I read in the WSJ that Metra is planning on discontinuing bar cars on three lines in 2007 or 2008. Are these bar cars sepearte from the regular bilevel fleet or just bar carts on the cars? I didn’t think there were any remaining single level cars in Metra service outside of the NICTD (South Shore).
Thanks for any information.
4-4-07 Update. I’ve gotten more responses on bar cars then anything else. Either my other posts are boring or railfans like to drink!
Hi - I believe all that’s left at this point are gallery cars that have the bar arrangements in the vestibule, and so the side doors are out of service (for passenger boarding) on these cars. Hope this helps! Art
Anyone remember the private car nearly always attached to the rear of the CN&W North Line commuter run out of Chicago to Waukegan…afternoon run…painted in company colors…someone told me it was leased by a group of Lake Forest businessmen…must have been a nice ride…hitched to the back of “gallery cars”…remember that term…? Slightly OT…Has anyone else seen the bilevels at IRM…restored to CN&W colors…in a word…wow. The job must have been done at Horicon. I’d love to see that set on a fan trip…perhaps thats one of the ideas behind it…
I remember the private cars on one of the Kenosha CNW commuter runs. As I recall, there were TWO of them coupled together . . .
They were regular-type cars on the rear of an otherwise bi-level train.
Ol’ Ed
I’ve been on several Metra lines and I have never seen a bar car. What lines did they use them on or do I need my eyes fixed.[X-)]
Hi - If I remember correctly, the last two cars being used were nos. 553 and 555. They were painted in Metra silver-gray with the dark brown stripe through the windows (no orange stripe, as they were only single-deckers). My recollection is that they usually ran at the head of the consist behind the locomotive.
Art
You are correct on both counts. However, only one of them is in use today (I do not know what happened to the other one).
The cars (back in 1992) were rather nice inside, with tables and chairs for playing cards, a fridge (locked) stocked with various spirits and soda. The yuppies inside would get all bent [|(] if you had to walk through their coach enroute to the locomotive, ESPECIALLY if you got grease or oil on their floor [oops].
Wallyworld is somewhat correct in that the cars were for the exclusive use of a group of businesssmen (no women allowed–really!) from Lake Forest AND Highland Park. The cars did not belong to them, but each club (each car had it’s own private “club”) had to pay the fare equivalent to a fully-loaded coach.
The train can be seen on the hill by the Kenosha depot evenings and weekends.
There are several Bar cars that leave north out of Union station Chicago.
The car is bilevel and the center doors are sealed.
I have to watch out for these drunks after they have several before the first stop.
They get off the train and rip through the parking lot and onto the road.
I made several complaints to the police and they turn a blind eye.
Just for the heck of it, I’d love to know which scoots carry the sauce. I’ve never seen a bar car on any Metra train, but then I’m only in Zone “B” with limited exposure to longer runs and other roads.
I agree with Wallyworld about the livery of the private, single-level car (or maybe cars plural, that I don’t remember). Back in the day, they were painted to harmonize w/the old C&NW paint scheme. Even if the C&NW owned the rolling stock, I was told more than once that those cars were private as to access – certainly it took more than a Metra ticket to ride there! The analogy was to a country club, the members being very picky about who got let in, above and beyond the (considerable, I’ve been told) money that membership cost over and above any regular fares.
It was kind of elitist, I guess, but there were reasons other than liquor why people were willing to take so much time and trouble for their own special car. I remember the special cars being at the end of the northbound (Highland Park) express train, which would put them closest to the bumper inbound at C&NW station. Apparently the seating was somewhat along the lines of pre-Metroliner parlor cars and very comfortable. (Of course, the subject at hand is literally “club cars,” but in this country that is or was sometimes used as a euphemism for a bar car.)
When I rode the old Super Continental route on VIA twenty-some years ago, coach passengers did not have access to the rear-end observation car. They were granted passage to and from the diner, but that was about it. Were similar American luxury trains post-World War II and pre-Amtrak subject to the same rules? Or was that just a Canadian thing?
