Amtrak heritage fleet information

Hi,

I am from Wales in the UK, but am interested in Amtrak for model railroading. One day I hope to come to the USA to sample the NE corridor and trans-USA superliners in real life (hopefully before the Amfleet 1s are replaced!)- but for now, I have to make do with HO scale!

I am building up a nice fleet of Walthers Budd 85' coaches. I'm interested in finding out what consists some of these were used in, particularly in their Phase IV livery days, as info and photos seems quite hard to come by (particularly the coach cars). I'm also quite drawn into the fact that there are so many variations to the 85' coaches, and that using them prototypically is quite a challenge.

I have Walthers 932-6384- described as a 52 seat coach car in phase iv. I can't find how it was used in real life at all! At the moment, I am using it in lieu of a phase iv heritage diner (which I don't yet have!).
I've also seen a Walthers 46 seat coach car phase iv (932-6304) as well and can't find how they were used.

The other mystery is the set of baggage dorm cars I have (like 932-6464). I tend to use them in lieu of full baggage cars (which I don't yet have either).
I managed to find a photo of one in real life, but it is from phase iii days. I can't find anything from the phase iv period.

I am fairly sure I can use my phase iv 10-4 sleeper prototypically, as they seemed to pop up on the NE corridor even in Viewliner days, or could maybe run solo on the back of a rake of Amfleets. I also have an ex-10-4 sleeper converted into a Dorm/lounge. From what I can see these were used quite widely as crew coaches behind viewliners (with a heritage diner on the other side of the viewliners).

I have spent ages searching through resources on the web for my questions, but haven't quite made it to an answer. I have had a lot of fun on the way though, and learnt alot!

If anyone can advise, or suggest resources, that would be great.

Here is some of my fleet in action BTW. I have just managed to get 2x Walthers Viewliners (it cost me, but they are really hard to find!), so the quality of my consists will improve shortly!
https://youtu.be/tKTkQaNXIWA
https://youtu.be/fMRQ3sK-n04

Daniel

Welcome to the forum, and excellent collection! I had the same experience grabbing a Walthers Viewliner not terribly long ago; I way overpaid, but hey, now I have one!

Coincidentally, I collect OO Gauge trains from your side of the pond in addition to HO trains from here, so I share your pain in importing models.


On Track is a good place to start for roster and equipment use info
https://on-track-on-line.com/amtrak-roster.shtml

Trainweb also has some good info
http://www.trainweb.org/amtrakpix/locos ... shots.html

By the time the phase IV scheme came around the heritage coaches had been replaced by Amfleet II cars to some extent, but they could be found on eastern long-haul trains well into the 1990s. The last stand for the heritage coaches was the Adirondack. Many of the cars were converted into center-door baggage-type cars with roll-up doors in Amtrak's ill-fated mail and express program in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The Budd 10 roomette 6 Bedroom cars (mostly ex-UP, with a few ex-SP and ex AT&SF cars) (all 10-6's- there were no 10-4s) were replaced slowly by Viewliner sleepers beginning around 1994. One or two (or even three) of them could be found on overnight trains east of the Mississippi such as the Montrealer, the Night Owl, the Crescent and the Florida trains. The Lake Shore carried one toward the front between a baggage car, some coaches and a lounge from Boston, and two or three on the rear behind the diner and coaches and in front of a baggage car from New York. Amfleet II cars replaced the heritage coaches first, the Viewliner sleepers came later.
Heritage diners and baggage cars remained in service until 2019 or 2020.

The Baggage-Dorms were used for the dining car crews, especially on Western trains. Amtrak's Viewliner II order included new baggage-dorms. Many Heritage ones were rebuilt as full baggage cars for the Mail and Express program as well.

Thanks very much Allouette- that exactly the kind of info I am after- and yes, I did mean 10-6!
I will pick my way through all that and use it to help me zoom in on the best consists.
I'm currently running an old Walthers Pepsi Can Dash 8 with a short rake of Amfleet 1s in phase iii, with my Walthers 10-4 in phase iv trailing on the end. I saw a photo or video of something similar to that in real life, but can't find it again. I picked up the Dash 8 really cheap as it was junked (the bogie fixings had snapped off for a start), but I have given it some TLC, fixed the bogies, painted the front parts that are incorrectly silver to black and glued her all back together again. It looks a beast. I like the idea of a loco with a freight body outline being used on fast passenger work!
Looking at the Adirondack, my first thoughts are that an FL9 loco has gone my wishlist as it looks awesome with a rake of Amfleet 1s.

