Open Platform Observation Cars

Classic Trains General Discussion
1

When I was growing up I loved poring over Lucius Beebe’s books with their pictures of the heavyweight observation cars complete with a few chairs and an awning to keep platform occupants in shade. I yearned to ride the heavyweight Century up the Hudson while sipping a coke on the rear platform and watching the rails recede. Today, I suspect the reality of riding the platform in the steam era might not have been quite so glamorous with the inevitable shower of cinders and ballast dust.

Anybody here have a chance to ride the platform? Enjoyable or no?

–Reed

2

Most of my open-platform observation car riding was as a guest (paying my share of the expenses) of Richard Horstmann in car 353 (genrally I was in a lower birth in a companion heavyweight Privately owned sleeper, but sometimes I shared a room in the 353.) These included a one-way Grand Central to Boston trip, Penn Station to Hyannis and back, Seattle to New York Penn via Salt Lake City and Chicago, NY Penn to Bay Head Junction and back, Penn Station to Pittsburgh and back (my first trip on 353), Grand Central to Montreal and back on the back of Amtrak’s Adorondak, NYPenn to Williamsburgh and back (twice I think) and to the Greenbriar Hotel and back. All were terrific trips. None were behind steam, so there was no problem of soot on the back platform, and yes drinks were served, until the unfortunate Penn Station event of an inebriate couple on top of another owner’s private car under catenary, and after that Dick ordered that only soft drinks could be had on the open back platform. This car is now owned by the Park Service and is well maintained at Steamtown and is available for charter, and it is Amtrak compatible. One interurban regularly ran open platform cars after WWII, and that was the Waterloo Ceder Falls and NOrthern. I spent a day with Bill Watson and Ray DeGroot in the summer on 1952 riding Waterloo-Ceder Rapids and back and Waterloo-Waverly and back. No drinks were served but it was wonderful day. Steam experiences were with the Chcicago Railroad Club and Maurie KLeibolt’s Chief Illini, mostly behind Burlington 4-8-4 O-5 5632. Drinks were served. Pure pleasure and one could use the shower in the car to remove the soot before going to sleep. MY first trip with Maurie to Colorado and back, Russ Jackson was with me, were both assigned roomettes in a leased New Haven sleeper, but we were able to use the Chief’s facilities. And on the last tr

3

Thanks for that Dave. Sounds like you had some wonderful experiences on private cars in addition to all of your travels on the great trains. I’m quite envious!

–Reed

4

In September 1977, I rode Amtrak’s “Empire Builder” from Seattle to Chicago. I had a roomette in a standard 10+6 sleeper, and the train had the then usual full length dome as the lounge car.

Clearly this isn’t going to come close to Dave’s experience, but the trailing car was a dome sleeper. It was ex GN or NP and had a buffet compartment under the dome, replacing some sleeping compartments in the original design. However, this was Amtrak, so the buffet was shut. However, the vestibule on this car was trailing and with the upper dutch doors open and only a chain across the diaphragm opening, much of the atmosphere of an open platform was present.

Those who can might recall that in 1977, Amtrak was returning their SDP40Fs to EMD for rebuild into F40PH units which were more suitable for passenger service. Anyway, my “Empire Builder” had four SDP40Fs, two being returned to Chicago for rebuild.

They were all operating, and this was quite a fast trip. I timed a number of mile posts standing on the rear vestibule and we were generally making 80 MPH as far as I could tell, I guess this was really 79 MPH since there was no in cab signalling.

The train was steam heated (all that the SDP40F could provide) so as well as the expected road dust, there was mist of condensed water that helped the dust to stick to you.

Still, it was exciting watching Montana disappear away from you at 80 MPH and I was probably there for an hour or so, since it was a fine, warm day.

However, the view from the air conditioned dome beckoned, and since this was a sleeping car, only four or five first class passengers were there and the atmosphere was more appealing than the crowded main lounge car, where people were smoking.

One passenger had a radio tuned to a local country music station, and I could sit there watching the procession of grain elevators and their sm

5

I’ve never rode on an open platform observation car, but I have many times ridden the rear vestibule of a coach or sleeper, and no one mentioned one of the less aesthetic features of such travel. A speeding train creates a vacuum behind it, which is filled by the dust and condensed steam (which someone did mention) and when someone flushed the toilet back in the days when waste was dumped directly onto the roadbed, you’d know when that happened if you were riding on the open vestibule.

6

Being born in 1962, I never had a chance to ride the heavyweight passenger trains of the past(unless you count the heavyweight coach on the Georgia RR Macon mixed) or the railroad owned streamliners for that matter(ditto the Georgia RR super mixed).

