Conference Car 9800

I believe they also had issues with the Westinghouse units and the GE units not playing nice with each other adding to their lack of higher speed running as well

Messrs. Naugy and West Point, I rode Metroliners MMU's; the Westinghouse units were "misery" for both PC and Amtrak. They rode "rough", but their Metroclub was the last First Class car, anywhere - here or overseas, to offer reserved First Class swivel seating.

I defer to Col. Perkowski to report other swivel seating cars - whether Pullman built or leased from roads that wanted their own design - "my MILW" of course had them.

I think that was why they added the bus line at the blind ends of each car and dropped every other pan in order to reduce the vibrations on the wire. Something like a harmonic frequency issue, not sure if that is the correct name for it.

Everyone: The recent pictures of #9800 have re-activated this topic about this single former Metroliner MU
Conference Car - I remembered this older available roster of the Metroliner MU car fleet:
https://on-track-on-line.com/amtkrinf-metrocon.shtml
#9800 - Was Metroliner Snack Bar/Coach #863 - Rebuilt 1979 - Converted to #9800 Conference Car 1990.
Cab controls removed after 2005.

I remember that the 1970s speed limit of the Metroliner MU cars in service was no more than 125 mph...
They were heavy MU cars averaging 175,000 pounds each and could ride somewhat rough at high speeds...

TD: When the Metroliner cars ran as MU cars one pan was used for each pair which were actually single
units and not "married" to one another - The Metroliner MU trainsets were most commonly ran as either
a 4 or 6 car train NYP (and sometimes NHV) to WAS...In the early 1980s these cars were "bumped" or in
this case " demoted" to the Harrisburg Line...These trains ran with as few as two cars HAR-PHL - and at
times trains with odd car amounts could be seen in service at times...Six car MU sets were ran on trains
such as the "Valley Forge" NYP-HAR for the then re-branded "Capitoliner" car fleet...MACTRAXX

MACTRAXX wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2024 6:41 pm

TD: When the Metroliner cars ran as MU cars one pan was used for each pair which were actually single
units and not "married" to one another - The Metroliner MU trainsets were most commonly ran as either
a 4 or 6 car train NYP (and sometimes NHV) to WAS...In the early 1980s these cars were "bumped" or in
this case " demoted" to the Harrisburg Line...These trains ran with as few as two cars HAR-PHL - and at
times trains with odd car amounts could be seen in service at times...Six car MU sets were ran on trains
such as the "Valley Forge" NYP-HAR for the then re-branded "Capitoliner" car fleet...MACTRAXX

This is my recollection as well - standard knuckle couplers on the blind ends yet also a power bus line bewteen the blind ends so the "unmarried" pairs could run off the power of just one pan. What that did was make the distance intervals b/w pans equal at 85' which eliminated the funky harmonics causing problems with the wire. Otherwise your pantograph distance intervals was 10'-150'-10'-150'-10'.

At some point the FRA began to frown on traction power bussed between non-married cars, I'm not sure when.