I have been reading the book "Prime Rib and Boxcars: Whatever Happened to Victoria Station?" (which is a very recommended read) by Tom Blake and I have a few questions.

1. Did any of the railroad equipment survive? I am aware of old Victoria Station buildings still with rail cars in Birmingham, Alabama, Richmond, Virginia, and Oakland, California, and possibly Maumee, Ohio, but do anymore exist?
(The VS Wikipedia page also mentions a caboose being preserved from the location in Portland).

2. Also, it is mentioned that Victoria Station purchased some British passenger cars (including the famous observation car Solarium) from the ill-fated Flying Scotsman operation in San Francisco. Some of these cars were used in the Universal Studios VS restaurant. Do any of these survive?

The Victoria Station in Seattle became a Chinese restaurant after it closed. To the best of my knowledge all of the cars were scrapped. 20 years ago the site was a parking lot.

I can't off the top of my head verify that the three Pullmans used on 4472's North American romp actually ended up at a VS, but I can verify that Kitchen First Class Car Lydia is now at the West Somerset Railway owned by a private individual; guard Parlour First Isle of Thanet is at the old Steamtown Carnforth site under private ownership; and "Devon Belle" observation Car No. 14 is now at the Swanage Railway.

The other cars I don't know about and don't think were repatriated--these were likely VS fodder if anything:

British Railways Standard BCK No. E21177, crew/administration coach.
Ex LNER Steel brake E104E converted to a reception car.
Ex LNER wood sided brake E70636E – Exhibition Car A
Ex LNER wood sided brake E70632E – Exhibition Car B
Ex LNER wood sided brake E70497E – Exhibition Car C
Ex LNER wood sided brake E70758E – Exhibition Car D

Having had a little more time to play with this, I'm fairly confident that the five exhibition cars left over from the 4472 tour train, offered for sale in the trade press and Trains Magazine after the Pegler bankruptcy, were the ones that ended up at the Universal Studios outlet of the VS chain. That location supposedly opened in the summer of 1976. I still don't know what happened to the carriages that were (supposedly) there.

AT THE SUBSTANTIAL RISK OF OPENING A MASSIVE CAN OF WORMS, I present to you a chronological list of VS locations opened through the spring of 1976, complete with addresses and rail equipment used to build each location (the standard seems to have been four cars and one caboose).
DO NOT LOOK AT THIS LIST unless you are retired, laid up in the hospital, or whatever, because you WILL end up hunting down location after location looking to see if anything survived.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

http://www.vsreunion.com/class_custom.c ... _id=685485

The Vintage Carriages Trust website has the following entry for E70632E.......
http://www.cs.vintagecarriagestrust.org ... p?Ref=1040

Seems it, E70636E and the Mk 1 BCK were observed at Universal Studios in May 1996

A location that was established after 1976 was in West Covina, CA. It was location what at the time was called "restaurant row" on the north side of I-10 along Garvey Blvd. As I recall, it was the typical boxcars and maybe a caboose. Later the site was torn down and a Hampton Inn built on the lot.

I wish I had read this earlier yesterday. I was at the Red Lobster right next to the former VS in Maumee/Toledo for dinner and would have verified with a once-around to check for railcars. I think they're gone though.

Supposedly they can be seen from the inside of the restaurant. They are externally covered.
Although, from a quick glance at Google Maps it appears parts of the boxcars can be seen.
The building is now Fricker's restaurant at 1418 S Reynolds Rd, Maumee, OH.

Apparently that's the fate of railcar restaurants in Seattle, the former Andy's Diner complex is/was a Chinese place as well.

I recall the Seattle location had one of those wooden tank cars that were sort of like a water tower, held together with rings. The last I saw it, it had collapsed into a pile of lumber. Vaguely recall some talk of preserving it, not sure what, if anything was done about that.

I remember eating at both the Toledo VS and the one in Columbus, Ohio on Morse Road Box cars and a caboose as I recall with plenty of British rail antiques.

Kevin K

Bob,

The wood vinegar tank car was at the Terry Avenue Freight House restaurant several blocks south of Victoria Station. In the 1970s Seattle had six railroad theme restaurants. There are now none. The China Express still occupies the old Andy's cars but does not have a railroad theme any more.

Ah, OK, they were both closed by that time so I got them confused. Any idea what happened to that thing? Probably too far gone to save...

As for the Chinese place, the only theme I detected (from the outside) was "Do you feel lucky Punk? Eat here and see if you live..."

When I last saw the vinegar car the wood tank had colapsed and it was still setting at the closed restaurant. It went to the Washington State Railroads Museum at Pasco. WA.

http://www.wsrhs.org/pict/vin1.jpg

Chris Hart of San Francisco Trains and I prepped and loaded the "Devon Belle" from the Flying Scott consist in San Francisto for shipment back to Swanage... It had been used as a conference room for a 1880's San Francisco flour mill repurposed as office space... It was later the "Green Room" for CNET...

We later loaded a British baggage "van" which had carried Churchill's body in his funeral train for shipment back to Britain... on behalf of the Swanage Railway. It was located in a golf course in the City of Industry (Los Angeles area) The city paid for the transport, as their environmental impact report has IDed it as significant, and the easiest solution was to return it to sender...

The cars from the Oakland Victoria Station went to the Pacific Locomotive Association (aka Niles Canyon Railway).

Randy

Was this recently? They were still on site back in 2009, and can still be seen in Google Maps imagery.