However I did ride a large number of the Southern Railway steam trips with Lookout Mountain, the excursion version of the open platform observation car, bringing up the rear. With all the side windows removed, I don’t know how accurate a representation of the glory days’ experience of riding an open platform it was, but there were cinder issues. More an annoyance than a total distraction, sort of like ants at a picnic.

Jay

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For my 12th birthday my dad asked me what I wanted, I surprised him by saying I wanted to ride the Cascadian from Seattle to Spokane and return on overnight sleeper from Spokane to Seattle on the Empire Builder.

I was lucky they substituded a heavyweight cafe observation for the trains regulsr car that saturday and it had an open platform. It was April but I didn’t care I was dressed warmly and the crew figured if some kid wants to freeze riding outside OK with them. The only time they made me come in was when the train went through the Cascade tunnel. I arrived in Spokane only 1/2 frozen and was meant by a GN station agent who baby sat me for dinner and put me on the waiting sleeper at 9;00 PM. I don’t even remember the sleeper being coupled to the EB or anything else as I was fast asleep until the porter woke me saying Seattle 15 minutes. I dressed and left the train at King St. looking half asleep and dad was waiting. I could never convince him it was the best birthday present I ever had.

Al - in - Stockton

8

i’ve only ridden one open-platform observation car in regular service, on the Rock Island from Des Moines to Chicago, and as i was only 13 yrs old Mom only let me out on the platform briefly. however i’ve ridden several more on fan trips, some steam-powered (oil burners, thank goodness). i hold the possibly unique experience of having ridden the entire Western Pacific mainline, Oakland Mole to Salt Lake City, on the open platform of an open platform observation car! (not all on one trip, and with rest-room breaks, and one train had three open platform obs’, two running backward.) the “baddest” was on the Espee, where the excursion train wasn’t turned, only the locomotive, and on the return leg from Sacramento to Oakland mole, 2-8-0 #2728 was coupled to the observation platform! it was a long heavyweight train and that 45 year old Consolidation really had to struggle to get up to 60 MPH after each station stop - but it did, with me on the platform facing forward right behind the tender! -big duke/arturo

9

I rode a couple of “private varnish” open platforms in the 1960s and found the experience quite enjoyable, although on the first trip I remember feeling some light mist. A fellow passenger urged me to keep my mouth closed as he said someone had just flushed a toilet in a car ahead. He was serious too! The best trip was on Bill Kratville’s Cornhusker Club to Ogden, Utah, in 1969 for the Golden Spike Centennial, especially the long day west across Nebraska on the rear of UP No. 5. I can see the dangers though from dust, dirt, sudden stops, etc. After all, they would chase passengers inside from vestibules if the top of the Dutch door was open. I wonder in later years if they kept passengers off the open platform. I recall reading someone’s experience riding the Wabash, which had the last open platforms in regular service, toward the end. The brakeman let him ride outside only at slow speeds.

10

In 1942 (or maybe '43) I rode the Southland together with my aunt from Tampa to Gary, IN in an open section Pullman (she had the lower berth and I got the upper). Somewhere between Atlanta and Knoxville we rode in the observation car for several hours. After much pleading on my part she agreed to let me ride the open platform with her but only briefly because it was mid-winter and pretty chilly out there. I remember it being windy and we got an occasional waft of smoke but no soot or cinders as the double headed locomtives were many cars ahead of us. I would have liked to have ridden the open platform longer but it was too cold for her and since I was only 10 years old she insisted I return to the inside of the car with her.

Mark

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July 24, 2010, the annual “Denver Post Cheyenne Frontier Days Special” ran with UPP 103 “Cheyenne,” an open platform observation, bringing up the markers. Although some years the Union Pacific Railroad has used that car to entertain its own guests, it appears that this year it was open to the general public, but specifically to holders of first class tickets.

In mid July, just a couple of weeks ago, all three sections of the Silverton Mixed carried open-platform bar cars on the rear end. “Lucious Lucius” would have approved of the tariff restrictions placed on that equipment: the cars were off-limits to passengers under the age of 21. Inspecting track and watching the spectacular Colorado scenery roll by with a well-iced glass of Jack Daniels at hand was an unforgettable experience!

12

Thus recreating the experience I had on the Nomad in 1962. Only it was Vodka Collinses for me instead of Jack Daniels.

