HERITAGE UNITS PT3

Here's yet another heritage unit...

Amtrak P42 156 rolls through town with a short train of Superliners on the restored Steel City Express. Normal equipment for this train are the Amfleet cars, so these Superliners are probably being relocated for equipment balancing purposes -while making some revenue money!

Engine 156 is one of the four that Amtrak repainted to celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2011. This 'Heritage' scheme recalls Amtrak's first paint scheme from the early 70's, also known as the "headless arrow" scheme.

This was the scheme used on most of Amtrak's inherited E and F units soon after its creation; it fits the GE quite nicely as well!

Heritage units of a different color are these two passenger cars, sitting in Hillsdale Yard. Operated by Railcar Charter Services, they are used for excursions, often at the rear of Amtrak trains.

The first car is Club Lounge car built by Pullman-Standard in the 1948 for the New York Central's signature passenger train, the 20th Century Limited. After the train was discontinued at the end of 1967, the car became surplus, and was sold to private interests in 1970 by Penn Central; today she survives in excursion service and on business trains for smaller railroads that don't have passenger cars for that purpose.

The second car is a 6-4-1 observation car, also built by Pullman Standard, for the 1955 version of Great Northern's signature passenger train, the Empire Builder. The "6-4-1" refers to the car's internal layout; 6 roomettes, 4 bedrooms, and 1 lounge observation area. It, too, was purchased by private interests in the 70's from Amtrak. By the way, the Empire Builder -like this car that was built for it- still lives on, running on Amtrak from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest; it was the first train to receive the then new Superliners in 1977 and the venerable observation car became surplus, thus leading to its sale.