Milwaukee Road Super Dome

Trains Magazine Passenger
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Some nice shots there, fun to see a passenger Joe pulling the train through the mountains of Montana. Also prompted some vague memories of riding the Olympian Hiawatha in 1957.

On the other hand, the Super Domes were representative of some of the excesses of the 1950’s, such as Virgil Exner’s autos.

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There’s nothing really ‘excess’ about the idea of a Superdome in the context of even early-Fifties passenger competition. I confess I thought of them as a larger-windowed version of the ATSF high-level coach idea. One could certainly argue whether it was worth it to need three-axle trucks on a “lightweight” car, and I have to wonder how cost-effective… or capable, in hot bright weather… 16 tons of air conditioning capacity would be with all that glass.

I might add that I’m a high myope, and don’t enjoy what reflections from the inside of those big curved panels do – you can see how bad they were in some of the frames of the film. As previously mentioned you can see the lack of any attempt to provide a ‘cockpit’ view forward; even though there are windows there is a visible curve of the roof of the vestibule ends and there is no seating or even a platform where a small kid or whoever might get to see a forward view. We hear the Milwaukee’s opinion of the ‘step up or don’t step up’ to some seating: they note as a ‘feature’ that the seats are at floor level, and the armrests are about level with the depressed beltline at the bottom of the windows.

I think these things have remained iconic with railfans, on a level with the Skytops, to the point I can’t imagine scrapping one instead of selling it as a private car, to someone with a tourist ‘opportunity’ or lots of money to burn – more than the usual PV owner! (George Pins told me it cost more than 1.5 million a year to maintain and run car 120 in the mid-Seventies, and dollars went a lot further then!)

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The Espee domes had some similarities to the Super Domes, with glass over almost all of the body and limited forward visibility. The Espee domes had a lower height so there was no seating under the high level seats, but did have a bar/lounge section with the floor at standard height for a cathedral ceiling effect. Ride on the Espee domes was fairly pleasant, with the higher center of gravity smoothing out the lateral shocks.

I do like the forward view from a standard dome.

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VIA Rail Canada is attempting to bring back Vista Domes in it’s latest RFP for the Canadian train. We’ll see what they end up with. I don’t know how you can get a Vista Dome with todays standards but maybe they will get a waiver on those if needed.

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I think most of the concern with a modern Vista Dome is going to be the cost of the formed glass (to modern expected standards) and the safety equipment to be associated with riding in a high-level glazed dome without the equivalent of five-point harnesses for passengers. I would make it with as many flat panes as possible, and in modern multiple-layer low-E glass (even if that means a permanent blue tint…)

When I looked at this last, the proposed method for surviving a typical ‘wreck’ involved the equivalent of many ‘roof’ side-protection air bags, with persistent pressurization to suit the protracted shock in a ‘typically expected’ derailment accident, installed in all the muntins and spandrels between the dome windows and in the roof framing.

Some of the glazing has to survive thermobaric strike, but some of it has to be easily disengaged and ejected by untrained passengers for emergency egress…

'Tain’t inexpensive.

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Incidentally, note the improvements in Amtrak service listed in this recent story (by a non-railfan) and note some parallels between her perception of the Superliner ‘observation car’ and the experience from a Superdome.

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I have spent many a night in a Superliner economy room. I would not call it comfortable. I call it bearable. If you have to get up in the middle of the night to pee, it helps to be a gymnast. Putting on a robe and slippers before finding your way to the toilet is challenging, especially if you are an oldster like me.

I have taken the pledge. I will not travel on an overnight train. As a last resort, should I fall off the wagon, I will with tears in my eyes open my wallet, wait for the moths to escape, and spring for a bedroom.

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It might be related to internal fire reduction regulations but Amtrak is blowing it with their seating. Seating in the SightSeer Lounge could be more comfortable and flexible. I only rode the modified Milwaukee Road Super Dome in service via Friends of 261 group about 4 or 5 years ago. Very nice with an upper refreshment area. Table seats were very comfortable and the car rode really well. Sightseer lounge seats are fixed in place and in some cases the legroom is pretty crampt. Lower cafe level seats are pretty bad in my view.

Have not heard positive comments about the Venture cars, though I think in their case again it is the flammable material regulations that are ruining the seats.