But even as a teenager I had the experience of open-platform rear-end riding, and possibly Chicago area fans were able to enjoy the pleasure even longer. IN 1945, after Bar Mitzvah, by parents decided (mostly Mom, I think, possibly with the influence of my two much-older sisters) that my social skills needed to include formal dancing. I didn’t object too much since it involved more subway or elevated or streetcar riding. I would dutifully board a southbound BB Sixth Avenue local after leaving Columbia Grammer prep and get off at 42n and 6th and walk over to Madison to the Arthur Murray dance studio. I quickly learned that one very pleasant way home was to walk to just west of 5th Avenue on 42nd and wait for the inspector there to short-turn a Broadway-42nd Street huffliner (double-end home-built 1936-1937 Peter Witt lightweight car) and I could not only board and find a seat for the northbound run to 86th and Broadway, but even sit in the rear motorman’s seat looking backwards, since the car reversal move had be accomplished as quicly as possible to avoid delay to other streetcars on the eastbound 42nd St trackm thus no time to fold the seat against the wall to the left of the contoller, and I could enjoy a streetcar solarium ride through the Broadway auto dealer neighborhood, Columbus Circle, etc. But sometimes I had to wait a long time before Dad and Mom returned from Dad’s downtown medical office. So one day I walked over to Third Avenue, to put the time to good use doing some elevated fan-tripping. And low and behold on the upper level of the 42nd Street “hump station” (northbound and southbound platforms for the center express track over the respective northbound and southbound local tracks) coming into the station was the seven-car train of “gate cars”, which I had thought were only

13

I never had the opportunity to ride in a private open end car, But I did get to ride one on the Napa Valley Wine Train a few years ago. Part of the time we were at the rear of the train and when we headed back, the engine was right behind the platform. A little diesel smoke didn’t drive me inside.

We also had a train that ran for a few years out of St. Louis renovated Union Station. It was owned by Rail Cruise America and always pulled an observation car. I’d spend as much time as I could standing outside. But this train was sold to KCS and the equipment is now used on the business train.

Sometimes I’ve been in the last car on Amtrak and stand by the rear door and watch the landscape flying by.

I’m glad I had the opportunity to ride on some observation cars, even if they weren’t private, the experience was the same just without the fancy amenities.

14

Reed My wife and I went on one of George Pins’ trips from Penn Station to Vancouver B C. The premier car of three on the trip was Pennsylvania’s car 120 . We left Penn Station at night and the view from the rear open platform on the Hell Gate bridge over to Manhatten was something I have never forgotten. We spent about 14 days on this memorable trip with many miles on the open platform and dining aboard the 120. Gerry

15

The high point of my rail experience was, in fact, riding the back platform of car 120 when George Pins owned it, having the chance to talk to Raymond Loewy on the trip when repainted 4935 had her debut. (There is actually a picture of me in Trains on that back platform!)

It was a marvelous place to be, but I confess I always felt a bit guilty at being in a place that someone else should have their ‘turn’ in. On the other hand, those were the years where you could open the top half of a Dutch door on clockers and other Corridor trains and take in the changing light, sounds, and smells of high-speed traffic in that part of the world, looking forward at what was coming. Strangely, in the many times I did this, I never had a trainman tell me to close the door or stay out of the vestibule.

The ‘next best thing’ to this was a kind of poor-man’s observation: some of the Silverliners between New York and Trenton had little fold-down “seats”, a bit like a wooden ironing board, in the vestibule for the ‘motorman’ to use, and even when the train was packed full with standees you could get to the extreme rear of the train … and have a full set of windows to the sides and rear, together with a speedometer to show you how far over 100mph your local train would get. This vantage in a heavy thunderstorm was not to be missed, including watching lightning hit the cat a mile or so behind the train.

16

Those are some terrific experiences RME-you are a lucky fellow and nice to know there are some people yet who keep their eyes open and are aware of an experience and can appreciate that.

17

When I lived in New Jersey in the late 1970s there still was an open end observation car used on one of the commuter trains on the old CNJ. On one of my days off I rode into Newark in the late afternoon and rode the observation back home. There were three others on the platform, each was drining from a bottle in a plain brown bag. The trip was nice, but cold and dusty.

18

I think the smoke and soot wouldn’t be as bad as you might think. The car body shielded the smoke and soot blowing back over the train, so the soot would be going around you rather than on you. You’d probably get much dirtier sticking your head out a window of a moving train.

19

Yes, and you had the whole leingth of the train between you and the locomotive. I never found it a problem. Even the john-discharge is an over-rated problem, except that Maurie Kleibolt did encorage use of johns farther forward when the rear platform of Chief Illini was occupied.

One open platform experience I can mention now, was that on the Newfie Bullet both ways. The CN put an NG business car at the rear both ways for Maurie to use a room and the rest of us to use as a lounge car. A great way to learn the Newfondland scenery. We used the International Limited from Chicago, a regular day train between Toronto and Montreal, and the Ocean Limited to and from North Sidney.

And low and behold I was able to make a correction to a sound system I had designed at the St. Johs, Newfoundland, Performing Arts Center after attending a rehearsal.

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Dave K.- What year was that trip? …so I can get a sense of motive power and the train consists .

You can still ride all those trains, some with those names,except the narrow gauge Newfie Bullet because they stupidly tore up all the track in Newfoundland. You may have to get yourself across the border in Sarnia/Port Huron or Windsor/Detroit.