At St Paul Union Depot in 2004. Ex-NYC?

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[quote="bobyar2001"]At St Paul Union Depot in 2004. Ex-NYC?[/quote]

Yes, according to RRPicture Archives, it's ARTRAIN 105, nee-NYC 48.

Errrr, don't think so. NYC 48 ended up as MARC "business car" 1, traded for excess RDCs, and is now running on the B&O Museum's out-and-back excursion as the "power car". As cited elsewhere, "This x-NYC tavern lounge observation car is now MARC 1. MARC acquired it from Les Kasten, former owner of Illinois Transit Assembly and Kasten Railcar Service, in 1996. Last time I looked, MARC managers were storing it (with the suggestion that it was being hidden away from prying eyes as it is not ADA compliant) at the B&O Museum in Baltimore."

So......... another guess?

Actually, everyone is right! When the four cars from that series (NYC 48-51) were sold to the KCS in 1960, KCS renumbered the cars several times, to the 44-47 series immediately, and after a trip to Pullman to remodel the bar, to 40-43. In all of these renumberings, the numbers got scrambled, and did not stay in numeric order. So now we go with folklore, legend, and what we know for the last twenty years. The car now MARC 1 went with the group out of Indianapolis that had the "James Whitcomb Riley" trainset in the late '70s; I remember seeing it when John Hickman owned it parked at the B&O Railroad Museum in the early '80s already relettered NYC 48. It later went to Bill Jenkins of the Noblesville group who ran it on the Hoosier State train every weekend between Chicago and Beech Grove. He sold it to a Les Kasten company, and it was ultimately traded to MARC for ten retired RDC cars!

The car that became the Artrain car came out of Louisianna much later, and for some reason, its owner insisted it was the "NYC 48". I have been into the MARC 1 car enough replacing all of the windows, etc., that I can confidently state thaere are no markings anywhere on the car to confirm which car of the group it actually is.

Steve Zuiderveen

This is NYC 48(Budd 1948), sold to KCS in 1960 for $75,000, renumbered 44, put into service with just KCS letterboards and numberboards applied, '64-'65 renumbered 43, KCS paint applied, 8 seat lunch counter installed, brakes updated, retired Nov '69 with end of KCS passenger service. 1970 or so sold to Wiley Johnson who converted it to part of his Red Caboose restaurant on Arnoult Rd in Metairie, LA. Resided there for about 20 years. Bought by architect James Williams of San Antonio, pulled from restaurant and shipped to Texas, restored back to bare stainless steel and renamed STARLIGHT. Sold to Artrain about 5-6 years ago, shipped to Ann Arbor where it was stored until funds were raised to restore it for exhibit train. Shipped to St Paul in fall of 2005 where car rebuilder operates at Amtrak depot. He restored interior, then other problems were discovered, more funds needed to be raised, car looks like its nearly finished, but now Artrain is moving to trucks....what next for this car?

MARC 1 is actually NYC 50, same inital story, sold by KCS about 1971 to James Whitcomb Riley fan group in Indianapolis.........I caught up with car again in 1977 at Taft, FL, then owned by James E Strates Carnival, they sold it to Hickman and Jenkins(late 70's), it was kept at B&O RR museum, did excursions there, then relocated to midwest, did excursions to Chicago on Hoosier State and other Amtrak, then I guess to Les Kasten, who traded it to MARC. I have lots of empty blocks of history on this car....I know at one point it was seized by Amtrak for nonpayment of charges...it operated on the excursion trains out of Branson, MO and Springdale, AR, probably while owned by Kasten. I rode on it, worked on it, and cannibalized parts for it while owned by Hickman and Jenkins.

This car was always known as "NYC 48" because thats what JWR group thought it was when they bought KCS 40. NYC 50 became KCS 46, then KCS 40 with the 1965 renumber/rebuild. The second renumbering was not logical nor in sequence......just in the order they shopped them.