I recently read the article in TRAINS about a project to restore a Union Pacific dome diner at at the National Railroad Museum in Wisconsin.

I am interested to learn how the dome diners were used in service.

Were the dome diners placed mid-train to serve coach and sleeper patrons as Amtrak does? Or were the dome diners reserved for sleeping car patrons only?

Was there any distinction for passenger seating between the dome, main level and lower Golden Room? Or was seating assigned on a first-come basis?

Thank you.

Wesley

I don't know much about this, but please contact the Union Pacific Historical Society regarding your question

https://uphs.org/contact-us/

It has been a long time, but as best as I can remember…. The UP dome dinner was the best railroad dining experience I recall. The IC Panama Limited might have been a close second. On several occasions a small group would fly from San Francisco to LA in the morning and taxi over to LAUPT. There we would get tickets on the City of Los Angeles to Barstow. As I recall when we boarded we went directly to the dinner. We were seated prior to the train leaving LAUPT and had a couple of hours to eat lunch, then got off at Barstow. This was early in the train’s trip and there were not a lot of people who had joined us in the dinner when we got off. We took a train back to LA and flew back to San Francisco. This was all done on a single day.

I do not recall anything special about the ticketing, but it is possible we had purchased first class tickets.

Dome diners were open to both coach and sleeping car passengers. Seating in the car was on a first-come, first-served basis. The downstairs Gold Room was able to be reserved ahead of time, along the lines of the Santa Fe Turquoise Room. But when it was not reserved, anyone could sit there. On the City of LA and City of Portland, there usually would also be a lunch counter diner, which generally would be patronized by the coach passengers.

There were 10 dome diners built (not including the one-off dome diner built for the Train of Tomorrow and later acquired by UP). I believe only 6 survived after the big Auto-Train auction in 1981. The one at Green Bay, which was donated by UP and thus was the only one that did not go to Auto-Train, is in very good original condition. It is just a bit threadbare after 55 years.