My daily commute includes riding MARC train service on the Brunswick line into Washington, DC. The usual consist on my train includes ex-Chicago gallery cars. Is there are way to tell the difference between car orders? I have noted that some of the cars have fully padded walkover seats, while others have a flip-over seat that has a metal back.

Wesley

I was led to believe--by both the vendor that brokered the cars to MARC and various roster lists--that both the Chicago RTA and the vendor did extensive adaptive rebuild to the cars, to the point that even if you had a full roster list of what the car configurations were in 1980, that wouldn't necessarily have any correlation to what the car now has.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't at least some of these bilevels rebuilt long-distance bilevels that served in Chicago-Wisconsin/Michigan intercity train service pre-Amtrak, including the Flambeau 400, a "streamliner" that consisted of one E or F and one or two bilevels?

Wesley,

This is from memory (I do not have a roster available) but MARC received five Metra cars that were originally Rock Island cab cars, five Rock Island cars that were trailers, and six C&NW trailers cars. I believe they were all originally built in 1970 (they were the last Pullman gallery cars built). Orignally, MARC was going to keep all of the RI's and the two best CNW's in service (and part the rest), but one of the Rocks was found to have old collision damage, and was parted. The ex cab cars can be determined by the "tomb room" where the cab originally was on the upper level, and I seem to remember that the three CNWs in service have different window masks on their interiors. I believe that the seat differences also are between the RI and CNW cars.

Steve Zuiderveen

Sandy,

The "Flaming 400" cars went to Amtrak and were most notable for use on the Valpo Dummy. After that gig were leased with option to buy to Great Lakes Western, an excursion car supplier out of Mukwonago, WI. A couple of the cars were also at Golden Age and stored in Bellevue, OH. I think some of these cars may have ended up being used on the Tennessee sesquicentennial train that ran some time ago; I do not know where they are now, but they are not at MARC. (MARC did look at the cars while they were at Mukwonago, but passed at that time)

Metra had one or two rebuilt "odd-balls" that came out of the inter-city bi-level fleet, but they were rebuilt to high capacity and had different window arrangements.

Steve Zuiderveen

As long as we're talking about Chicago Gallery (bi-level) commuter cars in this thread, I thought I should point out that some of these cars date back to the "steam era". Yes, although we tend to think of these as being "modern", both the C&NW and the CB&Q had their original order of these cars hauled behind steam locomotives at times! I am not sure how many of these "steam era" gallery cars still exist; either in service at METRA or in other locations.

Les

The "Tennessee 200" train did not include bi-levels. Maybe you're thinking of the Music City Star?

http://www.rta-ride.org/commuterrail.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27587050@N00/514248782

http://railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=164069

Steve F,

I was working from memory, not notes. My confusion may be becasue I know Bill Fuehring was involved in both endeavors, and I do believe the two "400" cab cars from Amtrak that he had in Bellevue ended up in Nashville. The internet is not very good about having rosters for any of this equipment.

Steve Z

All the oldest C&NW gallery cars were retired a number of years ago, although they did last long enough to be repainted and renumbered by Metra. IRM has two members of the first group, built by St. Louis Car Co. in 1955; currently repainted as C&NW 1 and 6. The http://www.irm.org/ web site roster seems to indicate the numbers were inadvertantly swapped when they were repainted.

Thanks, Dennis. Now if we can just find out about the ex-CB&Q bi-levels that ran behind steam.

Les

Les,
CB&Q 700-729 were built by Budd in 1950. These are the cars that show up in shots behind the Q steam. All of these cars were sold by Metra a few years ago to private owners. A number of them were stored on the Great Lakes Central in Owosso, MI, and three were used behind Little River 4-6-2 #110 at Train Festival last year. I believe 700, the first of the group and the great granddaddy of all the Chicago-style gallery cars, was in the consist.

C&NW 1-16 were built by SLC in 1954 and 17-48 were built by P-S in 1956. The 1-17 certainly show up in photos of Northwestern suburban steam. The second batch may or may not have been on the property in time to see the final couple of months of C&NW suburban steam which ended in 1956, IIRC.
Don C.

And of course, how come no one mentioned these runs behind steam on the CNW?

http://www.cnwhs.org/photos/images/boone/cnw1385.jpg

Steve Z

How foolish of Metra to have sold the CB&Q stainless steel cars only to be buying back some of the C&NW cars to meet service needs.

Steve

I've heard that the brake valves on the early Burlington stainless cars are of a variant which requires a COT&S more frequently than the rest of Metra's fleet, which is a contributing factor as to why those cars were retired rather than rebuilt.

Also, many (though not all) of the C&NW cars Metra is running around had been pulled right from service on Marc/VRE/wherever they came from before being sent back to Chicago. Given the choice of buying a car which had been kept heated and maintained over the past 4 years, vs one that sat unused on a siding in Michigan for that time, which would you pick if you had a sudden crunch in ridership you needed to address?

Don -

Thanks. I should have figured that you would be the one "in the know" concerning the Q's Gallery Cars. I hope that at least one or two of the 700-729 group end up in some museum.

Les

I wasn't so much questioning the buyback which may have depended a lot on price and availability as I was about selling the CB&Q cars in the first place. It's a stainless steel box on wheels. I'm certainly no car expert but I can't see how it wouldn't be cheaper to refurbish than buy new or at least park them against future needs. A commuter coach isn't going to be filled with a myriad of hard to find little parts like a sleeper would. What portion of a new car's cost comes from the basic shell and trucks? I presume it's a lot.

(Naturally a complete redo would take care of the brake valve issue as well as installing new seats, HVAC, lighting, and so forth.)

Steve