give a good overview of the aftermath of the discontinuance of the California Zephyr on the WP.
Passengerfan
Did BN drop any passenger trains after the merger or did they carry on all of its predeccessor’s trains (except those I presume, that were already under ICC consideration for discontinuance)?
I may be mistaken but in the short period of time that the BN operated their passenger trains the AK-SAR-BEN ZEPHYR was discontinued as was the BLACKHAWK. The MAINSTREETER was cut back to a St. Paul - Seattle train and one INTERNATIONAL was discontinued leaving just one round trip daily on this route. I’m trying this from memory Guess I’m to lazy to look it up as I have all of the reference materials somewhere in my storeroom. But finding them is another matter.
Note that even prior to the merger, there was a lot of interlining of passenger equipment on these three railroads. The NP and CB&Q slumbercoaches were pooled. This meant that you could find an NP slumbercoach on the Denver Zephyr and even its through operation to Colorado Springs on the combined Colorado Southern, Sante Fe, D&RGW joint-line train, and a CB&Q slumbercoach through to Seattle. The CB&Q was very carefull to keep the DZ (and the CZ) all stainless steel, but the NP had to put up with one silver car, the slumbercoach, in its two tone green North Coast Limited. For some time the afternoon Twin Cities Zephyr was combined with the through equipment of both the North Coast Limited and the Empire Builder and this train had quite a bit of color mixture, especially during the time when the GN was converting from orange and green to sky blue and white.
When was the Kansas City Zephyr discontinued, before or after the merger? As I remember, it wasn’t discontinued completely, just cut back and combined east of Galesburg with one of the two Omaha trains, and later with “California Service” Salt Lake City train that was the 3-times-a-week (west of Omaha) replacement for the CZ when the Western Pacific dropped out.
All passenger trains operating when Amtrak started are listed here;
www.trains.com/Content/Dynamic/Articles/000/000/001/138fddcg.asp
In the Chicago Odyssey video by Green Frog, one change may be the combined Empire Builder/NorthCoast Limited/Morning Zephyr running as 1 train between Chicago & St Paul. May have saved 1-2 E units instead of running 3 separate trains.? There also is a view of a few coaches in the new “hockey stick” scheme. Ths may also be the start of the 25 green units that went into suburban service on the “racetrack”.