NaugyRR - is that a 4TC with your class 73? I grew up with those trains, as they ran in the South of England when I was a kid. I really need to get one of those! I must admit, I tend to comb eBay UK for the stuff I need, rather than import from the US. There is someone selling off a fleet of Budd 85s for a decent price, which is why I want to be sure what I am getting.

I am finding that you need to talk very nicely to get Walthers rolling stock to stay on the track. They are really nicely detailed, but seem light and a bit stiff. Even on the really shallow radius curves on my layout, they sometimes lock into each other. Having spent £69 per viewliner (which I think was a good price for boxed second hand with transfer sheets given their scarcity), persuading them to stay on the track was quite a job! I am there now, but they need to be in a specific order and facing in different directions!

Thanks for your help.

Daniel

danielp wrote: ↑Sun May 07, 2023 6:48 am Thanks very much Allouette- that exactly the kind of info I am after- and yes, I did mean 10-6!
I will pick my way through all that and use it to help me zoom in on the best consists.
I'm currently running an old Walthers Pepsi Can Dash 8 with a short rake of Amfleet 1s in phase iii, with my Walthers 10-4 in phase iv trailing on the end. I saw a photo or video of something similar to that in real life, but can't find it again. I picked up the Dash 8 really cheap as it was junked (the bogie fixings had snapped off for a start), but I have given it some TLC, fixed the bogies, painted the front parts that are incorrectly silver to black and glued her all back together again. It looks a beast. I like the idea of a loco with a freight body outline being used on fast passenger work!
Looking at the Adirondack, my first thoughts are that an FL9 loco has gone my wishlist as it looks awesome with a rake of Amfleet 1s.

NaugyRR - is that a 4TC with your class 73? I grew up with those trains, as they ran in the South of England when I was a kid. I really need to get one of those! I must admit, I tend to comb eBay UK for the stuff I need, rather than import from the US. There is someone selling off a fleet of Budd 85s for a decent price, which is why I want to be sure what I am getting.

I am finding that you need to talk very nicely to get Walthers rolling stock to stay on the track. They are really nicely detailed, but seem light and a bit stiff. Even on the really shallow radius curves on my layout, they sometimes lock into each other. Having spent £69 per viewliner (which I think was a good price for boxed second hand with transfer sheets given their scarcity), persuading them to stay on the track was quite a job! I am there now, but they need to be in a specific order and facing in different directions!

Thanks for your help.

Daniel

Daniel
If you wish to make up a proper Adirondack train set in heritage equipment. One would need four coaches and a café, with the café being in the middle. For power, there are many options FL9/F40, P32ACDM/P40 orP42. Any of these would look proper. Unfortunately the P32ACDM is not a readily available model and would have to be kit bashed.

Finding lots of useful stuff thanks to your leads- for instance, this 10-6 phase iv in special use in 2011:
https://youtu.be/Y16iqcav3CE

Also, the fact that heritage full length observation cars have been used on the NY-Canada route even up to the beginning of this year (mine is phase 1, so no good for this!).

And that 10-6s were still in mainstream use until 2001 on the Three Rivers: https://youtu.be/_9uqnEAXCZg

Also, one guy has selflessly videoed the Lake Sure throughout the 90s and posted the vids on YouTube. There is some really nice info on consists, including the fact that nearly full heritage consists sometimes still ran on the service (but in Phase iii) and showing how the BDs were used, and that a phase ii baggage car was still about in the 90s: https://youtu.be/b_6Jy1iiv6k

I'm still not much further on with the coach cars in phase iv- can't find much evidence of them, though Walthers seem to provide practically every Budd 85 in these colours.

My plan is now to go for a phase iii baggage car, a phase iii and iv diner (have a phase i already), a phase iii slumbercoach of some kind and as many phase ii or iii 85' coach cars as I can find.

That way I can do a NE corridor phase i/ii/iii rake for my E60 to haul, and also have a completely accurate phase iv NE corridor rake too (I am one diner short of this!).

I guess I could always redecorate phase ivs to iii. I just can't work out how you would cut the windows back through the transfer stripes without it looking a mess.

Daniel