Was wondering that perhaps someone on this forum has an answer to a question regarding the private car "Doris" at the North Carolina Museum of Transport in Spencer. Recently I took a trip to Spencer and spent some time looking over the Doris. The "Doris" was the private car of the Duke family, and later went to the Western Pacific as a business car.

My curiosity centers around the restoration of this car a number of years back, and its apparent restoration which included the necessary modifications to allow the car to operate on Amtrak. The car apparently had all the necessary modification including head end power, 27 pin communication lines, etc etc.

My question is why was the car apparently "certified" for use on Amtrak and apparently does not run, or was allow to go out of date. Was the restoration of this car to allow it to run on Amtrak funded by the State of North Carolina, private donations, Duke Energy or some other private or public source ?. I was just curious as quite a bit of time, funds and restoration effort was put forth to make this car run, and I wonder why was it done, and if the car will ever return to mainline service.

Just curious to know the history about the car after it was brought east from California.

Thanks for the information


Dean Levin