build any of the old streamliners (money wouldn’t be a problem [:D] ), steam or diesel.
Or maybe the money would go to any of the old PULLMAN heavyweight limiteds, which train would build?
I can’t decide myself becaus I like so many of the old REAL trains, it’s too many that I’d like to bring back to life, but I can tell you that the Milwaukee Road’s Hiawatha from 1935, 36 or 37 is on the list, of course with the an class A 4-4-2 and a spare F-7 4-6-4 up front.
Tough decision… guess i’d have to choose the later version of the california zephyr with 3 burlington route E-9’s on the nose…those dome obs cars are hard to beat…which makes it a class act on the nose, middle and end.
For old pullman heavyweight, I would say the Orange Blossom Special. Why? Just because it lived out its days as a classy heavyweight, which had in most cases become a contradiciton in terms by that time…yet she held on, proudly and bravely, as a classy heavyweight till the end. Now, if one went back few years before her demise when they were many classy heavyweights, she would not necessarily have stood out so much.
Mine would be neither steam nor diesel. It would be the PRR leg of the Champion. A set of matched stainless steel cars with purple letterboards and pulled by one of the silver GG1s. Even in the PC age it was still a class act.
…ride the post war 20th Century Limited. The NYC main was only about 15 miles from where I grew up, but I never got the chance to even see it. I know, obs “Sandy Creek” is kicking around on the American Orient Express, but it’s just not the same… MCFarrand
I’d love to ride the old Lehigh Valley “Black Diamond” of the late 30’s. Streamlined steam, Cornel Red Black and Sliver, … through the rolling hillis of Pa and NY, all the way from Buffalo to Newark Tower.
I’d choose the B&O’s “Cincinnatian” in the days of the streamlining of the 4-6-2’s before going to diesel and then the short life on Amtrak. In the photos I have found, it’s a beaty.
How about the Milwaukee’s nos. 5900 and 5901? Homebuilt streamlined motorcars, with a late 30’s ribside baggage-RPO-coach, the ones with streamlining and open vestibules? Or a Shops-built Skytop Lounge? Put all three together, only on the CMSt.P&P!
“Somewhere deep buried in the consciousness of every American there lies the image of a steam locomotive…” Unattributed quote from The Age of Steam, Beebe/Clegg 1957
Based on when I started liking trains(born in 57) in 67 I would love to ride in one of those 1st or 2nd generation diesels from EMD Geep 38,SD-40 something of that nature.Did get the chance to ride on the seaboard E-7 or E-8 before passenger service was drop.don’t hold me on the Loco but I do know it was a coverd wagon as you called it today.
It’s great to see that the Flying Yankee is getting restored! It will be incredible to see it run. I too would like to see the Pioneer Zephyr run. The one thing I would really like to see happen, though, is for a railroad museum/preservation group get those Zephyr cars that are in Saudi Arabia back to the US where they belong! Unfortunately with all the tensions in the Middle East it probably won’t happen. We can still dream, though!
I would go to a not-so-old streamliner, CNW’s Peninsula and Flambeau 400’s as re-equipped in 1958. They were the first HEP equipped trains and were a mix of new and rebuilt. The use of bi-level gallery coaches for a medium-haul train was imaginative and provided a lot of extra capacity.
The Peninsula 400 was also my first non-suburban train ride and it has stuck in my mind ever since.