When were the last heavyweight cars retired from revenue service? '60s? When Amtrak was formed?
Will,
When Amtrak started, there were still some HW passenger cars in use. Amtrak did not buy any of them from the railroads. I do remember the following in use in the Mpls/St Paul area just before the Amtrak startup:
Milw - Modernized baggage/express cars
GN - Modernized baggage/express & luxury coaches
NP - Modernized baggage/express cars
CB&Q - HW coaches(still in Pullman Green)
The BN merger was a little over a year old then, and passenger ‘train offs’ were happening at a rapid pace Even the luxury coaches on the Badger/Gopher train were being replaced with used ex-C&NW and ex-UP streamlined coaches.
Jim
The luxury coaches Jim is speaking of (GN 938-949) were built in 1937 by Pullman. While they were technically heavyweights, they had a lightweight-style profile. They were built for the Empire Builder. Six or seven (depending on source) made it to the BN merger. BN didn’t give them BN numbers; they were sent to work service in 1970 (same year as merger). I’ve always been fond of them. You don’t see too many “lightweights” with six wheel trucks and rivets all over the sides.
SP&S also contributed some heavyweight cars to BN (head end and coaches). And I’ll quote from the caption below a picture on page 39 of Wagner’s 1972 BN Annual: “Gems of an earlier era, the daily except Sunday SP&S Oregon Trunk mixed trains between Wishram, Wash. and Bend, Ore. survived until the advent of Amtrak. The two classic heavyweight combines used on this run, SP&S 272-273, were even assigned BN numbers but never actually received them.” The last heavyweight SP&S diner was #404–it was assigned to work service on June 16, 1966. “Mount Adams” was the last SP&S heavyweight sleeper to operate on the SP&S, being dismantled in early 1963. For both of these latter cars, I don’t know the last time they were actually operated.
So, BN actually operated heavyweight passenger carrying cars in regular service right up to Amtrak!!!
Ed
Heavyweights can still be seen on tourist railroads such as the Napa Valley wine train and on operating museum railroads such as Niles Canyon (got all-day-lunch car?) Those railroads charge fees so I consider them in revenue service. Also, I believe there are still a few heavyweight private cars still in operation which pay high haulage fees when operated.
Mark
It wasn’t unusual when a railroad bought lightweight passenger cars in the 30’s-50’s to save money by continuing to use older heavyweight head-end cars like RPOs and Baggage cars, rather than buy streamlined ones. Normally they would be repainted into the streamliner colors, but not always. HW coaches and other cars still in use had often been rebuilt, sometimes with new roofs so that they looked at first glance like streamlined cars. CP went so far as to add stainless steel fluting to some rebuilt heavyweight cars for use on The Canadian. You might still find HW coaches on commuter trains.