Private railroad cars provide step back in time##### LISA CORNWELL###### Associated Press
CINCINNATI - Financial barons and wealthy socialites once traveled the country on luxurious private railroad cars, dining on fine china and crystal and pampered by stewards. Today’s travelers can recapture that romantic era with journeys on some of the same cars.
A relatively small number of train devotees have purchased and refurbished the private rail cars familiar in the first half of the 20th century - the golden age of passenger rail travel.
Passengers can sip cocktails and nibble on hors d’oeuvres while sinking into deep leather sofas in lounges paneled in rich mahogany and be lulled to sleep at night by the rhythm of train wheels rolling down the rails.
“I wasn’t a train buff, but I am now,” said Donna Cothron, who took a trip to Chicago and Michigan on the Cincinnati-based Oliver Hazard Perry sleeper-lounge with her husband, Edwin Cothron. “I could travel like this forever. It’s so relaxing.”
While the Cothrons’ car was chartered for their use only, the private-car train also included the Vista Dome sleeper-lounge topped with a glass dome providing a 360-degree view and the Birch Grove sleeper that accommodates 22 people.
The private single cars and multi-car trains normally travel Amtrak routes, hooked onto the back of Amtrak passenger trains as they wind through the Sierra Mountains or the Great Plains or into bustling metropolitan areas such as Chicago, New York and Washington.
Sometimes they go off Amtrak lines, hiring a freight engine to pull the cars along short-line railroads that are less traveled and offer a more leisurely pace and the opportunity to stop in small towns.
The Cothron’s car was part of a train that went to Chicago for shopping and sightseeing, then through picturesque Michigan towns such as Petoskey on the banks of Lak