Photo on the Altamont Press link below notes two now-isolated round end observation cars used as office space near 16th Street in San Francisco. Anyone know the history and current status of these cars?

http://railroadnews.net/news/11-4.html
ryarger@rypn.org

One car is the obs tavern lounge ex-Amtrak 3342, ex-SAL 6602, Budd 1947, and the other is the former NYC parlor obs car 60, ex Amtrak 3870, Budd 1948. These cars were both sold at auction by Amtrak out of Los Angeles. (As an aside, the sister car to the 3870 that went to Amtrak, the 3871, [ex NYC 67] was gutted by fire at the notorious Old Mexico yard in Los Angeles while in storage before it could be sold). It's been a few years since I've seen them, but they were parked on a spur along side a building and converted for use as office space. However, unlike 99.9% of these type of passenger car stationary use conversions, the cars were not ruined to accomodate the "addaptive re-use". They were not gutted, and the requisite huge hole was not cut into the side of each car. They were coupled to each other, B end to B end (both obs ends facing outward). Entrance to both cars was thru the vestibule of the NYC car, as the SAL car has no vestibule. The interiors were lightly refurbished but essentially used "as-was". Over the years the leads to the spur were torn up, and the last time I drove by the cars, the area had been built up considerably from the industrial area it had been, with all kinds of trendy condos, restaurants, etc, and the cars were a lot more "hemmed in" than they were. It would be a lot harder to get them out now, if the opportunity ever arose.


domeliner@hotmail.com