I ride Metra on Milwaukee North Line (Fox Lake) every weekday. You can catch the bar car on outbound trains out of Union Station at 3:55pm, 4:40pm, 4:45pm, 5:12pm, 5:25pm, 5:30pm, and 5:50pm. They also have bar cars inbound but never open them in the mornings, but you can sit in them. The 4:40pm on Fridays has what is called “Blue Moon Friday” where everyone brings on a 6 pack of Blue Moon (at least part of a group). Good times. Can get kind of rowdy though.
Zardoz , do you recall the club cars on the CNW trains to Lake Geneva Wi. (or am I totally dating myself again … it wasn’t THAT long ago !!!)
On long-haul trains in both the United States and Canada, the dining car and lounge car generally marked the line of demarcation between coach and first class, with the coaches ahead of the diner. Consequently, on most trains the observation car was reserved for the first class passengers. Similarly, the full-length “Great Dome” on the pre-Amtrak Empire Builder was for first-class passengers only, coach passengers had their domes on that train.
The Silver Meteor came into existence as an all-coach streamliner, so the first-class cars (which were added later) were ahead of the diner and all passengers had access to the observation car. There may have been other trains with a similar arrangement.
Yes I do, but just barely. I do remember that the bar car was a converted bilevel coach, whose center doors were permanently closed. The car had a bartender, and served all sorts of beverages. The car was in the middle of the 11 (or12) car suburban train.
I never worked the Lake Geneva trains or the Williams Bay jobs), but I do remember the bar car on a train that originated either in Harvard or Richmond.
(and yes, Randy, you are once again dating yourself…as I just did…)
Historical Note: Service to Lake Geneva and Williams Bay was ended when the tracks were covered by the advancing glaciers from the last Ice Age.
Here is my two cents. I worked on the CNW in the 70’s. The “Club Run” started and ended the day in Kenosha. It was three old parlor type cars next to the engine. I only worked it once but I think they had a bar in one of the cars.
The other bar car I remember started out of Harvard. Had coffee and rolls in the AM and beer and booze in the PM. In the AM rush the train deadheaded up the north line up to Winetka I think for another run in to the city. Them were the good old days.
No doubt caused by Global Warming…[:-^]
I don’t recall three private cars, only two.
However, my memory is not as good as I remember it.
“Zardoz , do you recall the club cars on the CNW trains to Lake Geneva Wi. (or am I totally dating myself again … it wasn’t THAT long ago !!!)”
Along the Harvard Subdivision in the early 1970s the CNW fleeted two westbound weekday commuter trains equipped with single level bar cars.
The first one left the downtown Chicago station about 5:15pm and ran as a center track express all the way to the end of the commuter zone at Harvard, Illinois. This train did not operate interstate. The train would come slammin’ through downtown Barrington at about 6:02 raising quite a bit of dust at the Main Street and Hough Street crossings. Watching this streak of dark green and English Stagecoach Yellow was quite an amazing sight, really, because it was the only westbound commuter train that didn’t stop anywhere in town. The bar car on this train was cut-in right about the middle of the consist.
The second westbound schedule dispensing suds and proof spirits left 5-minutes later. This was the train I called “The Lake Geneva 400,” and it’s bar car was normally the fourth or fifth head car in the train. For years it had the highest passenger count of any train on the system with as many as 11 or 12 double deck gallery cars plus the bar car. At Clybourn the train stopped to pickup the last of its Chicago passengers and then ran non-stop for a dozen or so miles. At the first suburban stop, Arlington Heights, as many as 1,000 people stepped off (or in some cases were “poured off”) the train.
Each car was equipped with only one attendant, and he be the man what was pourin’ the booze.&nb
MTDX 7900? is a x-mta bi-level bar car it had signs on the outside of the doors something like Commuter club or commuter lounge all of the seats have peoples name mounted over them on each level.
The center entry is bolted/welded shut with a chest cooler and storage lockers above it on one side and the other side has a counter with a seat behind it and plugins in the walls