There was a low-speed collision involving two private cars and an Amtrak coach this morning in Hialeah, Florida:

Local10.com - Train cars collide in Hialeah, cause minor derailment (August 20, 2014)

A report on another forum claims that the handbrakes on the two private cars were not properly set.

Does anyone know which cars were involved?

Thanks in advance.

I've seen a report that the cars are "Greenwich Harbor" and "Greenwich Estate", which makes them ex-PRR "Congo cars".

Thanks, Peter, for the info!

Car Histories:

Both cars were built as PRR Class PP85 29 seat parlors (with 5 seat DR) by Budd in 1951-1952 in Lot #9628-110 to Plan #9526 (16 cars total, #7130-#7145):

#800709 Greenwich Harbor was built in 1951 as PRR #7142 Roger Williams, to PC #7142 to Amtrak #3642 in 1971, retired in November 1977 and later sold to private ownership.

#800738 Greenwich Estate was built in 1952 as PRR #7145 Betsy Ross, to PC #7145 to Amtrak #3645 in 1971, reconfigured in 1976 to 46 seat buffet (galley) lounge #3326 (name removed), renumbered between November 1976 and May 1977 as #8366, converted in July 1981 to HEP lounge #3124, listed for sale in July 1995.

Sources:

1. "Streamliner Cars Volume Two: The Budd Company" by W. David Randall (RPC Publications, 1981)

2. Tom Madden's Pullman Project CCR database: http://pullmanproject.com/Database.htm

3. "Amtrak by the Numbers" by David C. Warner and Elbert Simon (White River Productions, 2011)

4. Mike Palmieri's Amtrak rosters

5. PRR passenger car diagrams: http://prr.railfan.net/diagrams/PRRdiagrams.html?sel=pass&sz=sm&fr=

Betsy Ross, #3124 was one of the Montrealer "Le Pub" lounge cars, refurbished with electric pianos for an outside contract entertainer to play, around 1986, when I was a regular LSA on that train. That lasted for awhile, the service was seriously disrupted and hurt in the early Spring of '87 when Connecticut River flooding in Southern Vermont washed out the original route N. of Springfield. The Montrealer was suspended for awhile until they came up with the New England Central reroute from New London, North through Palmer, MA that lasted until service was cut back to St. Albans in '95 and replaced with the Vermonter doing the "Palmer Shuffle". The '87 disruption set back service, and the additional running time from the reroute and shifting of stops hurt ridership for the through trip to Montreal that never completely recovered. Also, the Customs delays (even pre-9/11) got to be a real problem for On-Time Performance. I think however, that problems with VIA/CN at Montreal Central Station were the last straw. My understanding was that they really didn't want to deal with the train.