For modeling purposes, I wonder how many railroads still ran heavyweights. I only rode a couple (besides tourist) during the early 60s on the PRR bet NY & Harrisburg. Now, I’m trying to decide whether any ran on the Santa Fe after 1960 but pre-Amtrak.
You may include comments of your own favorite RR.
Dave Vergun
Santa Fe had a number of heavyweight combines that remained in service on branchline trains until the trains were discontinued in the mid 1960’s. At least one of these cars, 2544, survived to be donated to a museum (Illinois Railway Museum).
L & N heavyweight diner 2726, “Galt House”, was in service on April 30, 1971. It was retained by the L & N for a few years; was sold for non-rail use, and eventually went to the Illinois Railway Museum.
Soo Line ran heavyweights until its trains were discontinued. Likewise Erie-Lackawanna.
David, funny you should mention this! Believe it or not, we just saw one attached to an AmTrak last week. It was a Santa Fe. I kid you NOT!! Just goes to show you that you can model just about anything and it will be PT.
Very cool looking, but odd to see it mixed with the Super Liners. They put it at the very end and it looked like people were having a ball! The train only stops here on Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays. So this Saturday, I’m going to try and get a picture if there’s one attached.
The Long Island ran heavyweights through the 1960’s on it’s name trains like The Cannonball. K-Line has done a very nice job of making these.
Jon [8D]
I think the simple answer is NO. The railroads that joined Amtrak turned over their most modern equipment at the time back on May 1st ,1971. Amtrak has since replaced most of their fleet twice over.
As for what Jack saw, that was most likely a private car in transit. People own their own cars, and some companies out there will rent them out and make all of the arrangements for travel. Generally, you can only go where Amtrak does, if you want to ride, unless your car is totally self contained with a generator. Freight trains have no electricity.
Amtraks only heavyweights were a few ex PRR Railway Post Office Cars that ran in Northeast corridor mail train service. Not sure how long they lasted but have seen pictures of these cars operating in Amtrak service as late as 1984.
BTW, last month, a heavyweight was hitched to the back of my VRE train on the way home. It was used, I believe, during the rail festival in manassas. Also, a 1923 heavyweight, the Dover Harbor, is sometimes pulled by Amtrack as far away as Calif & Fla (it’s in Maryland based).
There may be other private heavyweights thus used besides this one.
Naturally, tourist lines still use heavyweights but I’m not really discussing tourist lines here.
I have occasionally seen old passenger equipment coupled into freight trains, probably going to museums or hobby-type railroads.
The North Jersey Commuter Club had a “private” exPRR P70 coach tacked on to a NJDOT and later NJ Transit commuter train everyday well into the 1980’s. This train ran up the North Jersey Coast Line into NY Penn every weekday morning, sat in Sunnyside Yard and returned in the evening. This practice still continues today but with a (recently remanufactured) Comet IIm coach.
Dover Harbor is owned by the Washington D.C. Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. Thier web site is http://www.dcnrhs.org/
Enjoy
Paul
Most RRs ran heavyweight pax equipment in mainline service almost up until Amtrak. This was particularly true of bags and RPOs, but chair cars were not that uncommon either. C&S/FW&D had some silver-painted HW chair cars that ran on the TX Zephyr right up until the very last in the very late 1960’s, and they actually rode far better than the 1930’s era Budd stuff that they never maintained (ironic, huh??). Just goes to show you that those old battleships were like the Energizer bunny. ATSF pulled out the HW’s during rush periods and for specials, particularly on 23-24, where you would see an occasional HW chair car. L&N had a bunch, and the MoP would occasionally throw in a turtle back CC. Of course almost all of the IC stuff was modernized HW–rebuilt at their own shops–don’t let the low profile roofs fool you, look at the trucks. The very last diner to serve a meal on the Katy, in 1964, was a HW, and it’s now in the Age of Steam museum at Dallas, where it is still rolling along serving meals. That last Katy train south of Dallas, by the way, departed Dallas SB with a 600-series HW steel open-window (NO A/C!) coach along with the diner in the consist. These are just a few examples. There are lots of others.
After 5/1/71, the only HW you saw in line haul service, except for the NEC RPOs mentioned above, was PV. Lot of that is gone now with the FRA/Amtrak requirement for tight lock couplers and roller bearings. Most of the old stuff had friction bearings and many of the cars did not have tight lock couplers, so they cannot be pulled by a line haul pax train.